Plum Tree Quotes

Everyone wants a Christmas tree. If you had a Christmas tree Santa would bring you stuff! Like hair curlers and slut shoes.

There Will Come Soft Rains There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pool singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.

On a certain day in the blue-moon month of September Beneath a young plum tree, quietly I held her there, my quiet, pale beloved In my arms just like a graceful dream. And over us in the beautiful summer sky There was a cloud on which my gaze rested It was very white and so immensely high And when I looked up, it had disappeared.

How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!

I want you to understand something. War makes perpetrators of some, criminals of others, and victims of everyone. Just because a soldier is in the battle, doesn't mean that he believes in the war.

For this, let gardens grow, where beelines end, sighing in roses, saffron blooms, buddleia; where bees pray on their knees, sing, praise in pear trees, plum trees; bees are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.

When we're together," he whispered, "we'll only see each other, not the ugliness around us.

I got out of the elevator and confronted Mr. Wexler. “Killing is wrong.” “We kill chickens,” Mr. Wexler said. “We kill cows. We kill trees. So big deal, we kill some drug dealers.” It was hard to argue with that kind of logic because I like cows and chickens and trees much better than drug dealers.

Moonlit plum tree- wait, spring will come.

Are the angels of her bed the angels who come near me alone in mine? Are the green trees in her window the color is see in ripe plums? If she always sees backward and upside down without knowing it what chance do we have? I am haunted by the feeling that she is saying melting lords of death, avalanches, rivers and moments of passing through, And I am replying, "Yes, yes. Shoes and pudding.

that I thought of you—of the air that slipped between the strands of your hair, and blue stones in my hand, before the autumn damasks bloom their last, before these blue stones are lain forgotten as the blossoms of plum trees I could not render in my artless hands

Inside plum trees stood in a row, flowers lifted their pale throats to the moon and stars, a magnolia held its tight-closed buds like white candles in its green hands.

That's when a woman finds herself--when she's in love. I don't care if she is old or fat or homely or prosy. She feels that little flutter under her ribs and she drops from the tree like a ripe plum.

Colonel Matterson reading from wrinkled scripture of that long yellow hand: The flag is America. America is the plum. The peach. The watermelon. America is the gumdrop. The pumpkin seed. America is television. Now, the cross is Mexico. Mexico is the walnut. The hazelnut. The acorn. Mexico is the rainbow. The rainbow is wooden. Mexico is wooden. Now, the green sheep is Canada Canada is the fir tree. The wheat field. The calendar. The night is the Pacific Ocean.

Down at the old house, I’ve made a serious effort to rejuvenate what was once my garden and lawn. And I’ve been rewarded with all sorts of forgotten and neglected plants making surprise appearances. Random daffodils and narcissus. A fairy rose that I thought was gone forever. And, despite some very enthusiastic pruning by the local deer population, the little plum trees look as if they will survive. There is one that is very battered as the deer used it to rub the velvet off their antlers, but it is sending up some shoots and it may yet live for another year. So. Spring. The most forgiving season of the year.

Today, I went to sleep under a plum tree. There, I dreamed I was a butterfly, flying so pleasently. Then, I fell asleep, and the dream ended. Now- I have to ask myself - am I Zhuang Zi who dreamed of a butterfly? Or am I that butterfly, dreaming I am Zhuang Zi?

. . . at this season, the blossom is out in full now, there in the west early. It's a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it's white, and looking at it, instead of saying "Oh that's nice blossom" ... last week looking at it through the window when I'm writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There's no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance ... not that I'm interested in reassuring people - bugger that. The fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.

Gardening is one of the rewards of middle age, when one is ready for an impersonal passion, a passion that demands patience, acute awareness of a world outside oneself, and the power to keep on growing through all the times of drought, through the cold snows, toward those moments of pure joy when all failures are forgotten and the plum tree flowers.

