“
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
”
”
E.E. Cummings
“
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
”
”
E.E. Cummings (Selected Poems)
“
I've come to take you with me
even if I must drag you along
But first I must steal your heart
then settle you in my soul.
I've come as a spring
to lay beside your blossoms
To feel the glory of happiness
and spread your flowers around
I've come to show you off
as the adornment in my house
and elevate you to the heavens
as the prayers of those in love.
I've come to take back
the kiss you once stole
Either return it with grace
or i must take it by force
You're my life
You're my soul
Please be my last prayer
My heart must hold you forever
From the lowly earth
to the high human soul
There are a lot more
than a thousand stages
Since I've taken you along
from town to town
no way will I abandon
you halfway down this road
Though you're in my hands
Though i can throw you around
like a child and a ball
I'll always need to chase after you
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
“
She was carrying these revolting, disturbing yellow flowers. God knows what they're called, but for some reason they're the first to appear in Moscow. And these flowers stood out very distinctly from her black spring coat. She was carrying yellow flowers!
”
”
Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and Margarita)
“
Who understands the thrill of seeing the first bright flowers of spring so clearly as one who has just lived through the long, hard winter?
”
”
Darlene Deibler Rose (Evidence Not Seen: A Woman's Miraculous Faith in the Jungles of World War II)
“
in a middle of a room
stands a suicide
sniffing a Paper rose
smiling to a self
"somewhere it is Spring and sometimes
people are in real:imagine
somewhere real flowers,but
I can't imagine real flowers for if I
could,they would somehow
not Be real"
(so he smiles
smiling)"but I will not
everywhere be real to
you in a moment"
The is blond
with small hands
"& everything is easier
than I had guessed everything would
be;even remembering the way who
looked at whom first,anyhow dancing
”
”
E.E. Cummings
“
Look at the four-spaced year
That imitates four seasons of our lives;
First Spring, that delicate season, bright with flowers,
Quickening, yet shy, and like a milk-fed child,
Its way unsteady while the countryman
Delights in promise of another year.
Green meadows wake to bloom, frail shoots and grasses,
And then Spring turns to Summer's hardiness,
The boy to manhood. There's no time of year
Of greater richness, warmth, and love of living,
New strength untried. And after Summer, Autumn,
First flushes gone, the temperate season here
Midway between quick youth and growing age,
And grey hair glinting when the head turns toward us,
Then senile Winter, bald or with white hair,
Terror in palsy as he walks alone.
”
”
Ovid (Ovid's Metamorphoses: Books 1-5)
“
Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.
It? I ast.
Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It.
But what do it look like? I ast.
Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose. She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate
at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.
Shug! I say.
Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going, and praise God by liking what you like.
God don't think it dirty? I ast.
Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love? and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing. Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr. ____s evil sort of shrink. But not altogether. Still, it is like Shug say, You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a'tall.
Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.
Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind,water, a big rock.
But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.
Amen
”
”
Alice Walker (The Color Purple)
“
That’s what I learned, about him and most guys: who they are when they’re giving you flowers and trying to get in your pants is not who they REALLY are when it’s no longer spring and they’ve found a new jawn to hang out with. And I know the past isn’t a mirror image of the future, but it’s a reflection of what can be; and when your first love breaks your heart, the shards of that can still draw blood for a long, long time.
”
”
Elizabeth Acevedo (With the Fire on High)
“
It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact
which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was
because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made
it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child's
mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily
over the stony course of its education and reflects here a
flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to
guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be
fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened
out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid
surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the
blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower.
Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every
teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he
feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must
feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment
before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and
resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of
textbooks.
My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart
from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is
innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I
feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the
footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to
her--there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that
has not been awakened by her loving touch.
”
”
Helen Keller (The Story of My Life: With Her Letters (1887 1901) and a Supplementary Account of Her Education Including Passages from the Reports and Letters of Her Teacher Anne Mansfield Sullivan by John Albert Macy)
“
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air —
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath —
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
”
”
Alan Seeger
“
Sleep comes its little while. Then I wake in the valley of midnight or three a.m. to the first fragrances of spring which is coming, all by itself, no matter what. My heart says, what you thought you have you do not have. My body says, will this pounding ever stop? My heart says: there, there, be a good student. My body says: let me up and out, I want to fondle those soft white flowers, open in the night.
”
”
Mary Oliver (A Thousand Mornings: Poems)
“
In the first week of April the weather turned suddenly, unseasonably, insistently lovely. The sky was blue, the air warm and windless, and the sun beamed on the muddy ground with all the sweet impatience of June. Toward the fringe of the wood, the young trees were yellow with the first tinge of new leaves; woodpeckers laughed and drummed in the copses and, lying in bed with my window open, I could hear the rush and gurgle of the melted snow running in the gutters all night long.
In the second week of April everyone waited anxiously to see if the weather would hold. It did, with serene assurance. Hyacinth and daffodil bloomed in the flower beds, violet and periwinkle in the meadows; damp, bedraggled white butterflies fluttered drunkenly in the hedgerows. I put away my winter coat and overshoes and walked around, nearly light-headed with joy, in my shirtsleeves.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
She liked to scatter hope," Minerva said, taking his offering.
"Pardon?"
"Snowdrops. They represent hope. The first flowers in the spring. Hope for a new beginning." She took a sniff of the delicate blossoms and then shyly glanced over at him. "Perhaps you were meant to be here today. To find your hope.
”
”
Elizabeth Boyle (Lord Langley Is Back in Town (Bachelor Chronicles, #8))
“
How are you giving it magic?” he said, through his teeth.
“I already found the path!” I said. “I’m just staying on it. Can’t you—feel it?” I asked abruptly, and held my hand cupping the flower out towards him; he frowned and put his hands around it, and then he said, “Vadiya rusha ilikad tuhi,” and a second illusion laid itself over mine, two roses in the same space—his, predictably, had three rings of perfect petals, and a delicate fragrance.
“Try and match it,” he said absently, his fingers moving slightly, and by lurching steps we brought our illusions closer together until it was nearly impossible to tell them one from another, and then he said, “Ah,” suddenly, just as I began to glimpse his spell: almost exactly like that strange clockwork on the middle of his table, all shining moving parts. On an impulse I tried to align our workings: I envisioned his like the water-wheel of a mill, and mine the rushing stream driving it around. “What are you—” he began, and then abruptly we had only a single rose, and it began to grow.
And not only the rose: vines were climbing up the bookshelves in every direction, twining themselves around ancient tomes and reaching out the window; the tall slender columns that made the arch of the doorway were lost among rising birches, spreading out long finger-branches; moss and violets were springing up across the floor, delicate ferns unfurling. Flowers were blooming everywhere: flowers I had never seen, strange blooms dangling and others with sharp points, brilliantly colored, and the room was thick with their fragrance, with the smell of crushed leaves and pungent herbs. I looked around myself alight with wonder, my magic still flowing easily. “Is this what you meant?” I asked him: it really wasn’t any more difficult than making the single flower had been. But he was staring at the riot of flowers all around us, as astonished as I was.
He looked at me, baffled and for the first time uncertain, as though he had stumbled into something, unprepared. His long narrow hands were cradled around mine, both of us holding the rose together. Magic was singing in me, through me; I felt the murmur of his power singing back that same song. I was abruptly too hot, and strangely conscious of myself. I pulled my hands free.
”
”
Naomi Novik (Uprooted)
“
Flowers bloomed without glimpsing your smile in spring, leaves have fallen in autumn chiming in with the gloom, the chill of winter has gone and now is the first light of summer without you near but in our hearts will forever hold you dear..." Elizabeth's Shorter Poems
”
”
Elizabeth E. Castillo (Seasons of Emotions)
“
The most impoverished peasant can be delighted by the opening of the first spring flower, and the most wealthy aristocrat can curse the day he was born because of some petty offense to his sensibilities. She is a very wise woman. To achieve serenity we have to view life not as it is measured by the world around us but as we ourselves measure it. We must accept that the scales are not at all equal.
”
”
Emma Wildes (One Whisper Away (Ladies in Waiting, #1))
“
I.
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the workings of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
II.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare.
III.
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed, neither pride
Now hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness that some end might be.
IV.
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out through years, my hope
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring,
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
My heart made, finding failure in its scope.
V.
As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
And hears one bit the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside, ('since all is o'er,' he saith
And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;')
VI.
When some discuss if near the other graves
be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and staves
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.
VII.
Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among 'The Band' to wit,
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed
Their steps - that just to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now - should I be fit?
VIII.
So, quiet as despair I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.
IX.
For mark! No sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backwards a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round;
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on, naught else remained to do.
X.
So on I went. I think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers - as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind with none to awe,
You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.
XI.
No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. 'See
Or shut your eyes,' said Nature peevishly,
It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
Tis the Last Judgement's fire must cure this place
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.
”
”
Robert Browning
“
But, careful! Jesus does not say, Go off and do things on your own. No! That is not what he is saying. Jesus says, Go, for I am with you! This is what is so beautiful for us; it is what guides us. If we go out to bring his Gospel with love, with a true apostolic spirit, with parrhesia, he walks with us, he goes ahead of us, and he gets there first. As we say in Spanish, nos primerea. By now you know what I mean by this. It is the same thing that the Bible tells us. In the Bible, the Lord says: I am like the flower of the almond. Why? Because that is the first flower to blossom in the spring. He is always the first! This is fundamental for us: God is always ahead of us! When we think about going far away, to an extreme outskirt, we may be a bit afraid, but in fact God is already there. Jesus is waiting for us in the hearts of our brothers and sisters, in their wounded bodies, in their hardships, in their lack of faith.
”
”
Pope Francis (The Church of Mercy: A Vision for the Church)
“
Things I love about spring are these:
Blooming flowers on fruit-bearing trees.
Fire-red tulips—their first reveal—
Followed by sun-yellow daffodils.
Trees acquiring new coats of green.
Natural waterfalls glistening.
The chirps and melodies of birds.
Throaty ribbits of frogs overheard.
A passing whiff of mint to smell,
Oregano and basil as well.
Colorful butterflies with wings.
Fuzzy, industrious bees that sting.
Sunlight waning late in the day.
Warm breezes causing willows to sway.
