Flowers

Holly Hobby Hocks

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Holly Hocks

So, I go to St. Andrews for one day to see Angelica, Geoff, Gwynn, Heather, Kalina, Karen, Lucinda, Mitchell, Pierre, and William, and look what happens to my hollyhocks while I am at KIRA. I guess it has something to do with the proximity of the Kingsbrae Garden: my hollyhocks got jealous and wanted me back.

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They were all so pleased to see me. Radiant and smiling, laughter all over their little faces. Little? Hey, they are growing every day, from saucers to side or sandwich plates and all too soon they will be as large as dinner plates.

Hopefully, they will last. My beloved says these hot summer days will quickly diminish them. I hope not. Alas, the foxgloves have gone already. Heavy raindrops battered their flowers and away they went. No winter gloves now for the little foxes. They will have cold paws.

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The sunflower buttons are awaiting their day in the sun. Prepping, not preening, they will soon unfold and follow the sun’s circuit with their faces. We certainly hope so. Meanwhile, consider the hollyhocks, they neither spin, nor do they weave, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

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Bubbles

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Commentary:

Words and images: pictures in the words and a sharp, black line severing the pictures. Solombra, in Octavio Paz’s words, the razor-sharp line between sun and shade. Breathe in the bubbles as they surge through the child’s wire ring. Rise with them as they float heavenwards, up to the cathedral roof, its spire, the blue sky beyond. When did you last feel this free? Shake out those cares, those worries, inhale, breathe deep, feel the sunlight bubbling through your veins, bringing you back to life, renewing your creativity. Go on, do it. You know you want to. More important, you know you need to. Those grey concrete streets have been wearing you down for too long. Gaze at flowers. Feel the trunk of a tree. Snuggle up to an alpaca. Grow a hollyhock in your garden. You haven’t got a garden? Buy a potted geranium and keep it in your house, summer and winter, your life-long friend and reminder that there are some things much more important than the daily toil. And YOU are one of them.

Bottle House, PEI

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Bottle House, PEI

A house made entirely of bottles? Well, not quite: the bottles are set in concrete, but the light … the light is unbelievable. Fragmented, many-colored, a tribute to he man who thought of the idea and then turned it into reality. House and gardens are both well worth visiting and I will do two posts on the bottle houses. Houses, for in fact there is more than one house. There is also a tiny chapel and I visit it every time I go to Prince Edward Island.

Be brave. Play the game. Take a look for yourself by clicking on one of the links to the bottle house.

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Carpe Diem

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Carpe Diem

Seize the day. Squeeze this moment tight.
Nothing before means anything. Everything
afterwards is merely hope and dream.

Remember how, when you were a tiny child,
you chased wind-blown autumn leaves
trying to catch them before they landed?

Elf parachutes you called them, treading with care
so as not to crush the fallen elves as they lay
leaf-bound upon the ground. I stand here now,

a scarecrow scarred with age, arms held out,
palms up, in the hope that a descending leaf
will perch like a sparrow on my shoulder.

When one condescends to visit me and another
graces my gray hair, my old heart pumps with joy.
I stand up straight, knowing I have seized this day.

Butterflies

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Butterflies

butterflies
their ephemeral forms
flutter by
flickering
brief their sweet sway

they spread
paint-daubed
fanciful wings
fan flowers
flourish

eternity
perched briefly
on flowering bees’ balm

robin puffs out
his red breast
hauls down
tomorrow’s sun

white-throat sings
an evening elegy

Comment: 

“Poetry gives permanence to the temporal forms of the self.”
Miguel de Unamuno.

Losing It

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Losing It
Island View

I searched for it everywhere: in the dry, dusty
pages of age-old books, in the spaces, white,
between words, in silences between bird songs,
in grey skies where raindrops formed into clouds,
in the pause between each cat’s paw of wind.

Nothing. I couldn’t find it. This morning
I searched for it in my shaving mirror.
I stirred the shiny film on my breakfast coffee
hunting for it. My Morning Glory lay open
on the operating table of my plate: nothing.

Mourning doves on the feeder called me by name.
The flicker drummed me a soothing rhythm.
I closed my eyes, dreamed of the river rising,
and found myself on an open beach. Homeless
hermit crab, I wandered listless, combing
seaweed, leaving fragile lines, footprints to
bear witness to my presence on this shore,
but as I looked for it, I knew I had lost it.

Comment: 
Forget-me-not. My father’s birthday. He would have been 108. Happy birthday, dad. I’m still wearing your watch.

Eden 1

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Eden 1
(1956 AD)

wet rags of dirty washing
hang on the Siegfried
line’s barbed wire

flesh rent ripped
broken-glass anger bottled
blood-mottled concrete

bones mixer-crushed
blood sacrifice a keep-safe
ash-cross camouflage
stretched sketched
over grime and crime

heavy the spike-toll
rooted the rock
chips off old blocks
these flint flakes flying

faceless this sphinx
inscrutable smile
where now
sands of the Nile

ample ammunition
beneath this apple tree
flat-footed lame-duck walk
goose-stepped after expulsion

walled this garden
to lock what in
to keep who out

 

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