Tag Archives: neighborhood

Away from shadows and wilting.

nature, poetry, , , , , ,

For a half hour I walked my loop bending backward to take pictures of these crazy clouds. They filled the whole sky.

After a while I thought maybe they were blending together too much to be quite as interesting, and my neck was getting tired. By then I was closer to home noticing the street view, and several unwatered lawns in the neighborhood with a cheery wildflower/weed display:

DESPAIR

So much gloom and doubt in our poetry –
flowers wilting on the table,
the self regarding itself in a watery mirror.

Dead leaves cover the ground,
the wind moans in the chimney,
and the tendrils of the yew tree inch toward the coffin.

I wonder what the ancient Chinese poets
would make of all this,
these shadows and empty cupboards?

Today, with the sun blazing in the trees,
my thoughts turn to the great
tenth-century celebrators of experience,

Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things
could hardly be restrained,
and to his joyous counterpart in the western provinces,
Ye-Hah.

-Billy Collins

Not true, but pretty.

nature, other gardens, , ,

I often walk past a blue plumbago bush in the mornings. If I had a bigger property I’d find a place for one of these plants, because they do seem to bloom over a long period and are fairly unthirsty. It’s taken me years to be able to remember the name plumbago, or even to find out what the plant looked like. I must have pushed it away from my consciousness because the word is only one letter off from lumbago, which means lower back pain, and the sound of which reminds me of a problem that has plagued me for most of my life.

I didn’t ever notice until Tony mentioned it, that a truly blue flower is rare, because they are usually “blushed with purple.” Today I got up close and noticed that the petals are indeed veined with purple, and as I look now at the photos the whole flower is starting to appear lavender blue. Maybe that is because it’s being seen indoors, whereas this morning it was reflecting the blue sky?

I forgot to take a picture of the whole bush, so here is a different species I saw online:

From now on I will be looking closely at all the blue flowers I encounter!

time happiness

my garden, quotes, time, , , , , , , ,

9IMG_8984

I don’t know what “time happiness” means exactly, but I have an inkling about the longed-for place that St. Nikolai talks about:

Moments of happiness are given to you only in order to leave you longing
for time happiness in the bosom of the ever happy Lord;
and ages of unhappiness are given to you
to waken you out of the drowsy dream of illusions.

O Lord, Lord, my only happiness, will You provide shelter for Your injured pilgrim?

– St Nikolai Velimirovich

And I don’t know anything about “ages of unhappiness.” My sad times can’t by any stretch be called ages, though it’s true, when one is in the midst of intense sorrow, time warps.

Today has been sweet and kind of dreamy. I stopped on the bridge over the creek and thought about how beloved this little patch of suburbia has grown, especially in the last three years. This is the season when the creek bed is so packed with plants, you can’t see the little water that is down there. It was quiet and warm. The warm part of the day is short now.

I was passing by the yard with roses, lilies and other plants that are wilted and ugly from drought, insects, and disease. No one cares enough about them to pick off a dead leaf. And then what caught my eye and made me stop? A weed growing next to the fire hydrant.

“Weeds grasp their own essence and express its truth.”
– Santoka Taneda

It occurs to me just now that I may have posted a picture of this weed once before, recently… if so, it is deserving enough for a repeat showing.  It has been neglected just as much as the cultivated plants, which for a weed means it was not killed or pulled out. That has let its essential health and hardiness shine forth and produce tiny and flowers all over, decorating the wasteland beautifully.