Most of all, a sense of things new,
Including budding feelings for you.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
“
Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting. No, this couldn't be; he would have remembered her. It was not, he affirmed, that she had an extraordinary beauty--no, though her face was attractive enough; it was that something about her moved him. Feature for feature, even some of the ladies of the photographs could do better; but she lapsed forth to this heart--had lived, or wanted to--more than just wanted, perhaps regretted how she had lived--had somehow deeply suffered: it could be seen in the depths of those reluctant eyes, and from the way the light enclosed and shone from her, and within her, opening realms of possibility: this was her own. Her he desired. His head ached and eyes narrowed with the intensity of his gazing, then as if an obscure fog had blown up in the mind, he experienced fear of her and was aware that he had received an impression, somehow, of evil. He shuddered, saying softly, it is thus with us all. Leo brewed some tea in a small pot and sat sipping it without sugar, to calm himself. But before he had finished drinking, again with excitement he examined the face and found it good: good for Leo Finkle. Only such a one could understand him and help him seek whatever he was seeking. She might, perhaps, love him. How she had happened to be among the discards in Salzman's barrel he could never guess, but he knew he must urgently go find her.
”
”
Bernard Malamud (The Magic Barrel)
“
THE TREE OF LIFE
The sun is rising,
And the ether dance at the first sight of his light,
As he ascends like a phoenix from the ashes of morality,
His luminous rays form the magnificent tree of life.
He springs up from the east,
Spreading his long arms like branches,
Over the horizons of milky meadows and open seas,
Extending his wings to embrace all living things.
He walks on water and grazes through fields,
Pouring his butter like honey to feed the Earth.
Towering over all of creation,
He who is the lamp of the universe,
The power source of all life.
And in his truth and light,
Everything becomes aroused
Like a flower,
And everything is given
Sight.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
In this quiet corner, the best wild flowers grow, and the first peepers are heard in the spring, even before the snow melts. Here, owls call from the treetops in the early morning, and the irreverent crows hold their noisy conventions. Here, the mother deer has her fawn, and the migrating geese come to rest. It is here that the fox is safe from the hunters.
”
”
Alice Provensen
“
I dreamed I stood upon a little hill,
And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed
Like a waste garden, flowering at its will
With buds and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed
Black and unruffled; there were white lilies
A few, and crocuses, and violets
Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries
Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets
Blue eyes of shy peryenche winked in the sun.
And there were curious flowers, before unknown,
Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades
Of Nature's willful moods; and here a one
That had drunk in the transitory tone
Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades
Of grass that in an hundred springs had been
Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars,
And watered with the scented dew long cupped
In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen
Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars
The luminous air of Heaven. Beyond, abrupt,
A grey stone wall. o'ergrown with velvet moss
Uprose; and gazing I stood long, all mazed
To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair.
And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across
The garden came a youth; one hand he raised
To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair
Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore
A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes
Were clear as crystal, naked all was he,
White as the snow on pathless mountains frore,
Red were his lips as red wine-spilith that dyes
A marble floor, his brow chalcedony.
And he came near me, with his lips uncurled
And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth,
And gave me grapes to eat, and said, 'Sweet friend,
Come I will show thee shadows of the world
And images of life. See from the South
Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end.'
And lo! within the garden of my dream
I saw two walking on a shining plain
Of golden light. The one did joyous seem
And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain
Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids
And joyous love of comely girl and boy,
His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades
Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy;
And in his hand he held an ivory lute
With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair,
And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute,
And round his neck three chains of roses were.
But he that was his comrade walked aside;
He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes
Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide
With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs
That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white
Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red
Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight,
And yet again unclenched, and his head
Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death.
A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold
With the device of a great snake, whose breath
Was fiery flame: which when I did behold
I fell a-weeping, and I cried, 'Sweet youth,
Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove
These pleasent realms? I pray thee speak me sooth
What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.
”
”
Alfred Bruce Douglas
“
The first day of spring, the vernal equinox—the season of renewal when the earth sheds its winter cloak, flowers bloom, and the heart feels as though everything is once again imaginable. The smell of fresh-cut grass, shagging fly balls, and scraping mud from baseball cleats. A brief contemplation and tear for those gone from the field, their easy laugh and nimble sprint no longer gracing the game.
”
”
Galen Watson
“
The trees above them are blossoming with white flowers. The sky glimpsed through the branches so blue. How can he not notice as they pass beneath them? When God first began to brainstorm the world did He think to make branches a dark brown and flowers either white or soft pink, and only like that in the spring, so that you are always startled by their bloom? Or were God’s decisions scattered and sudden, beautiful by chance?
”
”
Fatima Farheen Mirza (A Place for Us)
“
You can laugh," he said. "Dad's been ranting and muttering for an hour. Something about-" his gaze shifted and lingered on Shelby "-traitors and infidels.Hello,you must be the infidel."
The friendly irony in his voice had Shelby's lips curving. "I must be."
"Shelby Campbell,my brother, Caine."
"The first Campbell ever to step into the MacGregor keep.Enter at your own risk." Caine offered his hand as Shelby crossed the threshold. His first thought was that she had the face of a mermaid-not quite beautiful, but alluring and not easily forgotten.
Shelby glanced around the wide hall, approving the faded tapestries and heavy old furniture.She caught the scent of spring flowers, a wisp of dust and old polish. No,she couldn't have done it better herself. "Well, the roof didn't cave in," she commented as she studied a crested shield on the wall. "So far so good.
”
”
Nora Roberts (The MacGregors: Alan & Grant (The MacGregors, #3-4))
“
Perfection’s firsts, creation’s pampered favourites, the peaks and summits we look to where they redden in the first touch of the created world – spilt pollen of flowering Godhead, knots of light, passageways, stairs, thrones, spaces of life, the blazoned shields of bliss, tumults of ecstasy and as suddenly, solely – mirrors, scooping up that flood of beauty that pours from them and re-directing it back into themselves. For we, even as we feel, evaporate in the act of breathing ourselves out and beyond, ember after ember, we burn away to nothing. We give off an ever-diminishing scent. Though somebody might come and say, ‘Yes! You are in my blood now. This room, the whole of spring is full of your presence . . .’ What’s the use? He cannot preserve us. We still disappear in him or around him. Even the truly beautiful – who holds them? Nothing but appearance
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies)
“
MAY IN MINNEAPOLIS IS LILAC TIME. AS IF TO COMPENSATE for the punitive winter, the city explodes with flowers overnight—making it, if only for a week or two, one of the most beautiful places on earth. First there are sunny starbursts of forsythia; then the cherry and dogwood trees burst into life, showering petals everywhere, pink and cream, drifting thick as snow on the sidewalks. But it is the lilacs that truly herald the coming of spring: lavender and white and blue and sometimes a purple deep as grapes, they bloom in the alleys and over backyard fences and in graveyards. Beauty is everywhere, including the most unexpected places. There is no respite from it.
”
”
Jenna Blum (Those Who Save Us)
“
It was another mild day, signaling the transition from winter to spring. The trees unfolded their leaves as they awoke from their long winter nap. In the cloudless blue sky, birds chirped as they floated from tree to tree on the light breeze and alighted to outstretched limbs. The first flowers of spring dotted the landscape with a prelude of the bright, vibrant colors about to spill over the muted and dull tones dominating the palate of the lifeless winter season just passed.
”
”
Charles Strickler (Restorations)
“
And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drew
With all her spirit and life the sunrise through
And through her lips the keen triumphant air
Sea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were,
And through her eyes the whole rejoicing east
Sun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feast
Spread for the morning; and the imperious mirth
Of wind and light that moved upon the earth,
Making the spring, and all the fruitful might
And strong regeneration of delight
That swells the seedling leaf and sapling man,
Since the first life in the first world began
To burn and burgeon through void limbs and veins,
And the first love with sharp sweet procreant pains
To pierce and bring forth roses; yea, she felt
Through her own soul the sovereign morning melt,
And all the sacred passion of the sun;
And as the young clouds flamed and were undone
About him coming, touched and burnt away
In rosy ruin and yellow spoil of day,
The sweet veil of her body and corporal sense
Felt the dawn also cleave it, and incense
With light from inward and with effluent heat
The kindling soul through fleshly hands and feet.
And as the august great blossom of the dawn
Burst, and the full sun scarce from sea withdrawn
Seemed on the fiery water a flower afloat,
So as a fire the mighty morning smote
Throughout her, and incensed with the influent hour
Her whole soul's one great mystical red flower
Burst, and the bud of her sweet spirit broke
Rose-fashion, and the strong spring at a stroke
Thrilled, and was cloven, and from the full sheath came
The whole rose of the woman red as flame:
And all her Mayday blood as from a swoon
Flushed, and May rose up in her and was June.
So for a space her hearth as heavenward burned:
Then with half summer in her eyes she turned,
And on her lips was April yet, and smiled,
As though the spirit and sense unreconciled
Shrank laughing back, and would not ere its hour
Let life put forth the irrevocable flower.
And the soft speech between them grew again
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Tristram of Lyonesse: And Other Poems)
“
And Ásta Sóllilja, it was she who swept on wings of poetry into those spheres which she had sensed as if in distant murmur one spring night last year when she was reading about the little girl who journeyed over the seven mountains; and the distant murmur had suddenly swelled to a song in her ears, and her soul found here for the first time its origin and its descent; happiness, fate, sorrow, she understood them all; and many other things. When a man looks at a flowering plant growing slender and helpless up in the wilderness among a hundred thousand stones, and he has found this plant only by chance, then he asks: Why is it that life is always trying to burst forth? Should one pull up this plant and use it to clean one's pipe? No, for this plant also broods over the limitation and the unlimitation of all life, and lives in the love of the good beyond these hundred thousand stones, like you and me; water it with care, but do not uproot it, maybe it is little Ásta Sóllilja.
”
”
Halldór Laxness (Independent People)
“
Ode to Love
Lin Huiyin
I think you are the April of this world,
Sure, you are the April of this world.
Your laughter has lit up all the wind,
So gently mingling with the spring.
You are the clouds in early spring,
The dusk wind blows up and down.
And the stars blink now and then,
Fine rain drops down amid the flowers.
So gentle and graceful,
You are crowned with garlands.
So sublime and innocent,
You are a full moon over each evening.
The snow melts, with that light yellow,
You look like the first budding green.
You are the soft joy of white lotus
Rising up in your fancy dreamland.
