Fallen Petals Quotes

We say that flowers return every spring, but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the flower grows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested. The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.

My mother told me we are all like roses. I always thought it means that we opened our petals, took our true form, and gradually withered. But perhaps we never stop growing. If women are flowers, we are not roses, but day's eyes - blooming not once, but over and over, each time the light touches us.

My house burned down But anyway, it was after The flower petals had already fallen

Daisies, just starting to close their petals, littered the grass like fallen stars.

I can write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say. For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair. And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand.

Had I known that you would be my first glimpse of spring, I would've kissed every fallen petal of my hope along the way.

Late in May as the light lengthens toward summer the young goldfinches flutter down through the day for the first time to find themselves among fallen petals cradling their day’s colors in the day’s shadows of the garden beside the old house

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. But sometimes the petals fall away and the roots have not entwined.

There had been times-he was almost certain-when he'd known unmitigated joy, but so faded were they to his recollection that he had begun to suspect the fictional conjuring of nostalgia. As with civilizations and their golden ages, so too with people: each individual ever longing for that golden past moment of true peace and wellness. So often it was rooted in childhood, in a time before the strictures of enlightenment had afflicted the soul, when what had seemed simple unfolded its complexity like the petals of a poison flower, to waft its miasma of decay.

My mother told me we are all like roses. I always thought it means that we opened our petals, took our true form, and gradually withered. But perhaps we never stop growing. If women are flowers, we are not roses, but day’s eyes – blooming not once, but over and over, each time the light touches us.

At the center of the bouquet is a monstrous peony, probably purchased on sale at the supermarket. By Tuesday its curling petals had begun to collect at the bottom of the vase, infusing the room with the faint but unmistakable sweet odor of corruption and imminent death. ... In Tick's opinion there was something extravagantly excessive about the peony from the start, as if God had intended so suggest with this particular bloom that you could have too much of a good thing. The swiftness with which the fallen petals bean to stink drove the point home in case anybody missed it. As a rule, Tick leans toward believing that there is no God, but she isn't so sure at times like this, when pockets of meaning emerge so clearly that they feel like divine communication.

It looks like fallen petals, and it looks like rain. It looks like the sounds the birds make at dawn. It looks like the aisle of grocery stores when a song I love suddenly begins to play overhead, and I cannot help but dance a little dance. It looks like a sigh, a kiss, an unmade bed. It looks like Cheerios in a white bowl with a bit of silence on the side. It looks like a plain vanilla cupcake in white paper, a dance with the wind, pink toenails, warm socks. It looks like a fire against the cold of winter, and a deep lake cool against a summer sky. It looks like chick flicks, books that make you cry, and all the candles blown out on the first try.

PEACH BLOSSOM AT DALIN TEMPLE Across the world this June, the petals all have fallen, But the mountain temple's peach blossom has just begun to bloom. I regretted so much that spring had gone without a trace, I didn't know that it had only moved up here.

red-trunked rhododendron trees looked like so many writhing russet snakes. In some places the forest floor was carpeted crimson with fallen rhododendron petals.

You could stoop down and pick a fallen petal, crush it between your fingers, and you had there, in the hollow of your hand, the essence of a thousand scents, unbearable and sweet.

You told me that I was your rose, but in the winter you turned your attention to all the other flowers in the garden instead of tending to my fallen petals.

Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom- apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the 'Mittel Land' ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillside like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadors would not repair them, lest the Turks should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point. Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colors of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water.

The traveller in the read-brown clothes that he wears that dust may not show upon him, the girl searching in her bed for the petals fallen from the wreath of her royal lover, the servant or the bride awaiting the master's home-coming in the empty house, are images of the heart turning to God.

Mr Carr, if the lady... loved you...is it quite fair to her-to say nothing?" There was a long silence and then my lord lied bravely. "I hope that she will - in time- forget me," he said. Diana sat very still. No more roses were destroyed; the breeze wafted the fallen petals over her feet, lightly, playfully. Somewhere in the hedge a bird was singing, a full-throated sobbing plaint, and from all around came an incessant chirping and twittering. The sun sent its bright rays all over the garden,bathing it in gold and happiness; but for the two in the pleasaunce the light had gone out , and the world was very black.

As Mrs. Turner took what would be her last walk around the vegetable garden, Smarty, the ginger tabby, materialized to sit beside the flowerpot man, a position that afforded him a bird's-eye view of the petit fishpond. There was a larger, more formal water feature on the western side of the house, a rectangular pool with a leafy canopy above it and marble tiles around the rim, well-fed goldfish gleaming beneath glistening lily pads, but this little pond was far more cheerful: small and shallow, with fallen petals floating on its surface. The cat's focus was absolute as he watched for flickers of rose gold in the water, paw at the ready.

