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). 
A lily floats, in the midst of searing outdoor temperatures (up to 103 Fahrenheit). The pistil seems to be on fire.
Sunlight through old glass, warm and cool like a shallow stream.
A Lily Scheherazade had outgrown its stake and one morning I found it toppled over in the back yard border. So I cut it at the bend, put the sizeable stem in a vase and balanced it with a piece of twine extending upward to the front porch chandelier. In the defined space of the front porch, the collective beauty of the blossoms going every-which-way is breath-taking. Isn't this the very thing we seek to reproduce in the dead of winter, in the form of a Christmas tree? This is it, the real thing, a morning in July.