You’re the blooming flowers over the trees,
You’re a swallow twittering between the beams;
Full of love, full of warm hope,
You are the spring of this world!
”
”
Lin Huiyin (April on the World(the Selection of Lin Huiyin) (Chinese Edition))
“
A VISIT TO QIANTANG LAKE IN SPRING
Gushan Temple is to the north, Jiating pavilion west,
The water's surface now is calm, the bottom of the clouds low.
In several places, the first orioles are fighting in warm trees,
By every house new swallows peck at spring mud.
Disordered flowers have grown almost enough to confuse the eye,
Bright grass is able now to hide the hooves of horses.
I most love the east of the lake, I cannot come often enough
Within the shade of green poplars on White Sand Embankment.
”
”
Bai Juyi
“
My darling,
My day’s sweetest moments are at dawn, for I awake with dreams of you still in my head. As the light touches my lips, I can almost feel yours upon mine. I imagine your footsteps coming up the walk, but today is the same as the day before. It is only fanciful thinking.
As the first beams of morning sunlight dance across my weary shoulders I cry out, “How can you be so cheery and bright with so much sorrow across our land?”
I know I must be strong and face another day, but tears fill my eyes. Suddenly, a white dove lands upon my window sill. Surely this be the omen that peace is near at hand. Just like the breath of the coming Spring, this little dove now brings me new hope. God has heard our prayers and our Southland will flower again.
”
”
Nancy B. Brewer (Beyond Sandy Ridge)
“
Spring blooms had been coming in from Holland since December, but now flowers from Irish growers were arriving. Daffodils with their frilled trumpets and tissue-paper-delicate anemones and the first tulips with sturdy stems and glossy, tightly packed petals.
”
”
Ella Griffin (The Flower Arrangement)
“
Spring, in Brittany, is milder than spring in Paris, and bursts into flower three weeks earlier. The five birds that herald its appearance—the swallow, the oriole, the cuckoo, the quail, and the nightingale—arrive with the breezes that refuge in the bays of the Armorican peninsula.[28] The earth is covered over with daisies, pansies, jonquils, daffodils, hyacinths, buttercups, and anemones, like the wastelands around San Giovanni of Laterano and the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome. The clearings are feathered with tall and elegant ferns; the fields of gorse and broom blaze with flowers that one may take at first glance for golden butterflies. The hedges, along which strawberries, raspberries, and violets grow, are adorned with hawthorn, honeysuckle, and brambles whose brown, curving shoots burst forth with magnificent fruits and leaves. All the world teems with bees and birds; hives and nests interrupt the child’s every footstep. In certain sheltered spots, the myrtle and the rose-bay flourish in the open air, as in Greece; figs ripen, as in Provence; and every apple tree, bursting with carmine flowers, looks like the big bouquet of a village bride.
”
”
François-René de Chateaubriand (Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768-1800)
“
It is the property of things seen for the first time, or for the first time after long, like the flowers in spring, to reawaken in us the sharp edge of sense and that impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise passes out of life with the coming of years; but the sight of a lover face is what renews a man's character from the fountain upwards.
”
”
Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, with The Merry Men & Other Stories)
“
The universe is but a tenement
of all things visible. Darkness and day
the passing guests of Time.
Life slips away,
a dream of little joy and mean content.
Ah! wise the old philosophers who sought
To lengthen their long sunsets among flowers,
By stealing the young night's unsullied hours
And the dim moments with sweet burdens fraught.
And now Spring beckons me with verdant hand,
And Nature's wealth of eloquence doth win
Forth to the fragrant-bowered nectarine,
Where my dear friends abide, a careless band.
There meet my gentle, matchless brothers, there
I come, the obscure poet, all unfit
To wear the radiant jewelry of wit,
And in their golden presence cloud the air.
And while the thrill of meeting lingers, soon
As the first courtly words, the feast is spread,
While, couched on flowers 'mid wine-cups flashing red,
We drink deep draughts unto The Lady Moon.
Then as without the touch of verse divine
There is no outlet for the pent-up soul,
'Twas ruled that he who quaffed no fancy's bowl
Should drain the "Golden Valley" cups of wine
”
”
Li Bai
“
Munindra-ji, one of my first Dharma teachers, used to say that in spiritual practice, time is not a factor. Practice cannot be measured in time, so let go of the whole notion of when and how long. The practice is a process unfolding, and it unfolds in its own time. It is like the flowers that grow in the spring. Do you pull them up to make them grow faster?
”
”
Joseph Goldstein (Insight Meditation: A Psychology of Freedom (Shambhala Classics))
“
But love itself does not argue. At first it is seen far off, like a beautiful bird of rare plumage, among flowers, on a morning in spring; it comes nearer, it is timid, it advances, it recedes, it poises on swiftly beating wings, it soars out of sight, but suddenly it is nearer than before; it changes shapes, and grows vast and terrible, till its flight is like the rushing of the whirlwind; then all is calm again, and in the stillness a sweet voice sings the chant of peace or the melancholy dirge of an endless regret; it is no longer the dove, nor the eagle, nor the storm that leaves ruin in its track—it is everything, it is life, it is the world itself, for ever and time without end, for good or evil, for such happiness as may pass all understanding, if God will, and if not, for undying sorrow
”
”
F. Marion Crawford (Marietta)
“
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…
”
”
Cao Xueqin (The Story of the Stone: The Debt of Tears)
“
walk in the churchyard a little, looking for signs of spring. He was not disappointed. Here shy violets peeped from near the wall. There were the first leaves of the primroses that would soon spread themselves between the grave markers. Soon there would be daisies, wild carrot and all manner of other flowers to delight the bees. What men designated a place of death, nature ever filled with abundant life.
”
”
William Savage (An Unlamented Death (Mysteries of Georgian Norfolk, #1))
“
Winter is the time for the lonely – both among men and among wolves – and for those who live on the borderline. It covers the life of the solid ground and reveals the life to which we must lift our eyes. It is not the time of animals, nor of flowers, but the time of the stars. Snow does not grow up from the earth, it falls from the stars. It is cold and pure like the stars themselves.
There can be no hiding of tracks in winter, neither by man nor by wolf. Whoever walks over the snow must answer for it. Snow does not spring up again as trampled grass does. In the landscape a man towers as high as the pillar of fire in the wilderness. He who marks out the first track through the waste of snow must have courage. He who can face this winter desert must know inner harmony.
The only live thing in winter is fire. It rules evening and night. Whoever sits before it must have dismissed the specters that live in the heart or they will stare at him out of each flame. He must have forgotten the cries of the past or he will hear them in the low hum that each fire makes. A man must have gained his white hair in peace to be able to sit quietly by the fire, his hands clasped around his knees and the shadows of familiar objects about him.
”
”
Ernst Wiechert (Tidings: A Novel)
“
Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to the main tendencies of Nature. A
particular flower may not be dead in early winter, but the flowers are dying; a particular
pebble may never be wetted with the tide, but the tide is coming in. To the scientific eye
all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like the
massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton
“
The first frost laid down a thin wafer-like crust of crystalline wonder on a waiting world. Instantly melting to the slightest touch, it heralded the seasons turning in a celebration of ‘what was’ in an anticipation of what ‘was to come’. For you see, God sends the frost of fall ahead of the snows of winter so that nature might be readied for the flowers of spring. And it is the anticipation of each that makes them fresh every time they arrive.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
How much more interior can you get, after all, than the interior of bones? It's the center of the center of things. If marrow were a geological formation, it would be magma roiling under the earth's mantle. If it were a plant, it would be a delicate moss that grows only in the highest crags of Mount Everest, blooming with tiny white flowers for three days in the Nepalese spring. If it were a memory, it would be your first one, your most painful and repressed one, the one that has made you who you are.
”
”
Julie Powell (Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen)
“
Before He called me forth from the grave, Jesus wept. His was not the loud, frantic keening of the women who mourned outside my tomb. His was a sigh and a groan and a single salty tear. It was, at first, almost imperceptible, even to those standing closest to Him.
But His sigh shook the universe, and the place where I was quaked. I stood in the midst of those who watched and waited for all things to be set right.
Jesus groaned, and the heads of angels and saints turned to look down upon the earth in wonder.
His tear trickled down his cheek, and a spring burst forth at my feet. Pure, clear water spilled from its banks and flowed down a mountainside, leaving a myriad of new stars, like flowers, blooming and rising in its wake.
I remember thinking, On a clear night, constellations above the earth reflect on the still surface of the sea. But here? Only one of Jesus’ tears contains a galaxy.
My eternal companions and I listened. We heard His voice echo from Bethany across the universe! He commanded, “Roll away the stone!”
We all waited in anticipation for the next word from His lips.
Then Jesus spoke my name: “Lazarus!”
Surely He could not mean me, I thought. But all the same, I whispered, “Here I am, Lord.”
Centuries have come and gone since His holy sob ripped me loose from timeless conversation with the ageless ones. Ten thousand, thousand scholars and saints have asked, “Why? What made the King of Heaven bow His head and cover His eyes and spill holy tears onto the earth? Why? Why did Jesus weep?
”
”
Bodie Thoene (When Jesus Wept (The Jerusalem Chronicles #1))
“
The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude. Punishment and fear were not; nor were threatening words read On suspended brass; nor did the suppliant crowd fear The words of their judge; but were safe without an avenger. Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world, And mortals knew no shores but their own. There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm Blasts soothed the flowers born without seed.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
“
When I was a little girl, my mother took great pains to interest me in learning to know the birds and wild flowers and in the planting garden. I thought that roots and bulbs and seeds were as wonderful as flowers, and the Latin names on seed packages as full of enchantment as the counting-out rhymes that children chant in the spring. I remember the first time I planted seeds. My mother asked me if I knew the Parable of the Sower. I said I did not, and she took me into the house and read it to me. Once the relation between poetry and the soil is established in the mind, all growing things are endowed with more than material beauty. (p. 12)
”
”
Elizabeth Lawrence (Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins)
“
On the following morning the little hut on the Alm opened wide its doors and windows as if to drink up the early sunshine. Days went by. The warmth of the spring sun woke up first the little blue gentians - those with a white star in the center; then, one by one, all the other lovely flowers opened their petals. There were jonquils and red primroses and little golden rockroses with thorns on the edge of their petals. They all bloomed in their brightest colors while Peter watched the miracle taking place, as he had watched it every spring since he could remember. He had never quite seen the beauty of it, however, until Heidi had come to show him.