I felt like there should have been rainbows and rose petals in their wake or something. Ugh.That was catty. Jenna deserved rainbows and rose petals, I reminded myself as I flopped back on my bed, Dad's book bumping painfully against my sternum. After everything she'd been through, Jenna had earned an eternity of nothing but good stuff. So why did seeing her with Vix make me want to brain myself with Demonologies: A History? I looked at the nightstand again and sighed. Then I opened the heavy book and tried to make myself read. For the next few hours I made a valiant attempt to get through Chapter One. For a book that was supposedly about fallen angels running around and creating havoc with their super-awesome dark "magycks," it was awfully boring, and all the weird spellings definitely didn't help.

Just Rosie, stripped of her thorns and even of her petals, just a seed of self. And he held her preciously, protectively and patiently as if he would do it forever and never fade or fail.

She walked indoors, and staring once more at her orchids, thought to herself: ‘Flowers have their spring-time, a time for fresh blossoms and young leaves. I am young, but frail as the willow that dreads the first breath of autumn… If all turns out for the best, I may grow stronger yet. But if not, my fate will be like that of the fallen petals at spring’s end, driven by the rain and tossed in the wind…

PUTTING IN THE SEED     You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper's on the table, and we'll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree. (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me, Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,   The sturdy seedling with arched body comes Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

In the last photograph of her, the bullet wound looked like a cheerful summer rose arranged just above her left ear. A few petals had fallen on her kaffan, the white shroud she was wrapped in before she was laid to rest.

The autumn leaves, arranged in two or three scarlet terraces among the pine trees, have fallen like ancient dreams. The red and white sasanquas near the garden’s ornamental basin, dropping their petals, now a white and now a red one, are finally left bare. The wintry sun along the ten-foot length of the southwards-facing veranda goes down daily earlier than yesterday. Seldom a day goes by but a cold wind blows. So my snoozes have been painfully curtailed.

Here come warm gusts of decomposing leaves, of rotting vegetation. We are in a swamp now; in a malarial jungle. There is an elephant white with maggots, killed by an arrow shot dead in its eye. The bright eyes of hopping-birds—eagles, vultures—are apparent. They take us for fallen trees. They pick at a worm—that is a hooded cobra—and leave it with a festering brown scar to be mauled by lions. This is our world, lit with crescents and stars of light; and great petals half transparent block the openings like purple windows. Everything is strange. Things are huge and very small. The stalks of flowers are thick as oak trees. Leaves are high as the domes of vast cathedrals. We are giants, lying here, who can make forests quiver.

The little pathway down the valley to the bay had clumps of azalea and rhododendron planted to the left of it, and if you wandered down it on a May evening after dinner it was just as though the shrubs had sweated in the air. You could stoop down and pick a fallen petal, crush it between your fingers, and you had there, in the hollow of your hand, the essence of a thousand scents, unbearable and sweet. All from a curled and crumpled petal. And you came out of the valley, heady and rather dazed, to the hard white shingle of the beach and the still water.

The flowers on the entryway table have wilted, and a dozen or so petals have fallen to the floor. I kneel down to clean them up but stop, suddenly struck by the unexpected beauty in what might otherwise be considered debris in need of a broom and dustpan. I reach for my sketchbook and pencils and begin capturing the scene as I see it, a perfect, beautiful mess.

Ahead, twin rows of crape myrtles dot the road. They’re losing their flowers. Purple petals ring the trunks, fallen mementos of a past bloom like photos from college years. But unlike people, trees flower again in the spring; they age in great looping circles. We ride a roller coaster once around, shuddering up clacking tracks and then screaming our fool heads off all the way down.

Expectation is the hoary curse of humanity. One can listen to words, and see them as the unfolding of a petal or, indeed, the very opposite: each word bent and pushed tighter, smaller, until the very packet of meaning vanishes with a flip of deft fingers. Poets and tellers of tales can be tugged by either current, into the riotous conflagration of beauteous language or the pithy reduction of the tersely colourless.

Tom O’ Bedlam among the Sunflowers" To have gold in your back yard and not know it. . . I woke this morning before your dream had shredded And found a curious thing: flowers made of gold, Six-sided—more than that—broken on flagstones, Petals the color of a wedding band. You are sleeping. The morning comes up gold. Perhaps I made those flowers in my head, For I have counted snowflakes in July Blowing across my eyes like bits of calcium, And I have stepped into your dream at night, A stranger there, my body steeped in moonlight. I watched you tremble, washed in all that silver. Love, the stars have fallen into the garden And turned to frost. They have opened like a hand. It is the color that breaks out of the bedsheets. This morning the garden is littered with dry petals As yellow as the page of an old book. I step among them. They are brittle as bone china.

