If the sight of the blue skies fills you with JOY,
if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you,
if the simple things in nature have a message you understand,
REJOICE
For your soul is alve.

-Eleanora Duse

Just to warm the heart

The petals seem to say
...I surrender...
looking at the sun

more than we can take

I think I know how these mourning doves feel....

Can one capture
...the joy they felt
while gazing upon
flowers of the sun
...and not be swept away
by madness

A girl can dream
of more than diamonds

Get lost in longing
...for a summer day

Pace the widow's
walk of desire,

Wait the return
of her beloved garden

Just beyond
the horizon of winter

So ravenous am I for color
the hydrant appears
as a bunch of daffodils
waiting at the curb for Spring

***

The Alder branch yields to the white lady
who visited again last night
Bends in obedience
another morning
submitting to another day
of winter

***

What is it?

This is a volunteer plant. I let it grow to see what it was and it has returned every year for the last 4 years. It is beautiful in the garden with its white cluters of flowers....BUT!!! It stinks....like something rotting. I haven't been able to identify it.
Does anyone know what grows in my garden?
It is a very large plant.....anyone?

The first time I cast some morning glory seeds in the dirt...wow

I knew heaven that summer as they climbed up our gas meter and up onto our roof

around our chimney

blazzingly declaring the morning!

I have lived in 3 different house since then and haven't been able to repeat that experience

Maybe it was the discovery

maybe it was that I was 25

maybe it was the right seeds,soil and light

and the fact that I had no expectations

Every time after that I expected Joy

Oh, they bloomed if I remembered to plant the seeds in time

but never like that....I guess we can never go back...only forward

Life.....

.can't even remember to plant the seeds

Well, this year, I will remember

 I'm ready....trellis is ready....

I need Heavenly Blue Morning glories

 just outside my kitchen window

always have

The glory of color

Red and blue
flitting across
the white covered earth
A cast of bread
on this sunny
but cold day of winter
may make a difference...
Spring
still weeks away

Crouched on the thin bare branch
a Cardinal waits patiently for human intervention
And I, infused with his beauty, obligingly trudge
through mounds of snow to fill the feeder,
then quietly turn to my red guest and smile
knowingly
We each have shared something that sustains our lives
on this long, lingering, cold,dull day of winter

Take Joy

My open bar of joy is looking pretty open today.
Looking out the window I got excited enough by the winter beauty that I went outside and walked through the deep snow...it was like walking through butter...smooth and soft
Today is a season day....what's right about winter
oh the blue sky against the white snow and dark bare branches....
makes a painter's heart beat faster
take joy in the day
take joy in what the garden has to offer

TAKE JOY!

winter composition everywhere

Oh Joy

Heart ache blue sky today!

Oh ying and yang......see it!

And deep fluffy white snow for me to trudge through!

Delivered Deliverance

She shuffles a long
worn path to her house,
seed catalogues in hand,
hope in her eyes.
Red of poppy,
yellow of yarrow,
pink of dianthus,
blinding the dullness
of this winter day.
Her body bent,
a thin, gray wisp
of  hair falls
across her face
like a cat's tail.

My friend, Ned, took this photo
Doesn't it just make you ache for summer?
Part of the enjoyment of my open bar of joy
are the insects
Sometimes, I can stop what I'm doing and get lost
in watching them
That dreamy kind of lost
called contentment
Today I must
be content
looking out the window at the pretty
new fallen snow in the garden
and the winter blue sky
...It's enough

A ward returns

A crow returns
taking my offering
he thinks was meant just for him
I wonder if his murder
has survived
or is it just one
his clan decimated
by westnile
...a slow comeback
welcome
my ward

wonder of wonders

I've left it alone
and it bloomed.

I think there is a lesson here.

So much more than winter color
this grass provides shelter
if only for the lowliest...
me
shelter from the emptiness
of a winter garden
shelter where my heart
waits

Your staring focused eye
your feathers fluffed in sunlight
your yellow talons gripping the branch
you wouldn't be here if you weren't hungry
you wouldn't bother with a wee bit of garden
if you weren't hungry

light/dark
soft/hard
cold/hot
empty/full

predator/prey

just let it not be...
for me to see