There... and Back Again. A Flower's Tale.

"I'm going out to clear the pasture spring.

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may).

I shan't be gone long.  You come too."

-Robert Frost, "The Pasture"

My favorite tree!  an ancient European beech.

"There's not a flower on all the hills, -the frost is on the pane;

I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again."

Alfred Tennyson, "The May Queen"

"I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high-

I long to see a flower so before the day I die."

"The May Queen"

Lenten roses.

"My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth's lamentation

I hear the sweet tho' far-off hymn

That hails a new creation.

Thro' all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul--

How can I keep from singing?"

-hymn, attr. Pauline T.

"What tho' my joys and comforts die?

The Lord my Savior liveth;

What tho' the darkness gather round?

Songs in the night He giveth."

"No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of heav'n and earth,

How can I keep from singing?"

"My life is like a frozen thing,

No bud nor greenness can I see:

Yet rise it shall-- the sap of Spring;

O Jesus, rise in me."

Christina Rossetti, "A Better Ressurrection" 

There... and back again. A flower's tale.

Broken

flickr.com

Flowers lying on the ground. Stalks bent

In wind too strong to bear and broke.

It was a simple thoughtless joke

to zephyrs, that they hardly meant.

Pieces glitter on the floor.  No shard

remains much bigger than the dust.

Lost grip, wet glass, and gravity just

took the counter-top off guard.

A stiff dove lying on the sidewalk. Dead?

Her mate still flutters near to ask.

The futile nest lies cold, forgotten task,

For only one life gone, for one snapped thread.

Words spoken in the heart.  The unsought strength

to kill but more than flower, glass, bird,

Defeat the heart and joy of the beloved with a word

And it will not return for any length.