ls the Conjugial Angel stone That here he stands with heavy head The backward-looking pillared dead Inert, moss-covered, aIl alone? The Holy Ghost trawls ln the Void, With fleshly Sophy on His Hook The Sons of God crowd round to look At plumpy limbs to be enjoyed The Greater Man casts out the line With dangling Sophy as the lure Who howls around the Heavens' colure To clasp the Human Form Divine Rose-petals fall from fallen hair That in the clay is redolent Of liquid oozings and the scent Of the dark Pit, the Beastly lair And is my Love become the beast That was, and is not, and yet is, Who stretches scarlet holes to kiss And clasps with claws the fleshly feast Sweet Rosamund, adult'rous Rose May lie inside her urn and stink Whlle Alfred's tears tum into ink And drop into her quelque-chose The Angel spreads his golden wings And raises high his golden cock And man and wife together lock Into one corpse that moans and sings

Oggi went to his mother's rose garden and gathered a collection of fallen petals and leaves. When his hands were full he carried them back to Alice and placed them on the dirt around her. Back and forth he went, between the rose garden and Alice, until his circle was complete. He jumped inside it and sat down. 'After my dad died I did this to make myself feel better.' Oggi wrapped his arms around his knees. 'I told myself, anything inside the circle is safe from sadness. I'd make the circle as big or as little as I'd like. Once when Mum wouldn't stop crying I made a circle around the whole house. Except I had to use all of the petals on her roses to do that, and she didn't react the way I thought she would.' Yellow butterflies fluttered over the roses. As Alice watched their wings, tiny lemon flames, she remembered how they hovered over the sea in summer, basked in the casuarina trees, and tapped against her bedroom window at night.

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, Across the meadows bare and brown, The windows of the wayside inn Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves Their crimson curtains rent and thin.” “As ancient is this hostelry As any in the land may be, Built in the old Colonial day, When men lived in a grander way, With ampler hospitality; A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. A region of repose it seems, A place of slumber and of dreams, Remote among the wooded hills! For there no noisy railway speeds, Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds; But noon and night, the panting teams Stop under the great oaks, that throw Tangles of light and shade below, On roofs and doors and window-sills. Across the road the barns display Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay, Through the wide doors the breezes blow, The wattled cocks strut to and fro, And, half effaced by rain and shine, The Red Horse prances on the sign. Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode Deep silence reigned, save when a gust Went rushing down the county road, And skeletons of leaves, and dust, A moment quickened by its breath, Shuddered and danced their dance of death, And through the ancient oaks o'erhead Mysterious voices moaned and fled. These are the tales those merry guests Told to each other, well or ill; Like summer birds that lift their crests Above the borders of their nests And twitter, and again are still. These are the tales, or new or old, In idle moments idly told; Flowers of the field with petals thin, Lilies that neither toil nor spin, And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse Hung in the parlor of the inn Beneath the sign of the Red Horse. Uprose the sun; and every guest, Uprisen, was soon equipped and dressed For journeying home and city-ward; The old stage-coach was at the door, With horses harnessed, long before The sunshine reached the withered sward Beneath the oaks, whose branches hoar Murmured: "Farewell forevermore. Where are they now? What lands and skies Paint pictures in their friendly eyes? What hope deludes, what promise cheers, What pleasant voices fill their ears? Two are beyond the salt sea waves, And three already in their graves. Perchance the living still may look Into the pages of this book, And see the days of long ago Floating and fleeting to and fro, As in the well-remembered brook They saw the inverted landscape gleam, And their own faces like a dream Look up upon them from below.

Please wait here. "Annoying yet romantic," she said aloud. She sat down on the folding chair and peered inside the paper bag. A handful of tiny jam-filled donuts dusted with cinnamon and sugar sent up an intoxicating scent. The bag was warm in her hands, flecked with little bits of oil seeping through. Luce popped one into her mouth and took a sip from the tiny white cup, which contained the richest, most delightful espresso Luce had ever tasted. "Enjoying the bombolini?" Daniel called from below. Luce shot to her feet and leaned over the railing to find him standing at the back of a gondola painted with images of angels. He wore a flat straw hat bound with a thick red ribbon, and used a broad wooden paddle to steer the boat slowly toward her. Her heart surged the way it did each time she first saw Daniel in another life. But he was here. He was hers. This was happening now. "Dip them in the espresso, then tell me what it's like to be in Heaven," Daniel said, smiling up at her. "How do I get down to you?" she called. He pointed to the narrowest spiral staircase Luce had ever seen, just to the right of the railing. She grabbed the coffee and bag of donuts, slipped the peony stem behind her ear, and made for the steps. She could feel Daniel's eyes on her as she climbed over the railing and slinked down the stairs. Every time she made a full rotation on the staircase, she caught a teasing flash of his violet eyes. By the time she made it to the bottom, he had extended his hand to help her onto the boat. There was the electricity she'd been yearning for since she awoke. The spark that passed between them every time they touched. Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her in so that there was no space between their bodies. He kissed her, long and deep, until she was dizzy. "Now that's the way to start a morning." Daniel's fingers traced the petals of the peony behind her ear. A slight weight suddenly tugged at her neck and when she reached up, her hands found a find chain, which her fingers traced down to a silver locket. She held it out and looked at the red rose engraved on its face. Her locket!