Another plum, another plum, another plum for me! Jocko shakes the cyber tree! Ah ha-ha-ha, Ah ha-ha-ha!

You remember how homesick I used to get, and what long talks we used to have coming from school? We've someway always felt alike about things." "Yes, that's it; we've liked the same things and we've liked them together, without anybody else knowing. And we've had good times, hunting for Christmas trees and going for ducks and making our plum wine together every year. We've never either of us had any other close friend. And now---

In the immediate vicinity, there might well be stability and peace. In the garden, a breeze may be swaying the branches of the plum tree and dust may slowly be gathering on the bookshelves in the living room. But we are aware that such serenity does not do justice to the chaotic and violent fundamentals of existence and hence, after a time, it has a a habit of growing worrisome in its own way.

MOTHER – By Ted Kooser Mid April already, and the wild plums bloom at the roadside, a lacy white against the exuberant, jubilant green of new grass and the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet, only the delicate, star-petaled blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume. You have been gone a month today and have missed three rains and one nightlong watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar from six to eight while fat spring clouds went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured, a storm that walked on legs of lightning, dragging its shaggy belly over the fields. The meadowlarks are back, and the finches are turning from green to gold. Those same two geese have come to the pond again this year, honking in over the trees and splashing down. They never nest, but stay a week or two then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts, burning in circles like birthday candles, for this is the month of my birth, as you know, the best month to be born in, thanks to you, everything ready to burst with living. There will be no more new flannel nightshirts sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand. You asked me if I would be sad when it happened and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner, as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that. Were it not for the way you taught me to look at the world, to see the life at play in everything, I would have to be lonely forever.

It was Christmas Eve. Big snowflakes fluttered slowly through the air like white feathers and made all of the Heavenly Valley smooth and white and quiet and beautiful. Tall fir trees stood up to their knees in snow and their outstretched hands were heaped with it. Those that were bare of leaves wore soft white fur on their scrawny, reaching arms and all the stumps and low bushes had been turned into fat white cupcakes.

I see that this body—made of the four elements—is not really me, and I am not limited by this body. I am the whole of the river of life, of blood ancestors and spiritual ancestors, that has been continuously flowing for thousands of years and flows on for thousands of years into the future. I am one with my ancestors and my descendants. I am life manifesting in countless different forms. I am one with all people and all species, whether they are peaceful and joyful or suffering and afraid. At this very moment I am present everywhere in this world. I have been present in the past and will be there in the future. The disintegration of this body does not touch me, just as when the petals of the plum blossom fall it does not mean the end of the plum tree. I see that I am like a wave on the surface of the ocean. I see myself in all the other waves, and I see all the other waves in me. The manifestation or the disappearance of the wave does not lessen the presence of the ocean. My Dharma body and spiritual life are not subject to birth or death. I am able to see my presence before this body manifested and after this body disintegrates. I am able to see my presence outside this body, even in the present moment. Eighty or ninety years is not my life span. My life span, like that of a leaf or of a buddha, is immeasurable. I am able to go beyond the idea that I am a body separate from all other manifestations of life, in time and in space.

...the blossom of our family, like one of those miraculous fruit trees that taps into an invisible vein of nurture and bears radiant bushels of plums while the trees around it merely go on living.

I wanted to describe to him how the emotional intimacy growing between us was shattering my heart in the most life-affirming ways, but I didn’t have the right words, except to say that I loved him, which wasn’t nearly enough. We spent that night, and every night together after, in a closeness I had never known, or even thought possible with another person. I was happy. Truly content. Drifting to sleep in Bilal’s arms, I thought about the hills beyond the terrace. Soon wild plum, peach, pear, fig, medlar, mulberry, date, and almond trees would bloom.

