luminaria

Winter leaf light.

notes from underground

Sedum autumn joy: unearthed during fall clean-up.

wood house

Visitor

I am dreaming of a house just like this one
but larger and opener to the trees, nighter
than day and higher than noon, and you,
visiting, knocking to get in, hoping for icy
milk or hot tea or whatever it is you like.
For each night is a long drink in a short glass.
A drink of blacksound water, such a rush
and fall of lonesome no form can contain it.
And if it isn't night yet, though I seem to
recall that it is, then it is not for everyone.
Did you receive my invitation? It is not
for everyone. Please come to my house
lit by leaf light. It's like a book with bright


pages filled with flocks and glens and groves
and overlooked by Pan, that seductive satyr
in whom the fish is also cooked. A book that
took too long to read but minutes to unread -
that is - to forget. Strange are the pages
thus. Nothing but the hope of company.
I made too much pie in expectation. I was
hoping to sit with you in a tree house in a
nightgown in a real way. Did you receive
my invitation? Written in haste, before
leaf blinked out, before the idea fully formed.
An idea like a storm cloud that does not spill
or arrive but moves silently in a direction.
Like a dark book in a long life with a vague
hope in a wood house with an open door.

~ Brenda Shaughnessy
Source: Poetry (September 2011)

orange pop

Autumn flowering Crocus speciosus.
So beautiful, so full of life, so sasha.

I'm your: "Here-I-Am"

"Don't waste me, 'cause I won't last long,
and I won't come back, I won't come back - "

~Diane Cluck, I'm Yr Here-I-Am

letting go

After a rainstorm.

medicinal garden

This garden came up to meet me in the breeze, in the nose and in the mind - I knew it by scent before I saw it with my eyes.

The Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum, New York : "[The Bonnefont] cloister dates from the late 13th or early 14th century, containing capitals and some columns from the Cistercian abbey at Bonnefont-en-Comminges and other local religious foundations in southern France. The herb garden contains more than 250 species of plants which were grown during the Middle Ages. Its design, including raised beds, wattle fences, and central wellhead, is typical of a medieval monastery garden plan. Even the fruit trees outside the south wall are in character, as monasteries were often surrounded by orchards. Tender species such as aloe, lemon, and bay are grown in decorative pots which can be moved inside for the winter, a common gardening practice in northern Europe throughout the late Middle Ages."

summer fantasy

Physostegia virginiana (Obedient Plant or False Dragonhead)

"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." ~ Henry James (1843 - 1916)

a sense of space

almost lilies

A lily bud floats in early evening above hydrangea macrophylla Jogasaki, a double-flowered Japanese lacecap. The sterile inner blooms [of macrophylla Jogasaki] are surrounded by open-faced outer blooms evocative of "miniature pink water lilies floating atop a pond" (see 2008 July).

summer canvas

Late day sun, through old glass, on an old door.

sitting pretty

Grey catbird on a grey perch

“Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.” ~Victor Hugo

pink organza

Lady Alexandra Duff reveals her heart, sweetly.

"Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is the special occasion." ~Anonymous

violet whisper

Photography credits:
slb/crocus and scilla
ng/ranunculus

the turning point

I brake for Forsythia.
Signs of spring at Waldwick Gardens.

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour." ~ Robert Frost

Latin lesson

Galanthus, milk-white flower

nivalis, snowy

perfect

ice storm

Redbud (Cercis canadensis) (2011)

winter canvas No. 2

Shadow and light on snow.
(Jan 2011)

Soft winter light, through windows left unshuttered, while I drift, asleep, high up in the leafless trees.

drinking flowers

Contemplation

After the blazing sun,
a dancing flame.

After the boiling kettle,
a song / a warm cup.

After drinking tea,
what remains.

calm, after the storm

Porch steps in the snow