What I saw was a face which couldn’t be called pretty, but one also not easily forgotten: pointed features, oblique eyebrows, pale skin with slightly enlarged pores, and expensive lipstick that threatened to drip off her lips. Once beautiful, but now a dream in which willow branches have withered, clouds have scattered and drifting petals have fallen to the ground. A face that has been corroded by pleasure, impetuosity and dreams, each of which has left scars on it, leaving it sharp yet worn, capable of hurting, yet vulnerable as well.

Yes, I had dreamed of becoming a botanist, my entire life, really. I'd thought a great deal about the various species of maple and rhododendron while braiding challah, and I'd successfully planted a wisteria vine in a large pot and trained it over the awning of the bakery. And at night, after we closed shop, I volunteered at the New York Botanical Garden. Sweeping up cuttings and fallen leaves hardly seemed like work when it provided the opportunity to gaze into the eye of a Phoenix White peony or a Lady Hillingdon rose, with petals the color of apricot preserves. Yes, horticulture, not pastries, was my passion.

Cynnie’s disappeared while I’ve shut up shop. So has Ty, without even giving me a hug. He’s getting a dozen noogies for that the next time I see him. I lock up, checking and double-checking my security. On the way back from checking the manual lock on the fire escape door, I find the dress Cynnie was wearing draped across the foot of the staircase up into the loft like a fallen flower petal. “Baby?” Her wild giggle answers me. Grinning, I scoop up the dress and carry it up the stairs. I expect her to be n*ked in the bed, but she’s not. There’s no sign of her. “Baby, where are you?” Another wild giggle. With the open plan of my apartment, the stairwell, and the screen of trees in the loft, the acoustics can be weird. I was sure the first giggle came from upstairs. Now, it sounds like her giggle is coming from downstairs. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, bumble baby,” I call. Insane giggles. I spin around in place on the landing, trying to locate the source of those irresistible giggles. “When I find you, I’m going to b*te my bumble very hard on her b*ttom,” I growl. “I sting you!” That was definitely from my bedroom. I tear through the doorway and look around. No naughty bumble in my bed. I yank open the closet doors. No naughty bumble in my closets. There aren’t many hiding places in my bedroom. There’s no way she could fit between the trees. Then I spot the black rectangle half-hidden in the rumpled bedding. A phone. She’s put it on speaker and dimmed the screen. That sneaky little bee. I grab the phone and growl into it. “I’m going to find you.” “I fly away!” “You’ll never get away from me, little girl. And when I catch you, I’m going to eat you up.” I grip the phone, so turned on my hand shakes, muscles bunching. I pant into the phone. “I’m going to find you, wherever you are, and rail you into the ground.” She squees. There’s a very faint echo, and I realize where she is. Game on.

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, Across the meadows bare and brown, The windows of the wayside inn Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves Their crimson curtains rent and thin. As ancient is this hostelry As any in the land may be, Built in the old Colonial day, When men lived in a grander way, With ampler hospitality; A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. A region of repose it seems, A place of slumber and of dreams, Remote among the wooded hills! For there no noisy railway speeds, Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds; But noon and night, the panting teams Stop under the great oaks, that throw Tangles of light and shade below, On roofs and doors and window-sills. Across the road the barns display Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay, Through the wide doors the breezes blow, The wattled cocks strut to and fro, And, half effaced by rain and shine, The Red Horse prances on the sign. Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode Deep silence reigned, save when a gust Went rushing down the county road, And skeletons of leaves, and dust, A moment quickened by its breath, Shuddered and danced their dance of death, And through the ancient oaks o'erhead Mysterious voices moaned and fled. These are the tales those merry guests Told to each other, well or ill; Like summer birds that lift their crests Above the borders of their nests And twitter, and again are still. These are the tales, or new or old, In idle moments idly told; Flowers of the field with petals thin, Lilies that neither toil nor spin, And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse Hung in the parlor of the inn Beneath the sign of the Red Horse. Uprose the sun; and every guest, Uprisen, was soon equipped and dressed For journeying home and city-ward; The old stage-coach was at the door, With horses harnessed,long before The sunshine reached the withered sward Beneath the oaks, whose branches hoar Murmured: "Farewell forevermore. Where are they now? What lands and skies Paint pictures in their friendly eyes? What hope deludes, what promise cheers, What pleasant voices fill their ears? Two are beyond the salt sea waves, And three already in their graves. Perchance the living still may look Into the pages of this book, And see the days of long ago Floating and fleeting to and fro, As in the well-remembered brook They saw the inverted landscape gleam, And their own faces like a dream Look up upon them from below.