”
”
Charles Tritten (Heidi Grows Up)
“
They say the world will end soon.
They say that the nuclear weapons made,
Due to fearing 'the other',
Has become a curse, a plague, a scourge
On those who made them
Even more than those they were made to scare...
And I wonder:
Will the nuclear weapons be the cause of world’s end?
Or will world’s end be caused by humanity’s fear, complicity, and submission?
And if what they say is true,
Before the world ends and before I die,
I wish to drink one last cup of cardamom-flavored tea
Taste one last fig, peach, or apricot,
Smell a quince,
Dip one last piece of bread
In Palestinian thyme and olive oil…
Before the world ends,
I wish to smell a few pine needles,
To breathe the smell of the first rain shower
After a long, hot, and dry summer…
Before the world ends and before I die,
I wish to read one more book
Out of the thousands of books that I still want to read…
Before the world ends and before I die,
I ask for one more spring
To smell bunches of Iraqi narcissus flowers.
I want to live one more autumn,
To enjoy the magical colors
Of the dying leaves on the trees
As they challenge death with beauty
Right before falling on the grounds of indifference…
But my biggest wish before I die is
For my death not to be the end of the world…
[Original poem published in Arabic on October 13 at ahewar.org]
”
”
Louis Yako
“
Such was the nature of love. No, no, again it was very different, it was like nothing else in the whole world. It came to earth on a spring night when a young man saw two eyes, two eyes. He stared and saw. He kissed two lips—it was as though two flames met in his heart, a sun flashing at a star. He fell into a pair of arms, and he heard and saw no more in the whole wide world. Love is God’s first word, the first thought that sailed through his brain. When he said, “Let there be light!” there was love. And everything that he made was very good, and no part thereof did he wish undone. And love became the world’s beginning and the world’s ruler; but all its ways are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood.
”
”
Knut Hamsun (Victoria)
“
Before he called me forth from the grave, Jesus wept. His was not the loud, frantic keening of the women who mourned outside my tomb. His was a sigh and a groan and a single salty tear. It was, at first, almost imperceptible, even to those standing closest to him. But his sigh shook the universe, and the place where I was quaked. I stood in the midst of those who watched and waited for all things to be set right. Jesus groaned, and the heads of angels and saints turned to look down upon the earth in wonder. His tear trickled down his cheek, and a spring burst forth at my feet. Pure, clear water spilled from its banks and flowed down a mountainside, leaving a myriad of new stars, like flowers, blooming and rising in its wake.
”
”
Brock Thoene (When Jesus Wept (The Jerusalem Chronicles, #1))
“
Thus I learned from life itself. At the beginning I was only a little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them. When she came, everything about me breathed of love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never since let pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is in everything, nor has she ceased trying in thought and action and example to make my life sweet and useful. It was my teacher’s genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child’s mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily over the stony course of its education and reflects here a flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower. Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks.
”
”
Helen Keller (The Story of My Life)
“
{From Luther Burbank's funeral. He was loved until he revealed he was an atheist, then he began to receive death threats. He tried to amiably answer them all, leading to his death}
It is impossible to estimate the wealth he has created. It has been generously given to the world. Unlike inventors, in other fields, no patent rights were given him, nor did he seek a monopoly in what he created. Had that been the case, Luther Burbank would have been perhaps the world's richest man. But the world is richer because of him. In this he found joy that no amount of money could give.
And so we meet him here today, not in death, but in the only immortal life we positively know--his good deeds, his kindly, simple, life of constructive work and loving service to the whole wide world.
These things cannot die. They are cumulative, and the work he has done shall be as nothing to its continuation in the only immortality this brave, unselfish man ever sought, or asked to know.
As great as were his contributions to the material wealth of this planet, the ages yet to come, that shall better understand him, will give first place in judging the importance of his work to what he has done for the betterment of human plants and the strength they shall gain, through his courage, to conquer the tares, the thistles and the weeds. Then no more shall we have a mythical God that smells of brimstone and fire; that confuses hate with love; a God that binds up the minds of little children, as other heathen bind up their feet--little children equally helpless to defend their precious right to think and choose and not be chained from the dawn of childhood to the dogmas of the dead.
Luther Burbank will rank with the great leaders who have driven heathenish gods back into darkness, forever from this earth.
In the orthodox threat of eternal punishment for sin--which he knew was often synonymous with yielding up all liberty and freedom--and in its promise of an immortality, often held out for the sacrifice of all that was dear to life, the right to think, the right to one's mind, the right to choose, he saw nothing but cowardice. He shrank from such ways of thought as a flower from the icy blasts of death. As shown by his work in life, contributing billions of wealth to humanity, with no more return than the maintenance of his own breadline, he was too humble, too unselfish, to be cajoled with dogmatic promises of rewards as a sort of heavenly bribe for righteous conduct here. He knew that the man who fearlessly stands for the right, regardless of the threat of punishment or the promise of reward, was the real man.
Rather was he willing to accept eternal sleep, in returning to the elements from whence he came, for in his lexicon change was life. Here he was content to mingle as a part of the whole, as the raindrop from the sea performs its sacred service in watering the land to which it is assigned, that two blades may grow instead of one, and then, its mission ended, goes back to the ocean from whence it came. With such service, with such a life as gardener to the lilies of the field, in his return to the bosoms of infinity, he has not lost himself. There he has found himself, is a part of the cosmic sea of eternal force, eternal energy. And thus he lived and always will live.
Thomas Edison, who believes very much as Burbank, once discussed with me immortality. He pointed to the electric light, his invention, saying: 'There lives Tom Edison.' So Luther Burbank lives. He lives forever in the myriad fields of strengthened grain, in the new forms of fruits and flowers, plants, vines, and trees, and above all, the newly watered gardens of the human mind, from whence shall spring human freedom that shall drive out false and brutal gods. The gods are toppling from their thrones. They go before the laughter and the joy of the new childhood of the race, unshackled and unafraid.
”
”
Benjamin Barr Lindsey
“
In the deep woods of the far North, under feathery leaves of fern, was a great fairyland of merry elves, sometimes called forest brownies.
These elves lived joyfully. They had everything at hand and did not need to worry much about living. Berries and nuts grew plentiful in the forest. Rivers and springs provided the elves with crystal water. Flowers prepared them drink from their flavorful juices, which the munchkins loved greatly.
At midnight the elves climbed into flower cups and drank drops of their sweet water with much delight. Every elf would tell a wonderful fairy tale to the flower to thank it for the treat.
Despite this abundance, the pixies did not sit back and do nothing. They tinkered with their tasks all day long. They cleaned their houses. They swung on tree branches and swam in forested streams. Together with the early birds, they welcomed the sunrise, listened to the thunder growling, the whispering of leaves and blades of grass, and the conversations of the animals.
The birds told them about warm countries, sunbeams whispered of distant seas, and the moon spoke of treasures hidden deeply in the earth.
In winter, the elves lived in abandoned nests and hollows. Every sunny day they came out of their burrows and made the forest ring with their happy shouts, throwing tiny snowballs in all directions and building snowmen as small as the pinky finger of a little girl. The munchkins thought they were giants five times as large as them.
With the first breath of spring, the elves left their winter residences and moved to the cups of the snowdrop flowers. Looking around, they watched the snow as it turned black and melted. They kept an eye on the blossoming of hazel trees while the leaves were still sleeping in their warm buds. They observed squirrels moving their last winter supplies from storage back to their homes. Gnomes welcomed the birds coming back to their old nests, where the elves lived during winters. Little by little, the forest once more grew green.
One moonlight night, elves were sitting at an old willow tree and listening to mermaids singing about their underwater kingdom.
“Brothers! Where is Murzilka? He has not been around for a long time!” said one of the elves, Father Beardie, who had a long white beard. He was older than others and well respected in his striped stocking cap.
“I’m here,” a snotty voice arose, and Murzilka himself, nicknamed Feather Head, jumped from the top of the tree. All the brothers loved Murzilka, but thought he was lazy, as he actually was. Also, he loved to dress in a tailcoat, tall black hat, boots with narrow toes, a cane and a single eyeglass, being very proud of that look.
“Do you know where I’m coming from? The very Arctic Ocean!” roared he.
Usually, his words were hard to believe. That time, though, his announcement sounded so marvelous that all elves around him were agape with wonder.
“You were there, really? Were you? How did you get there?” asked the sprites.
“As easy as ABC! I came by the fox one day and caught her packing her things to visit her cousin, a silver fox who lives by the Arctic Ocean.
“Take me with you,” I said to the fox.
“Oh, no, you’ll freeze there! You know, it’s cold there!” she said.
“Come on.” I said. “What are you talking about? What cold? Summer is here.”
“Here we have summer, but there they have winter,” she answered.
“No,” I thought. “She must be lying because she does not want to give me a ride.”
Without telling her a word, I jumped upon her back and hid in her bushy fur, so even Father Frost could not find me.
Like it or not, she had to take me with her.
We ran for a long time. Another forest followed our woods, and then a boundless plain opened, a swamp covered with lichen and moss. Despite the intense heat, it had not entirely thawed.
“This is tundra,” said my fellow traveler.
“Tundra? What is tundra?” asked I.
“Tundra is a huge, forever frozen wetland covering the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean.
”
”
Anna Khvolson
“
In the Thriving Season
In memory of my mother
Now as she catches fistfuls of sun
riding down dust and air to her crib,
my first child in her first spring
stretches bare hands back to your darkness
and heals your silence, the vast hurt
of your deaf ear and mute tongue
with doves hatched in her young throat.
Now ghost-begotten infancies
are the marrow of trees and pools
and blue uprisings in the woods
spread revolution to the mind,
I can believe birth is fathered
by death, believe that she was quick
when you forgave pain and terror
and shook the fever from your blood
Now in the thriving season of love
when the bud relents into flower,
your love turned absence has turned once more,
and if my comforts fall soft as rain
on her flutters, it is because
love grows by what it remembers of love.
”
”
Lisel Mueller (Alive Together)
“
Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,–if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn's hedgerows; the same redbreasts that we used to call "God's birds," because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?
The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows,–such things as these are the mother-tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle, inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into love.