Occasionally a yellow leaf fell from the tree. Then one or the other of us would turn up his eyes as though to see the leaf fall once again. We didn’t wait for the next leaf, which fell a little later. Out eyes lacked the patience. We didn’t commit ourselves to leaves. Only to flying splashes of yellow that distracted our faces from one another’s

In January the lavender heather and white candytufts would bloom. February perked up the plum tree, and March would bring forth the daffodils, narcissus, and moonlight bloom. April lilacs and sugartuft would blossom along with the pink and bloodred rhododendrons, bluebells, and the apple tree in the victory garden. As the weather warmed, miniature purple irises would rise amid the volunteers of white alyssum and verbena. The roses, dahlias, white Shasta daisies, black-eyed Susans, and marigolds would bloom from late spring to early fall. Leota could see it. She knew exactly

Every Day You Play.... Every day you play with the light of the universe. Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water, You are more than this white head that I hold tightly as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands. You are like nobody since I love you. Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed. Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window. The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish. Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. The rain takes off her clothes. The birds go by, fleeing. The wind.  The wind. I alone can contend against the power of men. The storm whirls dark leaves and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky. You are here.  Oh, you do not run away. You will answer me to the last cry. Curl round me as though you were frightened. Even so, a strange shadow once ran through your eyes. Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it. While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth. How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans. My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. Until I even believe that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

What makes it smell so sweet?" they wanted to know. "Because everything,--every little wild plum-blossom, every little tiny crocus and anemone and violet and every tree-bud and grass-blade is working to help make the prairie nice.

Under the twinkling trees was a table covered with Guatemalan fabric, roses in juice jars, wax rose candles from Tijuana and plates of food — Weetzie's Vegetable Love-Rice, My Secret Agent Lover Man's guacamole, Dirk's homemade pizza, Duck's fig and berry salad and Surfer Surprise Protein Punch, Brandy-Lynn's pink macaroni, Coyote's cornmeal cakes, Ping's mushu plum crepes and Valentine's Jamaican plantain pie. Witch Baby's stomach growled but she didn't leave her hiding place. Instead, she listened to the reggae, surf, soul and salsa, tugged at the snarl balls in her hair and snapped pictures of all the couples.

Every evening, they enjoyed the moonlit streams, and in the day they explored the valleys, searching for plum blossoms. When they happened upon a sheer cliff face they would compose poems and play the lute in the shade of the pine trees.

The garden stretched out in a soft drift, colors jumbled any way, an unmade bed of red and yellow and pink. Then came the trees. Apple, plum, and the Japanese black pine.

First, the plum trees bloomed, and then the cold wind veered towards the south.

1 The summer our marriage failed we picked sage to sweeten our hot dark car. We sat in the yard with heavy glasses of iced tea, talking about which seeds to sow when the soil was cool. Praising our large, smooth spinach leaves, free this year of Fusarium wilt, downy mildew, blue mold. And then we spoke of flowers, and there was a joke, you said, about old florists who were forced to make other arrangements. Delphiniums flared along the back fence. All summer it hurt to look at you. 2 I heard a woman on the bus say, “He and I were going in different directions.” As if it had something to do with a latitude or a pole. Trying to write down how love empties itself from a house, how a view changes, how the sign for infinity turns into a noose for a couple. Trying to say that weather weighed down all the streets we traveled on, that if gravel sinks, it keeps sinking. How can I blame you who kneeled day after day in wet soil, pulling slugs from the seedlings? You who built a ten-foot arch for the beans, who hated a bird feeder left unfilled. You who gave carrots to a gang of girls on bicycles. 3 On our last trip we drove through rain to a town lit with vacancies. We’d come to watch whales. At the dock we met five other couples—all of us fluorescent, waterproof, ready for the pitch and frequency of the motor that would lure these great mammals near. The boat chugged forward—trailing a long, creamy wake. The captain spoke from a loudspeaker: In winter gray whales love Laguna Guerrero; it’s warm and calm, no killer whales gulp down their calves. Today we’ll see them on their way to Alaska. If we get close enough, observe their eyes—they’re bigger than baseballs, but can only look down. Whales can communicate at a distance of 300 miles—but it’s my guess they’re all saying, Can you hear me? His laughter crackled. When he told us Pink Floyd is slang for a whale’s two-foot penis, I stopped listening. The boat rocked, and for two hours our eyes were lost in the waves—but no whales surfaced, blowing or breaching or expelling water through baleen plates. Again and again you patiently wiped the spray from your glasses. We smiled to each other, good troopers used to disappointment. On the way back you pointed at cormorants riding the waves— you knew them by name: the Brants, the Pelagic, the double-breasted. I only said, I’m sure whales were swimming under us by the dozens. 4 Trying to write that I loved the work of an argument, the exhaustion of forgiving, the next morning, washing our handprints off the wineglasses. How I loved sitting with our friends under the plum trees, in the white wire chairs, at the glass table. How you stood by the grill, delicately broiling the fish. How the dill grew tall by the window. Trying to explain how camellias spoil and bloom at the same time, how their perfume makes lovers ache. Trying to describe the ways sex darkens and dies, how two bodies can lie together, entwined, out of habit. Finding themselves later, tired, by a fire, on an old couch that no longer reassures. The night we eloped we drove to the rainforest and found ourselves in fog so thick our lights were useless. There’s no choice, you said, we must have faith in our blindness. How I believed you. Trying to imagine the road beneath us, we inched forward, honking, gently, again and again.