A sweet aroma blooms in the mouth like a fresh flower, while the tongue dances with delight at the crispy crunchiness of the apple! Just one bite and I've already fallen into a fantasyland!" "Not only that, this fragrance! It's precisely what I thought! It's 'Damask Rose'!" "Damask rose? Like, actual roses?" "Yep! These roses right here. They're one of my favoritest flowers. They have such a pretty scent." Even out of the many thousands of rose varieties in the world, the Damask is renowned for its beautiful fragrance! In fact, some people even call it the 'Queen of Roses'! An ancient strain, it's said even Cleopatra enjoyed damask roses, sprinkling their petals in her bath.

I turn on my side, propping myself up on my elbow. A portion of her hair has fallen out of its entrapment of pins and curls around her neck. Reaching out a tentative finger, I brush the thick lock of hair. It’s soft to the touch, and a faint fragrance of apple and chamomile arises when I stroke the curling strand. She sucks in a quick breath when my finger brushes her chin. I stop, gauging whether to proceed or not, but Molly doesn’t protest. I see a surprised welcome in her eyes. The backs of my fingers stroke up her jawline to her cheek, on the soft, smooth side of her face. All the sounds around us still; the birds quiet, King’s yapping fades, and the breeze no longer whistles in my ear. All I can hear is the drum of my own heart. Her eyes widen, and she appears to be holding her breath, as I do mine. Of their own accord, my eyes focus on her lips, a perfect pair of petals in the midst of a half-ravaged flower. I dare to move closer; my lips hover inches above hers, the petals quiver, and our breath mingles once more.

While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet that were covered with sores—his footgear having long since fallen to pieces.

Caroline stands at the window, watching Nellie Griffiths and old Mrs Mulvaney trot down the street on their way to the jam factory. Poor ugly biddies: they spend their daylight hours drudging in the scalding heat for next to nothing, then come home to drunken husbands who knock them from one wall to the other. If this is what it means to be ‘upright’, and Caroline is supposed to be ‘fallen’…! What did God make cunts for, if not to save women from donkey-work?

She was buried right next to her mother, Begum Arifa Yeswi. Mother and daughter died by the same bullet. It entered Miss Jebeen’s head through her left temple and came to rest in her mother’s heart. In the last photograph of her, the bullet wound looked like a cheerful summer rose arranged just above her left ear. A few petals had fallen on her kaffan, the white shroud she was wrapped in before she was laid to rest.

At the top, I put the camera's viewfinder to my eye and slowly turned, the way my grandmother had taught me. From every vantage point something remarkable filled the screen- clusters of wild red columbine, fallen boulders forming geometric designs against the wall, crusty green lichen gnawing on rocks, a Baltimore oriole popping from a thicket of brush, and, at my feet, a grasshopper clinging to a stem of purple aster. I could spend a day here and barely scratch the surface. The sun felt warm on my shoulders as I bent down to capture the blossoms of yellow star grass, the feathery purple petals of spotted knapweed, and the lacy wings of two yellow jackets as they alighted on tiny white blossoms of Labrador tea. By the time I finished taking photos of a monarch butterfly resting on milkweed, I realized an hour had passed.

As they strode through the meadow, she had the eerie sensation of walking atop waves. Except this was a sea of petals, not saltwater. Her toe caught on a fallen branch, and she stumbled a bit. "Are you all right?" Colin asked. She nodded. "I was just distracted. Wondering how much loam is in this soil." "What?" He set down his side of the trunk. Minerva did the same. "You know," she said. "Loam. A mix of clay and sand. In order for he soil to support this many bluebells, it would-" "You're standing in the middle of this," -he spread his arms wide to indicate Nature's splendor- " and you're thinking about loam in the soil? You spend far too much time staring at the ground." Rounding the trunk, Colin plucked her off her feet. With gentle strength, he tumbled her into the bluebells. She lay flat on her back, breathless and dizzy from the sudden inversion. From the sudden nearness of him. He lay down next to her. "There. Have a rest. Look up at the sky for a change." Minerva stared up from the uneven ground. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears, and a crushed green scent engulfed her senses. The grasses and bluebells towered over her, swaying in the gentle breeze and dripping loveliness. Above everything, the sky hovered brilliantly and blue. Nearly cloudless, save for a few wispy, changing puffs of white that were apparently too proud to mimic rabbits or dragons or sailing ships.

Already, a few petals had fallen, heavy and waxen, to the pavement after a windy night. The air was fresh but not too cold. A night's buffeting had left the new day feeling rumpled but clean, like a fresh sheet on the bed

When Laura visited the hamlet just before the war, the roof had fallen in, the yew hedge had run wild and the flowers were gone, excepting one pink rose which was shedding its petals over the ruin. Today, all has gone, and only the limey whiteness of the soil in a corner of a ploughed field is left to show that a cottage once stood there.

The fire in the hearth to her left was warm and relaxing. She let it soothe her nerves as she tried to slowly release the pain of loss that had taken root. Then she noticed the vase of wilted flowers sitting on the mantel and started crying. They had been a gift from Ayrion on his last day before heading to war. She didn’t have the heart to toss them out, even though the petals had all but fallen off and the stems were hanging over the sides like willow branches

I slumbered spring's morning and missed the dawn from everywhere, I heard the cry of birds. That night the sound of wind and rain came. Who knows how many petals had fallen?