”
”
George Eliot
“
The maid deposits a printed, cotton cushion on the floor in front of the alcove-recess, invites the guest to be seated in that place of honor, and then removes herself. Suzuki first inspects the room. He begins by examining the scroll displayed in the alcove: its Chinese characters, allegedly written by Mokuan, that master calligrapher of the Zen sect, are, of course, faked, but they state that flowers are in bloom and that spring is come to all the world. He next turns his attention to some early-flowering cherry-blossoms arranged in one of those celadon vases which they turn out cheap in Kyoto. Then, when his roving glance chances to fall upon the cushion provided for his particular convenience, what should he find but, planted serenely smack in its center, a squatting cat. I need hardly add that the cat in question is my lordly self.
”
”
Natsume Sōseki (I Am A Cat (Tuttle Classics))
“
The holy well was before them. If it hadn't been marked as special, the place where the water came to the surface, fresh and clean and clear, would have been easily missed. But long ago, someone had built a stone border around it and added a vertical font with a woman's worn face on it. Water poured from her open mouth into the pool below. Little white moss flowers grew all around it.
A few yards away was a craggy standing stone. The stone was twice as tall as Merida and covered all over with carved spirals. On the first day of spring solstice, the sun lit up a perfect trail of light along the stone as it rose; quite magical. Merida used to ride Angus to the stone when she was first learning all the wilds of DunBroch; it was so impressive that it had taken her several visits to realize that the holy well, not the stone, was the reason this path was kept clear.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Bravely)
“
Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children's hands, in front-yard plots—now standing by wallsides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests;—the last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them, and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown man's garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died—blossoming as fair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, civil, cheerful lilac colors.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
“
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.
”
”
Virgil (The Eclogues)
“
While the others tended the flowers outside, the kitchen was her garden, where feasts and banquets bloomed. At twenty-six, she couldn't imagine ever loving anything as much as cooking. Nothing fancy though; no big white plates and tiny morsels. Candy cooked to feed the soul. Flavor and quantity were of equal importance. She had become Thornfield's resident cook when she dropped out of high school and convinced June she was safe with knives. It's in your blood, Twig said after a bite of her first cassava cake, fresh from the oven. These are your gifts, June said when Candy served her first platter of spring rolls with mango chutney, made from homegrown vegetables and herbs. It was true; when she was cooking or baking, it was almost as if a deeper, hidden knowledge took over her hands, her instincts, her tastebuds. She thrived in the kitchen, spurred by the idea that maybe her mother was a chef, or her father a baker. Cooking soothed the incision-like cut she felt inside whenever she thought that she might never know.
”
”
Holly Ringland (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart)
“
I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow
”
”
James Joyce (Ulysses)
“
The Herb Farm reminded Marguerite of the farms in France; it was like a farm in a child's picture book. There was a white wooden fence that penned in sheep and goats, a chicken coop where a dozen warm eggs cost a dollar, a red barn for the two bay horses, and a greenhouse. Half of the greenhouse did what greenhouses do, while the other half had been fashioned into very primitive retail space. The vegetables were sold from wooden crates, all of them grown organically, before such a process even had a name- corn, tomatoes, lettuces, seventeen kinds of herbs, squash, zucchini, carrots with the bushy tops left on, spring onions, radishes, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries for two short weeks in June, pumpkins after the fifteenth of September. There was chèvre made on the premises from the milk of the goats; there was fresh butter. And when Marguerite showed up for the first time in the summer of 1975 there was a ten-year-old boy who had been given the undignified job of cutting zinnias, snapdragons, and bachelor buttons and gathering them into attractive-looking bunches.
”
”
Elin Hilderbrand (The Love Season)
“
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, no more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark
ply traffic on the sea, but every land shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook; the sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer, nor wool with varying colours learn to lie; but in the meadows shall the ram himself, now with soft flush of purple, now with tint
of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine. While clothed in natural scarlet graze the lambs.
”
”
Virgil (The Eclogues)
“
were more than mere insects. Over time I realized the bees could tell my emotional or energetic state. When I embodied kindness around them, they treated me with the same. A cloud of exuberance surrounded us, as though the bees were templating euphoria into the air. I want you to know I didn’t just tear off my bee suit one day and “become one with the bees.” That took years. But eventually I did retire my bee suit. The first time I walked right up to the hives wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, I felt a bit anxious and self-absorbed, but then I remembered to turn my thoughts away from myself, to open myself to the bees and let them feel me out — which they did. They landed on my bare arms and licked my skin for the salty minerals. When I held a finger next to the entrance, a sweet little bee delicately walked onto my fingertip and faced me. She looked right into my eyes, and for the first time, we saw each other. And so I became part of bee life. Becoming Kin I soon found myself having more intuition about the hives. One morning in early spring, before the flowers had come into bloom, I suddenly had the idea that I should check one of my hives. I found the bees unexpectedly out of food; so I fed them honey saved from the year before. That call I intuitively heard from the hive likely saved its life. Another time I had the feeling that a distant hive in the east pasture was on the verge of swarming. When I walked up to see, sure enough, they were. Events like this taught me to trust my intuition more, and listening to my intuition continues to bring me into a closer relationship with all the hives. In my sixth year with bees, something new happened. I had begun a morning practice of contemplation, quieting my mind and opening my heart. I entered this prayerful state, asking for guidance, direction, courage, and truth. Even though I didn’t mention honeybees, they immediately began appearing in my thoughts and passing me information I had never read or learned from other sources. I believe the sincerity of my questions opened a door. When the information began coming to me, I listened with attentiveness, respect, and gratitude. The more I listened, the more information they shared. Since my first intuitive conversation with the bees, I have had many others. At first I didn’t know how to explain where the information came from, and that bothered me. I told my husband’s
”
”
Jacqueline Freeman (Song of Increase: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World)
“
As soon as he was out of sight, Gui pulled the macaron mixture towards him, and took a deep breath. He whipped it back and forth, beads of sweat springing on his forehead as his arm muscles released and contracted. When it was almost ready, he reached up for the shelf where the spices and colors were kept. Carefully, he brought down the bottle of 'creme de violette,' the jar of delicate, dried violets, their petals sparkling with sugar.
In tiny drops, he measured the purple liqueur into the mixture. He was acting on impulse, yet at the same time he felt certain, as though his first teacher, Monsieur Careme, was with him, guiding his steps. The scent reached up as he stirred, heady and sweet as a meadow, deep as lingering perfume in a midnight room. Hands shaking, he piped the mixture onto a tray in tiny rounds, enough to make six, one for each day that he and Jeanne would have to make it through before they could be together for the rest of their lives.
Maurice was delayed talking to Josef, and by the time he returned, Gui was putting the finishing touches to his creations, filling them with a vanilla cream from the cold room, balancing one, tiny, sugar-frosted violet flower upon each.
”
”
Laura Madeleine (The Confectioner's Tale)
“
Around the glade this pair of woodland nymphs danced. He swept her in a waltz to a duet that was sometimes off tune, sometimes rent with giggling and laughter as they made their own music. A breathless Erienne fell to a sun-dappled hummock of deep, soft moss, and laughing for the pure thrill of the day, she spread her arms, creating a comely yellow-hued flower on the dark green sward while seeming every bit as fragile as a blossom to the man who watched her. With bliss-bedazzled eyes, she gazed through the treetops overhead where swaying branches, bedecked in the first bright green of spring, caressed the underbellies of the freshlet zephyrs, and the fleecy white clouds raced like frolicking sheep across an azure lea. Small birds played courting games, and the earlier ones tended nests with single-minded perseverance. A sprightly squirrel leapt across the spaces, and a larger one followed, bemused at the sudden coyness of his mate. Christopher came to Erienne and sank to his knees on the thick, soft carpet, then bracing his hands on either side of her, slowly lowered himself until his chest touched her bosom. For a long moment he kissed those blushing lips that opened to him and welcomed him with an eagerness that belied the once-cool maid. Then he lifted her arm and lay beside her, keeping her hand in his as he shared her viewpoint of the day. They whispered sweet inanities, talked of dreams, hopes, and other things, as lovers are wont to do. Erienne turned on her side and taking care to keep her hand in the warm nest, ran her other fingers through his tousled hair.
“You need a shearing, milord,” she teased. He rolled his head until he could look up into those amethyst eyes. “And does my lady see me as an innocent lamb ready to be clipped?”
At her doubtful gaze, he questioned further. “Or rather a lusting, long-maned beast? A zealous suitor come to seduce you?”
Erienne’s eyes brightened, and she nodded quickly to his inquiry.
“A love-smitten swain? A silver-armored knight upon a white horse charging down to rescue you?”
“Aye, all of that,” she agreed through a giggle. She came to her knees and grasped his shirt front with both hands. “All of that and more.” She bent to place a honeyed kiss upon his lips, then sitting back, spoke huskily. “I see you as my husband, as the father of my child, as my succor against the storm, protector of my home, and lord of yonder manse. But most of all, I see you as the love of my life.”
-Erienne & Christopher
”
”
Kathleen E. Woodiwiss (A Rose in Winter)
“
Oh doors of your body
There are nine and I have opened them all
Oh doors of your body
There are nine and for me they have all closed again
At the first door
Clear Reason has died
It was do you remember? the first day in Nice
Your left eye like a snake slides
Even my heart
And let the door of your left gaze open again
At the second door
All my strength has died
It was do you remember? in a hostel in Cagnes
Your right eye was beating like my heart
Your eyelids throbbed like flowers beat in the breeze
And let the door of your right gaze open again
At the third door
Hear the aorta beat
And all my arteries swollen from your only love
And let the door of your left ear be reopened
At the fourth gate
They escort me every spring
And listening listening to the beautiful forest
Upload this song of love and nests
So sad for the soldiers who are at war
And let the door of your right ear reopen
At the fifth gate
It is my life that I bring you
It was do you remember? on the train returning from Grasse
And in the shade, very close, very short
Your mouth told me
Words of damnation so wicked and so tender
What do I ask of my wounded soul
How could I hear them without dying
Oh words so sweet so strong that when I think about it I seem to touch them
And let the door of your mouth open again
At the sixth gate
Your gestation of putrefaction oh War is aborting
Behold all the springs with their flowers
Here are the cathedrals with their incense
Here are your armpits with their divine smell
And your perfumed letters that I smell
During hours
And let the door on the left side of your nose be reopened
At the seventh gate
Oh perfumes of the past that the current of air carries away
The saline effluvia gave your lips the taste of the sea
Marine smell smell of love under our windows the sea was dying
And the smell of the orange trees enveloped you with love
While in my arms you cuddled
Still and quiet
And let the door on the right side of your nose be reopened
At the eighth gate
Two chubby angels care for the trembling roses they bear
The exquisite sky of your elastic waist
And here I am armed with a whip made of moonbeams
Hyacinth-crowned loves arrive in droves.
