You love the roses – so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!
~George Eliot
Tag: roses
Dripping Sleep
I went to bed and woke in the middle of the night thinking I heard someone cry, thinking I myself was weeping, and I felt my face and it was dry.
Then I looked at the window and thought: Why, yes, it’s just the rain, the rain, always the rain, and turned over, sadder still, and fumbled about for my dripping sleep and tried to slip it back on.
~Ray Bradbury
After weeks of dry weather and only an occasional shower, it was relief to wake to the pattering and dripping, an old familiar friend returned in the dark of night.
Weeping clouds and misty eyes are not always from sadness. They can shed sweet tears, wistful wondrous full-to-the-brim tears.
This is how it was as I slipped a dripping sleep back on, lulled by the rhythm of the drops. This is how it is this morning capturing each one where it landed before it disappears forever.
My face will remain damp with the memory.
Always Summer
The serene philosophy of the pink rose is steadying. It fragrant, delicate petals open fully and are ready to fall, without regret or disillusion, after only a day in the sun. It is so every summer. One can almost hear their pink, fragrant murmur as they settle down upon the grass: “Summer, summer, it will always be summer.”
~ Rachel Peden
And so it always will be summer when one lets go in the midst of brightness when all is glorious. No cold winds, no unending days of rain, no mildew, no iced walkways, no 18 hours of night every day, no turning brown with rot.
Serene and steadying — with so much brevity.
Let me be strong and serene through all seasons rather than letting go at the height of delicate beauty. Let me thrive steady through the hard times rather than withering at my peak. Let me age, let me turn gray, let me wrinkle.
It may always be summer — someday — but not yet. Not here. Not now.
Preoccupied
Who would have thought it possible that a tiny little flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn’t room for any other thought.
~ Sophie Scholl
This time of year I can’t seem to form any other thoughts beyond appreciation for the beauty on each stem and the fragrance that wafts from heliotrope and roses through an open window. I might just fall head-long into the dark center of a flower like Alice into the rabbit hole and not find my way back.
Are there other thoughts that matter?
Summer’s Wild Inventions
One day in summer
when everything
has already been more than enough
the wild beds start
exploding open along the berm
of the sea; day after day
you sit near them; day after day
the honey keeps on coming
in the red cups and the bees
like amber drops roll
in the petals: there is no end,
believe me! to the inventions of summer,
to the happiness your body
is willing to bear.
– Mary Oliver “The Roses”
Barnstorming 