Why? How had this otherwise sensible woman who had only met Beamabeth as a screaming purple blob fallen under her spell? Or had Beamabeth slipped immaculate into the world, petal-cheeked and smiling amidst gleaming golden curls?

That generation of folks has seen people really get hurt by homeownership,” said Mr. Solomon, president of the company, which is based in Waltham, Mass. “The petal has really fallen off the rose as it pertains to homeownership. People don’t want to be tied down to a mortgage they can’t get out of quickly.” That is true of Cabell Dickinson, 30, who had rented an apartment in Arlington, Va., for eight years when she and her boyfriend decided in May to get more serious about their relationship. Instead of marrying and buying a home, however, they followed friends to Mr. Solomon’s complex, known as Halstead Square, moving into a $2,000-a-month apartment.

Being a woman is just be a leaf in the wind is perpetual search and verse is a fallen flower petal on the table one evening rain and restless hands of a drop of water that filters the perfume of a rock that emerges from a balcony with geraniums and roses is looking to be root moisture to keep the cup simply being woman is being land and seed is being tree branch and be eternally girl in the depths of the soul is the daughter and mother friend, sister, girlfriend, wife joy and tear being woman is simply being star rainbow and hot breakfast in the mornings and evenings is expected to be entangled balm and comfort to the bone meat scented with musk and eternal love.

I'm starting to see now that there's a sharp thorn for every fragile petal of pleasure.

Month of the dead, month of returning, thinks Charis. She thinks of the grey weeds waving, under the poisonous, guiless water, at the bottom of the lake; of the grey fish with lumpy chemical growths on them, wafting like shadows; of the lamprey eels with their tiny rasping teeth and sucking mouths, undulating among the husks of wrecked cars, the empty bottles. She thinks of everything that has fallen in, or else been thrown. Treasures and bones. At the beginning of November the French decorate their family graves with chrysanthemums, the Mexicans with marigolds, making a golden path so the spirits can find their way. Whereas we go for poppies. The flower of sleep and forgetting. Petals of spilled blood.

In the cold of winter, the wind blows the snow off the ground and waves of white come sweeping across our tiny stretch of lawn and hit the house in sprinklings of icy snow. Invisible streams of air seep through the cracks of the old windows and the smell of our rice-scented home swims in the currents of cold. Outside, the sound of police sirens resonates in the rippling, urgent winter winds. In the warmth of spring, the wind transforms the empty parking lot by the corner Laundromat into a field of fallen petals as crab apple trees release their blooms and the hard pavement feels the soft brush of tender, ephemeral beauty. Wet rain falls into shattered concrete and the pools of black water lie still for the pink and white and red petals to swim in. The wind carries the voices of laughing children into our house as we watch the petals sway to and fro in the dark puddles across our street. In the heat of hot summer, the green grass grows while the yellow dandelions die, and in the wake of their demise the wind carries their spirits and their seeds across open lots, rotting houses, small yards, littered avenues, and everywhere there are little parachutes of pollen floating away. Late into the night, we listen to the voices of friends and neighbors talking outside on their porches, hear the clinking of cans, turn our heads toward their laughter and their tears, and the wind loses its appeal for a season because the pull of people grows strong across the fertile green.

There was love in my heart for a boy once before, and it was a love that consumed my entire being and blinded me from truth. It was a love that made me see things differently, that lifted a veil I didn’t know was there. I’d been enchanted by him, and I’d fallen for him fast. But over time, it had withered away just as petals do. In place of love, a new feeling blazed away – hatred. -Abby, Unleashed (Submerged #2)

As he began to strum his harp, he filled his mind with images of earth. Old crumbling stones and tangled grasses and wildflowers and weeds and saplings that put down deep roots, growing into mighty trees. The color of dirt, the scent of it. How it felt clutched in the hollow of one’s palm. The voice of branches swaying in the breeze, and the slope of the earth as it rose and fell, faithful and steady. Jack closed his eyes and began to sing. He didn’t want to see the spirits manifest, but he heard the grass hissing near his knees, and he heard the tree boughs groaning above him, and he heard the scratch of stone, as if two were being rubbed together. When he heard Adaira’s soft gasp, Jack opened his eyes. The spirits were forming themselves, gathering around him to listen. He played and sang and watched as the trees became maidens with long arms and hair made of leaves. The grass and pennywort knotted themselves into what looked to be mortal lads, small and green. The stones found their faces like old men waking from a long dream. The wildflowers broke their stems and gathered into the shape of a woman with long dark hair and eyes the color of honeysuckle, her skin purple as the heather that bloomed on the hills. Yellow gorse crowned her, and she waited beside the Earie Stone, whose face was still forming, craggy and ancient. As Jack played Lorna’s ballad he felt as if he was slowly sinking into the earth. His limbs were becoming heavy, and he drooped like a flower wilting beneath a fierce sun. It was like the sensation of falling asleep. He swore he saw daisies blooming from his fingertips, and every time he plucked his strings the petals broke away but regrew just as swiftly. And his ankles…he couldn’t move them, the tree roots had begun to take hold of him. His hair was turning into grass, green and long and tangled, and as the song ended he struggled to remember who he was, that he was mortal, a man. Someone was coming to him, bright as a fallen star, and he felt her hands on his face, blissfully cold. “Please,” the woman said, but not to him. She beseeched the wildflower spirit with her long dark hair and crown of vibrant gorse. “Please, this man belongs to me. You cannot claim him.” “Why, mortal woman,” one of the pennywort lads said from the ground, his words raspy as summer hay falling to a scythe. “Why did you sit so far away from him? We thought he sang to be taken by us.” Jack snapped out of the haze. Adaira was kneeling beside him, her hand shifting to his arm. He was stricken to see that he had truly been turning into the earth—grass, flowers, and roots. His harp clattered from his tingling hands; he struggled to breathe as he watched his body return to him. “He is mine, and he played to bring you forth by my command,” Adaira said calmly. “I long to speak to you, spirits of the earth.