And let the door of your soul open again
With the ninth gate
Love itself must come out
Life of my life
I join you for eternity
And for the perfect love without anger
We will come to pure and wicked passion
According to what we want
To know everything to see everything to hear
I gave up in the deep secret of your love
Oh shady gate oh living coral gate
Between two columns of perfection
And let the door open again that your hands know how to open so well
”
”
Guillaume Apollinaire
“
They say the world will end soon.
They say that the nuclear weapons made,
Due to fearing ‘the other’,
Have become a curse, a plague, a scourge
On those who made them
Even more than those they were made to scare...
And I wonder:
Will the nuclear weapons be the cause of the world’s end?
Or will the world’s end be caused by humanity’s fear, complicity, and submission?
And if what they say is true,
Before the world ends and before I die,
I wish to drink one last cup of cardamom-flavored tea
Taste one last fig, peach, or apricot,
Smell a quince,
Dip one last piece of bread
In Palestinian thyme and olive oil…
Before the world ends,
I wish to smell a few pine needles,
To breathe the smell of the first rain shower
After a long, hot, and dry summer…
Before the world ends and before I die,
I wish to read one more book
Out of the thousands of books that I still want to read…
Before the world ends and before I die,
I ask for one more spring
To smell bunches of Iraqi narcissus flowers.
I want to live one more autumn,
To enjoy the magical colors
Of the dying leaves on the trees
As they challenge death with beauty
Right before falling on the grounds of indifference…
But my biggest wish before I die is
For my death not to be the end of the world…
[Original poem published in Arabic by ahewar.org on October 13, 2022]
”
”
Louis Yako
“
Cups and Rings and Drawings.
I stopped by a famed park,
Picked a blank sheet
And drew a cup.
For me, it represented me holding myself up in a storm,
It represented the start of life,
Something to pour out every lesson learnt
Out of every misfortune we’ve ever been.
The cup — the container to hold chocolate drink
Water. Wine and strawberries.
I drew a ring,
A marriage between blessing and joy
The bloom of flowers in spring
The sprouting of leaves in midsummer
And the smell of fresh grasses at night.
I drew Monalisa
I painted art
I became Michaelangelo
Da Vinci
I became the Renaissance
I healed through art
“Don’t you know that you are gods?”
So the first day,
I cleared the storms out of my life.
The second day,
I dried all my tears
The third day,
I reinvented myself.
The fourth day,
I finally remembered what it felt like to be happy
Like two children drawing arts on a canvass.
Delilah & Annabelle
Arts curled out of girls trying to reinvent the world
Or the colours of the rainbow.
The fifth day,
I opened the windows wide
To let the lights shine in.
“When I’m down on my knees you’re how I pray.”
The sixth day
I created my favourite masterpiece — Baroque.
The seventh day,
I admired myself in the mirror.
I missed me
I missed the time I had so much optimism
I miss you
And I miss writing so innocently.
”
”
J.Y. Frimpong
“
MARSYAS:
There are seven keys to the great gate,
Being eight in one and one in eight.
First, let the body of thee be still,
Bound by the cerements of will,
Corpse-rigid; thus thou mayst abort
The fidget-babes that tease the thought.
Next, let the breath-rhythm be low,
Easy, regular, and slow;
So that thy being be in tune
With the great sea's Pacific swoon.
Third, let thy life be pure and calm
Swayed softly as a well-to-live be bound
To the one love of the Profound.
Fifth, let the thought, divinely free
From sense, observe its entity.
Watch every thought that springs; enhance
Hour after hour thy vigilance!
Intense and keen, turned inward, miss
No atom of analysis!
Sixth, on one thought securely pinned
Still every whisper of the wind!
So like a flame straight and unstirred
Burn up thy being in one word!
Next, still that ecstasy, prolong
Thy meditation steep and strong,
Slaying even God, should He distract
Thy attention from the chosen act!
Last, all these things in one o'erpowered,
Time that the midnight blossom flowered!
The oneness is. Yet even in this,
My son, though shalt not do amiss
If thou restrain the expression, shoot
Thy glance to rapture's darkling root,
Discarding name, form, sight, and stress
Even of this high consciousness;
Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here:
Thou art the Master. I revere
Thy radiance that rolls afar,
O Brother of the Silver Star!
”
”
Aleister Crowley (Aha!)
“
God took His time to carve out the perfect place, Sam remembered her grandma always saying.
Indeed, the hilltop was akin to a real cherry on top of a stunningly picturesque sundae. Bayview Point was home to two of northern Michigan's most popular orchards and tourist stops: Very Cherry Orchards and her family's Orchard and Pie Pantry. The first half of the hill was dense with rows of tart cherry trees, and the limbs of the small, bushy trees were bursting with cherries, red arms waving at Sam as if to greet her home.
In the spring, these trees were filled with white blossoms that slowly turned as pink as a perfect rosé, their beauty so tender that it used to make Sam's heart ache when she would run through the orchards as part of her high school cross-country training.
Often, when Sam ran, the spring winds would tear at the tender flowers and make it look as though it were snowing in the midst of a beautiful warm day.
Like every good native, Sam knew cherries had a long history in northern Michigan. French settlers had cherry trees in their gardens, and a missionary planted the very first cherry trees on Old Mission Peninsula.
Very Cherry Orchards grew nearly 100 acres of Montmorency tart cherries in addition to Balaton cherries, black sweet cherries, plums, and nectarines. They sold their fruit to U-Pickers as well as large companies that made pies, but they had also become famous for their tart cherry juice concentrate, now sold at grocery and health food stores across the United States. People loved it for its natural health benefits, rich in antioxidants.
”
”
Viola Shipman (The Recipe Box)
“
AFTER THE DELUGE AS SOON as the idea of the Deluge had subsided, A hare stopped in the clover and swaying flower-bells, and said a prayer to the rainbow, through the spider’s web. Oh! the precious stones that began to hide,—and the flowers that already looked around. In the dirty main street, stalls were set up and boats were hauled toward the sea, high tiered as in old prints. Blood flowed at Blue Beard’s,—through slaughterhouses, in circuses, where the windows were blanched by God’s seal. Blood and milk flowed. Beavers built. “Mazagrans” smoked in the little bars. In the big glass house, still dripping, children in mourning looked at the marvelous pictures. A door banged; and in the village square the little boy waved his arms, understood by weather vanes and cocks on steeples everywhere, in the bursting shower. Madame *** installed a piano in the Alps. Mass and first communions were celebrated at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral. Caravans set out. And Hotel Splendid was built in the chaos of ice and of the polar night. Ever after the moon heard jackals howling across the deserts of thyme, and eclogues in wooden shoes growling in the orchard. Then in the violet and budding forest, Eucharis told me it was spring. Gush, pond,—Foam, roll on the bridge and over the woods;—black palls and organs, lightning and thunder, rise and roll;—waters and sorrows rise and launch the Floods again. For since they have been dissipated—oh! the precious stones being buried and the opened flowers!—it’s unbearable! and the Queen, the Witch who lights her fire in the earthen pot will never tell us what she knows, and what we do not know.
”
”
Arthur Rimbaud (Illuminations: Prose poems (New Directions Paperbook, No. 56))
“
it’s one of the great sunrises in all literature. Mark Twain: from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . . . then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bull-frogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line—that was the woods on t’other side—you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness, spreading around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along, ever so far away—trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks—rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled-up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by-and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there’s a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t’other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish laying around, gars, and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you’ve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Steering The Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story)
“
Beauty
Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed,
Without a trace of light or life revealed,
Save one existence which second knew-
Unknown the pleasant words of We and You.
Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free,
Seen of herself, with naught beside to see,
With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower
Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower.
No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress,
No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness
No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known,
To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown.
No heightening hand had decked the rose with green,
No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen.
No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair,
No eye in thought had seen the splendour there.
Her witching snares in solitude she laid,
And love's sweet game without a partner played.
But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power
She springs indignant from her curtained bower.
She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard,
And from the window looks if doors be barred.
See how the tulip on the mountain grown
Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown,
Bursts from the rock, impatient to display
Her nascent beauty to the eye of day.
When sudden to thy soul reflection brings
The precious meaning of mysterious things,
Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain;
Speak, hear thou must, for silence is such pain.
So beauty ne'er will quit the urgent claim
Whose motive first from heavenly beauty came
When from her blessed bower she fondly strayed,
And to the world and man her charms displayed.
In every mirror then her face was shown,
Her praise in every place was heard and known.
Touched by her light, the hearts of angels burned,
And, like the circling spheres, their heads were turned,
While saintly bands, whom purest at the sight of her,
And those who bathe them in the ocean sky
Cries out enraptured, "Laud to God on high!"
Rays of her splendour lit the rose's breast
And stirred the bulbul's heart with sweet unrest.
From her bright glow its cheek the flambeau fired,
And myriad moths around the flame expired.
Her glory lent the very sun the ray
Which wakes the lotus on the flood to-day.
Her loveliness made Laila's face look fair
To Majnún, fettered by her every hair.
She opened Shírín's sugared lips, and stole
From Parvíz' breast and brave Farhád's the soul.
Through her his head the Moon of Canaan raised,
And fond Zulaikha perished as she gazed.
Yes, though she shrinks from earthly lovers' call,
Eternal Beauty is the queen of all;
In every curtained bower the screen she holds,
About each captured heart her bonds enfolds.
Through her sweet love the heart its life retains,
The soul through love of her its object gains.
The heart which maidens' gentle witcheries stir
Is, though unconscious, fired with love of her.
Refrain from idle speech; mistake no more:
She brings her chains and we, her slaves, adore.
Fair and approved of Love, thou still must own
That gift of beauty comes from her alone.
Thou art concealed: she meets all lifted eyes;
Thou art the mirror which she beautifies.
