Floral Tribute Quotes

The city is a place where nature is excised and then mourned, killed off then raised from the dead, only to be entombed in caged-off spaces of floral tribute.

It was there, in the parlors of the funeral home---my daily stations with the local lately dead---that the darkness would often give way to light. A fellow citizen outstretched in his casket, surrounded by floral tributes, waiting for the homages and obsequies, would speak to me in the silent code of the dead: "So, you think you're having a bad day?" The gloom would lift inexplicably. Here was one to whom the worst had happened, often in a variety of ways, and yet no word of complaint was heard from out the corpse. Nor did the world end, nor the sky fall, nor his or her people become blighted entirely. Life, it turns out, goes on with or without us. There is at least as much to be thankful for as wary of.

My beautiful wooden leader with your heartful of medals made of wood, fixing it each time so you almost win, you long to be bandaged before you have been cut. My love for you is the love of one statue for another: tensed and static. General, you enlist my body in your heroic struggle to become real: though you promise bronze rescues you hold me by the left ankle so that my head brushes the ground, my eyes are blinded, my hair fills with white ribbons. There are hordes of me now, alike and paralyzed, we follow you scattering floral tributes under your hooves. Magnificent on your wooden horse you point with your fringed hand; the sun sets, and the people all ride off in the other direction.

Maybe one reason I do not wear makeup is to scare people. If they’re close enough, they can see something is different with me, something unnerving, as if I have no features, I am embryonic, pre-eyebrows, pre-eyelids, pre-mouth, I am like a water bear talking to them, or an amniotic traveler, a vitreous floater on their own eyeball, human ectoplasm risen on its hind legs to discourse with them And such a white white girl, such a sickly toadstool, so pale, a visage of fog, a phiz of mist above a graveyard, no magenta roses, no floral tribute, no goddess, no grown-up woman, no acknowledgment of the drama of secondary sexual characteristics, just the gray matter of spirit talking, the thin features of a gray girl in a gray graveyard— granite, ash, chalk, dust.

whom had long gone to bed. By now the tears that had coursed down his ever-sun-tanned cheeks had gone . . . The question is: What made Charles weep such bitter tears? Sorrow, naturally . . . Shock and nostalgia also at what he had seen, standing there beside an electric fan which made a breeze that lifted the fringe of the dead Princess’s hair. And guilt . . . No one has ever seen him racked with such a sense of frustration and confusion as yesterday. He was distraught, and entirely drained, seeking answers to the unanswerable.’ The first sign of life from Balmoral came on Thursday, the day the Daily Mirror shouted, ‘Your subjects are suffering, speak to us Ma’am’. That day the Union flag was hoisted to half mast over Buckingham Palace – for the first time ever – and the family emerged from the gates of Balmoral. The children had said they would like to go to church again, so Charles took the opportunity to give them a taste of what awaited. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, William, Harry and their cousin Peter Phillips all got out of their cars to look at the messages and floral tributes that had been left there. About sixty members of the public were there, as were some photographers, and apart from the noise of their camera shutters clicking there

Tim Graham Tim Graham has specialized in photographing the Royal Family for more than thirty years and is foremost in his chosen field. Recognition of his work over the years has led to invitations for private sessions with almost all the members of the British Royal Family, including, of course, Diana, Princess of Wales, and her children. Her “magic” was a combination of style and compassion. She instinctively knew what was right for every occasion. One of my favorite photographs is a shot I took in Angola in 1997 that shows her with a young land-mine victim who had lost a leg. This image of the Princess was chosen by the Red Cross to appear on a poster to publicize the tragic reality of land mines. It’s an important part of her legacy. It is difficult to capture such a remarkable person in just one photo, but I like this one a lot because it sums up her warmth and concern. Diana had one of those faces that would be very hard to photograph badly. Over the years, there were times when she was fed up or sad, and those emotions I captured, too. They were relevant at the time. I felt horrified by the news of her death and that she could die in such a terrible, simply tragic way. I couldn’t conceive of how her sons would be able to cope with such a loss. I was asked just before the funeral to photograph Prince Charles taking William and Harry out in public for the first time so they could meet the crowds gathered at Kensington Palace and see the floral tributes. It was the saddest of occasions. I had by then received an invitation to the funeral and was touched to have been the only press photographer asked. After much deliberation, I decided to turn down the chance to be a guest in Westminster Abbey. Having photographed Diana for seventeen years, from the day she appeared as Prince Charles’s intended, right through her public and, on occasion by invitation, her private life, I felt that I had to take the final picture. It was the end of an era. From my press position at the door of the abbey, I watched everyone arrive for the service, including my wife, who had also been invited. During my career, I have witnessed so many historic events from the other side of a camera that I felt compelled to take that last photograph of the Princess’s story. Life has moved on, and the public have found other subjects to fascinate them--not least the now grownup sons of this international icon--but everyone knows Diana was unique.

thanks of my own. She drew me into a drawing room overlooking the park, elegantly furnished with brocade chairs and sofas. A huge bowl of out-of-season fruit was on a side table, along with the sort of floral tributes that seemed to accompany Miss Sheehan wherever she went.