He wrapped me up in his big arms with his coarse hands, tucked my face into his neck so I could feel his strong pulse against my cheek, his marble slab torso protecting my fragile heart and trembling core like an impenetrable shield. He held me. Not an MC princess of a notorious motorcycle club. Not a slightly trashy but rockin’-it university student with a juvie record. Not a murderer. Not even Harleigh Rose as anyone else knew her. Just Rosie, stripped of her thorns and even of her petals, just a seed of self. And he held her preciously, protectively and patiently as if he would do it forever and never fade or fail.

When are we born? When do we die? Why are we born? Why do we die? The world has been destroyed and reborn countless times, always resurrecting from the ashes as Paradise. It has happened before, and it will happen again. An endless cycle of life and death. The world is a Paradise that was opened by someone, but this era too is almost at an end. We have acquired the means to exceed our natural span of life, never suspecting that the world itself was finite in its existence. This knowledge has left me in despair. My fate has fallen, and scattered like the petals of a dying flower. Like the blast from a sand storm, it has been worn down and weathered away. As if to be purified, the world will be encased in ice, so that it can return to the beginning once more. Paradise is a world that is opened by someone...

She

Flower killers ( PART 1 ) Flower killers There is a war going on out there, Wherever you turn to see, it is everywhere, Guns firing bullets that bear one address: kill, Who? Just anyone do it at your free will, And the guns spray death in all directions, Giving rise to endless predilections, That of a father, a mother and a lover, Whoever the bullet may hit, is lost forever, And when bullets turn stray, They hit anything that comes in their way, It does not matter whether you are a foe or a friend, That time the bullet, only its purpose does defend, That to kill and shoot anyhow and anyone, It can be a father, a mother, a daughter, a lover, or just a human someone, And as the victim falls and collapses on the ground, The bullet pierces deeper like the canines of a hungry hound, And no matter how hard you tried it cannot be bound, Because the war is everywhere and so is its echoing and deathly sound, That tempts the bullet to travel and shoot someone, somewhere, And it couldn't be happier than now, because the war is everywhere, Yesterday a stray bullet whizzed through the air, And it hit a flower that had just bloomed and looked fair, Its petals got shredded into countless pieces, The pollen grains flew in the air and fell in different places, And as they fell, they all cried, “murder!” But the bullet had no intention to surrender, The tattered flower petals fell on the ground, I realised there is a new gang called, “flower killers” and they abound, The bee and the butterfly desperately searched for their missing flower, And ah the pain they felt as a dismayed lover, Their wings dropped and they fell to ground like dead autumn leaves, Where except the bullet, even death grieves, The other flowers looked helplessly at the fallen youth and it's still falling memories, And in honour of the killed flower, they named their garden, the garden of tragedies, And to pay their homages, they all wilted on the same day, The garden looked barren even on a new Summer day, The bullet that killed the flower lies embedded in the fence, Same bullet that killed someone who possessed nothing in self defence, Continued in part 2...

I brushed its petals and thought of what Ishqa had said of the people here — that they were born already dying. The blossom would be gone tomorrow. But did that make it any less beautiful?

wafting like a panoply of petals that might be ashes in twilight’s crimson smear

Love and feelings But then, Mahreen does something very unexpected. She holds Hope’s hand and slowly brings her closer to the rose. As both sit on the floor looking at the red rose, she asks Saabir to hold her finger and make her feel the velvety surface of the rose petals and kiss her. Then Mahreen leaves them alone in the moment, in the presence of the most fragrant, very still and the most beautiful red rose.   Saabir kisses her. Hope takes a deep breath, and now she can smell Saabir with traces of rose scent. This uplifts her mood and enlivens her senses. She holds Saabir’s neck with her right hand and begins to smell it. As she kisses him again, and again, and again; she cries and finally tears emerge from her eyes; and she falls unconscious in Saabir’s arms- Tonight Hope experienced the virgin feelings of a quintessential human being capable of experiencing and expressing emotions. Tonight Hope may have fallen unconscious, but she shall wake up as a conscious, sensitive, and an emotionally enriched woman. A true Hope!