She is that mirror, if we closely view
The truth- the treasure and the treasury too.
But thou and I- our serious work is naught;
We waste our days unmoved by earnest thought.
Cease, or my task will never end, for her
Sweet beauties lack a meet interpreter.
Then let us still the slaves of love remain
For without love we live in vain, in vain.
Jámí, "Yúsuf and Zulaikha". trans. Ralph T. H. Griffith. Ballantyne Press 1882. London. p.19-22
”
”
Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī
“
While they fought for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and beauty of their drowned man. They let him go without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished and whenever he wished, and they all held their breath for the fraction of centuries the body took to fall into the abyss. They did not need to look at one another to realize that they were no longer all present, that they would never be. But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban's memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams and so that no one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally died, too bad, the handsome fool has finally died, because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to make Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun's so bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over there, that's Esteban's village.
”
”
Gabriel García Márquez (El ahogado más hermoso del mundo)
“
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Inly do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.
”
”
Virgil (The Eclogues)
“
Each year before the first rain after the harvest in Spring, I would look at the dry peach tree that I know so well at our backyard and anticipating that in summer it will be covered in an overgrown hedge unless my father who was a committed gardner of note take a weekend off from Jo'burg during the pruning season to prune it. Even now, I still remember with crystal clarity my childhood mood - warm days in Schoonoord with rich nostalgia of green scenery and flowers flowering everywhere.
One evening I was sitting at the veranda of our firehut looking at the orange tree between the plat (flat - roofed) house and the big L - shaped house - the tree served as a shelter from the sun for the drinking water pot next to the plat house - suddenly the weather changed, the wind howled, the tree swayed, the loose corrugated iron sheets on roof of he house clattered and clanged, the open windows shuts with a bang and the sky made night a day, and I was overwhelmed with that feeling of childhood joy at the approaching rain. All of a sudden, the deafening of steady pouring rain. The raging storm beat the orange tree leaves while I sat there remembering that where the orange tree stood used to be our first house, a small triangular shaped mokhukhu ((tin house) made of red painted corrugated iron sheets salvaged from demolishing site in Witbank, also remembering that my aunt's mokhukhu was also made of the same type and colour of corrugated iron sheets. The ashen ground drunk merily until it was quenched and the floods started rolling down Leolo Mountains, and what one could hear above the deafening steady pouring rain was the bellowing of the nearby Manyane Dale, and if it was daylight one could have seen the noble Sebilwane River rolling in sullen glide. After about fifteen minutes of steady downpour, and rumbling sounds, the storm went away in a series of small, badly lit battle scenes.
”
”
Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
“
It? I ast.
Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It.
But what do it look like? I ast.
Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose.
She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.
Shug! I say.
Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God love 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going and praise God by liking what you like.
God don't think it dirty? I ast.
Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love - and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else. God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
”
”
Alice Walker (The Color Purple)
“
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, no more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark ply traffic on the sea, but every land shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook; the sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer, nor wool with varying colours learn to lie; but in the meadows shall the ram himself, now with soft flush of purple, now with tint
of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine.
”
”
Virgil (The Eclogues)
“
He felt it. Misery, we must insist, had been good to him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, is so far magnificent that it turns the whole will towards effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty strips the material life entirely bare, and makes it hideous; thence arise inexpressible yearnings towards the ideal life. The rich young man has a hundred brilliant and coarse amusements, racing, hunting, dogs, cigars, gaming, feasting, and the rest; busying the lower portions of the soul at the expense of its higher and delicate portions. The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing more but reverie. He goes free to the play which God gives; he beholds the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, the humanity in which he suffers, the creation in which he shines. He looks at humanity so much that he sees the soul, he looks at creation so much that he sees God. He dreams, he feels that he is great; he dreams again, and he feels that he is tender. From the egotism of the suffering man, he passes to the compassion of the contemplating man. A wonderful feeling springs up within him, forgetfulness of self, and pity for all. In thinking of the numberless enjoyments which nature offers, gives, and gives lavishly to open souls, and refuses to closed souls, he, a millionaire of intelligence, comes to grieve for the millionaires of money. All hatred goes out of his heart in proportion as all light enters his mind. And then is he unhappy? No. The misery of a young man is never miserable. The first lad you meet, poor as he may be, with his health, his strength, his quick step, his shining eyes, his blood which circulates warmly, his black locks, his fresh cheeks, his rosy lips, his white teeth, his pure breath, will always be envied by an old emperor. And then every morning he sets about earning his bread; and while his hands are earning his living, his backbone is gaining firmness, his brain is gaining ideas. When his work is done, he returns to ineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joy; he sees his feet in difficulties, in obstacle, on the pavement, in thorns, sometimes in the mire; his head is in the light. He is firm, serene, gentle, peaceful, attentive, serious, content with little, benevolent; and he blesses God for having given him these two estates which many of the rich are without; labour which makes him free, and thought which makes him noble. This is what had taken place in Marius.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
I would rather face the devil himself than that man,” Elizabeth said with a repressed shudder.
“I daresay,” Lucinda agreed, clutching her umbrella with one hand and the side of the cart with her other.
The nearer the time came, the more angry and confused Elizabeth became about this meeting. For the first four days of their journey, her tension had been greatly allayed by the scenic grandeur of Scotland with its rolling hills and deep valleys carpeted in bluebells and hawthorne. Now, however, as the hour of confronting him drew near, not even the sight of the mountains decked out in spring flowers or the bright blue lakes below could calm her mounting tension. “Furthermore, I cannot believe he has the slightest desire to see me.”
“We shall soon find out.”
In the hills above the high, winding track that passed for a road, a shepherd paused to gape at an old wooden wagon making its laborious way along the road below. “Lookee there, Will,” he told his brother. “Do you see what I see?”
The brother looked down and gaped, his lips parting in a toothless grin of glee at the comical sight of two ladies-bonnets, gloves, and all-who were perched primly and precariously on the back of Sean MacLaesh’s haywagon, their backs ramrod-stiff, their feet sticking straight out beyond the wagon.
“Don’t that beat all,” Will laughed, and high above the haywagon he swept off his cap in a mocking salute to the ladies. “I heered in the village Ian Thornton was acomin’ home. I’ll wager ‘e’s arrived, and them two are his fancy pieces, come to warm ‘is bed an’ see to ‘is needs.”
Blessedly unaware of the conjecture taking place between the two spectators up in the hills, Miss Throckmorton-Jones brushed angrily and ineffectually at the coating of dust clinging to her black skirts. “I have never in all my life been subjected to such treatment!” she hissed furiously as the wagon they were riding in gave another violet, creaking lurch and her shoulder banged into Elizabeth’s. “You may depend on this-I shall give Mr. Ian Thornton a piece of my mind for inviting two gentlewomen to this godforsaken wilderness, and never even mentioning that a traveling baroche is too wide for the roads!”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something soothing, but just then the wagon gave another teeth-jarring lurch, and she clutched at the wooden side. “From what little I know of him, Lucy,” she managed finally when the wagon righted, “he wouldn’t care in the least what we’ve been through. He’s rude and inconsiderate-and those are his good points-“
“Whoa there, whoa,” the farmer called out, sawing back on the swayback nags reins and bringing the wagon to a groaning stop. “That’s the Thornton place up there atop yon hill,” the farmer said, pointing.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
Elizabeth?” Ian said in a clipped voice.
She whirled around, her heart slamming against her ribs, her hand flying to her throat, her knees turning to jelly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You-you startled me,” she said as he strolled up to her, his expression oddly impassive. “I didn’t expect you to come here,” she added nervously.
“Really?” he mocked. “Whom did you expect after that note-the Prince of Wales?”
The note! Crazily, her first thought after realizing ti was from him, not Valerie, was that for an articulate man his handwriting verged on the illiterate. Her second thought was that he seemed angry about something. He didn’t keep her long in doubt as to the reason.
“Suppose you tell me how, during the entire afternoon we spent together, you neglected to mention that you are Lady Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth wondered a little frantically how he’d feel if he knew she was the Countess of Havenhurst, not merely the eldest daughter of some minor noble or knight.
“Start talking, love. I’m listening.”
Elizabeth backed away a step.
“Since you don’t want to talk,” he bit out, reaching for her arms, “is this all you wanted from me?”
“No!” she said hastily, backing out of his reach. “I’d rather talk.”
He stepped forward, and Elizabeth took another step backward, exclaiming, “I mean, there are so many interesting topics for conversation, are there not?”
“Are there?” he asked, moving forward again.
“Yes,” she exclaimed, taking two steps back this time. Snatching at the first topic she could think of, she pointed to the table of hyacinths beside her and exclaimed, “A-Aren’t these hyacinths lovely?”
“Lovely,” he agreed without looking at them, and he reached for her shoulders, obviously intending to draw her forward.
Elizabeth jumped back so swiftly that his fingers merely grazed the gauze fabric of her gown. “Hyacinths,” she babbled with frantic determination as he began stalking her step for step, pas the table of potted pansies, past the table of potted lilies, “are part of genus Hyacinthus, although the cultivated variety, which we have here, is commonly called the Dutch hyacinth, which is part of H. orientalis-“
“Elizabeth,” he interrupted silkily, “I’m not interested in flowers.” He reached for her again, and Elizabeth, in a frantic attempt to evade his grasp, snatched up a pot of hyacinths and dumped it into his outstretched hands.
“There is a mythological background to hyacinths that you may find more interesting than the flower itself,” she continued fiercely, and an indescribable expression of disbelief, amusement, and fascination suddenly seemed to flicker across his face. “You see, the hyacinth is actually named for a handsome Spartan youth-Hyacinthus-who was loved by Apollo and by Zephyrus, god of the west wind. One day Zephyrus was teaching Hyacinthus to throw the discus, and he accidentally killed him. It is said that Hyacinthus’s blood caused a flower to spring up, and each petal was inscribed with the Greek exclamation of sorrow.” Her voice trembled a little as he purposefully set the pot of hyacinths on the table. “A-Actually, the flower that sprang up would have been the iris or larkspur, not the modern hyacinth, but that is how it earned its name.”
“Fascinating.” His unfathomable eyes locked onto hers.
Elizabeth knew he was referring to her and not the history of the hyacinth, and though she commanded herself to move out of his reach, her legs refused to budge.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
ave you noticed the focus these days is back on the simple things of life? What's the first thing you do when you pick a rose? You smell the fragrance. Maybe it brings back a memory of the time you picked flowers for your mom. Perhaps it's time to recapture some of that girlhood simplicity.