Fallen like a dew drop to the petals of a rose. Fallen like a snowflake to the river of dreams. Fallen like an autumn leaf to the bosom of soil. Fallen to be one and never to part again. - Poem 'Fallen

What do you need to say to her?" Vanessa asked, her face worried. She dropped the marigold petals she had been holding in her hand to make a path for the dead. Specks of orange swirled around his legs and blew away. "I have to warn her." Stanton frowned. He hadn't thought it would be this difficult to speak to Serena. "If it's a warning, then it involves us all." Vanessa had dangerous eyes. He could see why Michael Saratoga had fallen for her.

. Anarchy Peep once in a lass cave, In labyrinth of a mermaid And a fallen saint. Take away her claws, Plaster her teeth, And enjoy the anguish Of a wounded tigress. It's fun you know to stand at a safe distance, And feel the warmth of rolling tears, Like the aborted fairies Or nuns who are molested within God's palace. Nothing much bothers the world nowadays, Or time in memoriam, Surfs will lash at the same shore, Dews be fallen from petals of rose, It's survival dear cub, Better believe you are no more.

Escoffier set the table. He'd found a Japanese kimono, an obvious prop from some theater production, to use as a tablecloth. Paris had secretly fallen in love with all things oriental. It was red silk brocade, covered with a flock of white flying cranes, and made from a single bolt of fabric. The neckline and cuffs were thickly stained with stage makeup but the kimono itself was quite beautiful. It ran the length of the thin table. The arms overhung one end. Outside the building he'd seen a garden with a sign that read "Please do not pick." But it was, after all, for a beautiful woman. Who would deny him? And so Escoffier cut a bouquet of white flowers: roses, peonies and a spray of lilies, with rosemary stalks to provide the greenery. He placed them in a tall water glass and then opened the basket of food he'd brought. He laid out the china plates so that they rested between the cranes, and then the silver knives, forks and spoons, and a single crystal glass for her champagne. Even though it was early afternoon, he'd brought two dozen candles. The food had to be served 'à la française'; there were no waiters to bring course after course. So he kept it simple. Tartlets filled with sweet oysters from Arcachon and Persian caviar, chicken roasted with truffles, a warm baguette, 'pâté de foie gras,' and small sweet strawberries served on a bed of sugared rose petals and candied violets.

We each share in innumerable physical and emotional experiences. Our like-kind responses to the external world connect every person together whoever walked this earth. Who has not seen death tap dancing amongst the shagged icicles of a winter wonderland? Who has not heard their hearts petals welcome the bloom of springtime’s opalescence? Who has not experienced the calm of leaves rusting beneath their feet or felt befallen with an overwhelming sense of regeneration after slathered in baptismal wetness by an unexpected rainstorm? Who has not drunk in the smoky smells of leaves burning in October, hunted solace in the singeing embrace of a campfire on a cold winter night, or sought to escape from summers burning blanket of oppression by dunking their overheated stovetop into a mountain stream of clear water? Who has not felt the cold kiss of winter or experienced the melted butter feeling of crawling into bed after a day of hard work? Who is exempt from the punch of hunger in their gut or immune from the enraged screams of an unquenchable thirst? Who has not broken out in a frisson of Goosebumps when passing the graveyard on an ill-omened evening and experienced the electric sensation of ghostly fingernails running down the tapered stem of their spine? Who has not fallen in love at first sight? Who has not danced on the edge of a cliff, stared into the gloom, and asked themselves what if they slipped over the lip? Who has not experienced the existential vertigo, the anxiety of dizziness that freedom brings whenever a human being standing in solitude navigates amongst the tension between the finite and infinite and contemplates the possibility or of the divine shaping reality?

Spring sleep not wake dawn Everywhere hear cry bird Night come wind rain sound Flower fall know how many I slumbered this spring morning, and missed the dawn, From everywhere I heard the cry of birds. That night the sound of wind and rain had come, Who knows how many petals then had fallen?

What are you doing here?" she asked, taking the flowers from him. Some of their petals had fallen off from the bumpy climb. "I mean, I'm happy to see you, but why aren't you home?" "Wherever my wife sleeps is my home.

She was obviously the prettiest five-year-old in the world. My little flower girl held her basket tightly, her face showing her serious concentration at throwing the petals. Until she looked up, saw me, and grinned. “You look pretty, Daddy!” she yelled before running toward me, flower petals forgotten. I stepped off the stage and scooped her into my arms. “So do you,” I whispered, kissing her hair. The crowd let out a mixture of laughter and “Awws.