A lavender sachet in your drawer can be an unexpected and simple pleasure. Spray a little cologne on your notepaper or even on the bathroom throw rug. Or better yet, boil a little pot of cinnamon and enjoy the aroma. Put on lively music while you do your housework. Light candles for a quiet yet festive atmosphere. When we find satisfaction in the little things in life, we are happier and more willing to look for the positive in bigger things.
olor in your home can make a world of difference. It can help you redefine spaces. If an area is too large, add a throw rug in a complementary color and create a "get together" spot. Add some soft colored curtains for a change of seasons. The idea is to create intimacy, a place that's inviting on a chilly evening or a warm spring afternoon. The richer the colors, the more welcoming the space. Red is great for warmth. Go for it! And shades of cranberry and plum work well. Experiment and step out of your comfort zone. Your home can be a place that gives you a feeling of quiet for thinking about what really counts in life and also be a festive atmosphere for celebrating.
on't put all your emotional eggs in one basket. Our work consumes much of our time, and that's natural. And for some of you, that's 95 percent of your awake hours. Is it time to change your focus-to make life a little easier and less stressful for
”
”
Emilie Barnes (365 Things Every Woman Should Know)
“
Some say that the spiritual founder of the Rosicrucians was Paracelsus himself. In Huser's edition of his Prognostication Concerning the Next Twenty-four Years there is a woodcut of a child looking toward a heap of Paracelsus's books, some inscribed with a capital R and one bearing the word Rosa. But the significance of this imagery for the Rosicrucians seems spurious.* The rose that the secret society chose as its symbol is in fact derived from the emblem of Martin Luther, in which a heart and cross spring from the center of the flower. The movement began as a society of Protestant Paracelsians founded by the alchemist Johann Valentin Andreae of Herrenberg.
*The Paracelsus connection remains puzzling, however. In the first edition of the Philosophia Magna, published by Birckmann in 1567, the Hirschvogel woodcut of Paracelsus appears in modified form with various strange images in the background that later became clearly associated with Rosicrucianism, such as a child's head emerging from a cleft in the ground. What is the significance of these symbols, fifty years before the Rosicrucian movement came into the open?
”
”
Philip Ball (The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science)
“
THEY CALLED HIM “Ponce de León” because he acted as though he could conquer anything and anyone. He enchanted every young woman that came his way with piropos (pick-up lines) and clever sweet talk.
“Has spring started? I just saw the first flower!” Antonio whispered as he walked by a group of blushing young ladies, tipping off his white Panama hat as a silent ‘How do you do?’
He was never at a loss for words.
“What are you doing out this morning? Don’t you know that stars only come out at night?” was one of his favorite lines. And he had many.
On a good day.
”
”
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini (Antonio's Will)
“
No violinist can beat him. I've listened hours. It makes you think of your sins. An' then it'll change an' you remember your first sweetheart, an' spring rains and flowers, an' when you was a child on your mother's knee. It tears your heart out.
”
”
Edward Lucas White (The Snout)
“
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow everywhere descending
”
”
E.E. Cummings
“
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow everywhere descending
”
”
E.E. Cummings
“
There was a stir of music,
Mixed with flowers, in her blood;
A swift impulsive balm
From obscure roots;
Gold bees of clinging light
Swarmed in her brow.
Her throat is full of songs,
She hums, she is sensible of wings
Growing on her heart.
She is a tree in spring
Trembling with the hope of leaves,
Of which the leaves are tongues.
— Stanley Kunitz, from “First Love,” The Collected Poems (W. W. Norton & Co., 2000)
”
”
Stanley Kunitz (The Collected Poems)
“
The crown atop his head gleamed in the afternoon light. Crafted with emeralds, sapphires, and amethyst, the gold had been moulded into a wreath of spring's first flowers.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
Adam's marvelous eyes, which learned to see, saw how the atoms--new, brand new--began to trace their orbits, still hesitantly, not knowing how to function. Colors shone one by one, in the gentle fluoride tones that they would never recover when they matured. Space stretched out, dimensions scampered along hallways of burnished ozone, like small children looking for toys. Time had not stopped tightening the spring that it would later release a little at a time. Adam could almost touch the edge of the universe, which was expanding like the corolla of a flower preparing to be the All. Forms were born, wrapped in the shimmering dampness, they grew sharper as they felt their way along, successively adopting the line, the plane, volume, aligning themselves in the perspective of an infinite trompe l'oeil. Gravity intervened and each thing making its debut found its place--mountains and suns, galaxies and roses. Adam heard the first birdsong.
”
”
César Aira (Artforum)
“
It lives in my imagination strongly that the black oak is pleased to be a black oak. I mean all of them, but in particular one tree that leads me into Blackwater, that is as shapely as a flower, that I have often hugged and put my lips to. Maybe it is a hundred years old. And who knows what it dreamed of in the first springs of its life, escaping the cottontail’s teeth and everything dangerous else. Who knows when supreme patience took hold, and the wind’s wandering among its leaves was enough of motion, of travel.
”
”
Mary Oliver (Upstream: Selected Essays)
“
The room where she now stayed faced out on to a garden that was yellowed with the parched desolation of winter. The dried and leafless stalks of flowers that had bloomed in the summer stood black against the world that did not want them any more, and of whose existence they had forgotten long ago, after the last flowers had faded. Hannah Theron felt at home with these tattered stalks. Her life hung in the same sort of tatters. Only she still tried to cover herself with the rags. That was where she felt that the winter-tarnished stalks standing in a hard bitterness in a garden that did not want them any more were stronger than she was. They were defiant and they did not care, and they had shed all their pretences. They would be pulled up before the spring rains and the first sowings. They did not look forward to any future summer. In the cold wind shaking their brittleness they had no dreams of a slow life sap stirring, flowing, beating. If only she could lose this useless emotion, this wan thing that was not a hope and that had in it no element of caressingness, then she could at least stand on level terms with those things that did not regret the passing of their coloured times.
”
”
Herman Charles Bosman (Jacaranda in the Night)
“
The Weaving We stand here, surrounded by the sacred mountains, at the sipapu, where our world began. We come from the four corners of this earth, walking in love, bringing our knowledge of many cultures, many languages. Seeking understanding, growth and change, for ourselves, our nations, our world. This is our intention! Here at this time we create a new world, we weave a new reality! We pray for assistance and request witness, from the sacred energies of our world! AIR - Winds of the 4 directions, winds that move the stars WATER - Rain, rivers, springs FIRE - Our sun, lightning that dances on the sky EARTH - Our mother, her sand, her cliffs, her mountains OUR BROTHERS - The four legs, the winged ones, water children and those that creep and crawl OUR SISTERS - The standing people, from mighty tree to smallest flower OUR OWN HUMAN RACE - From our ancestors who first walked this land, to our children's children, seven generations distant, most of all we call upon OUR SELVES, here and now, to witness and strive. We are here to create a weaving of a new reality.
”
”
Drunvalo Melchizedek (Serpent of Light: Beyond 2012: The Movement of the Earth's Kundalini and the Rise of the Female Light)
“
Eden
by Maisie Aletha Smikle
In the garden Eden
Streams of tranquility glide
Flowers magnificently bloom
Adam, Eve and animals freely roam
Springs sprout
Waterfalls emerge
Angels smile
Earth and Heaven were once in sync
Absent was the sting of sin
There were no frost
To bite the grass
Causing trees to freeze
There were no fierce heat
To kindle a blaze
There were no winds
That were unkind
There were no raindrops
That weren't welcome
All were in perfect peace
All were in harmony so sweet
The garden Eden
Was the home of the people
Handmade by the Father
Precious were they Adam and Eve
God's first human masterpieces
They were loved
God gave them a home
And grew for them a lovely garden
God gave them pets of all species
He gave them glorious healing spas and herbs
God gave them fruits and food of every kind
Everything Adam and Eve had to their hearts desire
An envious snake
Probably a BOA
Saw joy peace love and happiness
And hated joy peace love and happiness
BOA vowed to destroy love peace joy and happiness
BOA wanted to create distrust and enmity instead
BOA conspired against love peace joy and happiness
And conspired to have Adam and Eve thrown out of their home
BOA snatched love joy peace and happiness
BOA caused the first family Adam and Eve
To be thrown out of their home naked
A home that was God's unencumbered gift
BOA was happy when happiness left
When joy love and peace took flight and went
And distrust and enmity remain
Where BOA can hiss and strike it's venom of loathe
Until people are down
Naked and have no home
BOA is truly a disgrace
Indeed BOA is a scrooge
”
”
Maisie Aletha Smikle
“
I'd painted nearly every surface in the main room.
And not with just broad swaths of colour, but with decorations- little images. Some were basic: colours of icicles drooping down the sides of the threshold. They melted into the first shoots of spring, then burst into full blooms of summer, before brightening and deepening into fall leaves. I'd painted a ring of flowers round the card table by the window, leaves and crackling flames around the dining table.
But in between the intricate decorations, I'd painted them. Bits and pieces of Mor, and Cassian, and Azriel, and Amren... and Rhys.
Mor went up to the large hearth, where I'd painted the mantel in black shimmering with veins of gold and red. Up close, it was a solid pretty bit of paint. But from the couch... 'Illyrian wings,' she said. 'Ugh, they'll never stop gloating about it.'
But she went to the window, which I'd framed in tumbling strands of gold and brass and bronze. Mor fingered her hair, cocking her head. 'Nice,' she said, surveying the room again.
Her eyes fell on the open threshold to the bedroom hallway, and she grimaced. 'Why,' she said, 'are Amren's eyes there?'
Indeed, right above the door, in the centre of the archway, I'd painted a pair of glowing silver eyes. 'Because she's always watching.'
Mor snorted. 'That simply won't do. Paint my eyes next to hers. So the males of this family will know we're both watching them the next time they come up here to get drunk for a week straight.'
'They do that?'
They used to.' Before Amarantha. 'Every autumn, the three of them would lock themselves in this house for five days and drink and drink and hunt and hunt, and they'd come back to Velaris looking halfway to death but grinning like fools. It warms my heart to know that from now on, they'll have to do it with me and Amren staring at them.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))