First, the plum trees bloomed, and then the cold wind veered towards the south. After a while, I heard that the cherry trees were beginning to flower. But I thought of nothing but my thesis.

Wild Spanish cattle were easily acquired with a rope - within a year we had a hundred head. Hogs and mustang horses were also for the taking. There were deer, turkey, bear, squirrel, the occasional buffalo, turtles and fish from the river, ducks, plums and mustang grapes, bee trees and persimmons - the country was rich with life the way it is rotten with people today. The only problem was keeping your scalp attached.

There was a zone she had not explored. She could use the same counter, the same sort of password that she used with all these people, but she had passed over in the twinkling of an eye into another forest. This forest was reality. There, the very speaking of the words, conjured up answering sigil, house and barn and terrace and castle and river and little plum tree. A whole world was open. She looked in through a wide doorway.

When he appeared before the lord, his lordship was smitten immediately with the boy's unadorned beauty, like a first glimpse of the moon rising above a distant mountain. The boy's hair gleamed like the feathers of a raven perched silently on a tree, and his eyes were lovely as lotus flowers. One by one his other qualities became apparent, from his nightingale voice to his gentle disposition, as obedient and true as a plum blossom.

The man who says that his mother was or is the best cook in the world can lay claim to little originality. Many men have said it, and for various reasons- not the least of which, the modern woman may contend, being to irritate their wives.

There would be plump artichokes ready for him in the garden, trees heavy with plums, soft roses, the river flowing, and between the crab-Apple trees the hammock hanging like a smile in a landscape as familiar to him as the face of his mother.

A whole summer ahead to cross off the calendar, day by day. Like the goddess Siva in the travel books, he saw his hands jump everywhere, pluck sour apples, peaches, and midnight plums. He would be clothed in trees and bushes and rivers. He would freeze, gladly, in the hoarfrosted ice-house door. He would bake, happily, with ten thousand chickens, in Grandma's kitchen.

And somehow Hallie thrived anyway--the blossom of our family, like one of those miraculous fruit trees that taps into an invisible vein of nurture and bears radiant bushels of plums while the trees around it merely go on living. In Grace, in the old days, when people found one of those in their orchard they called it the semilla besada--the seed that got kissed. Sometimes you'd run across one that people had come to, and returned to, in hopes of a blessing. The branches would be festooned like a Christmas tree of family tokens: a baby sock, a pair of broken reading glasses, the window envelope of a pension check.

There is a Zen story about a student who felt he hadn’t really received the deepest essence of his master’s teaching, and so he went to question him. His master replied, “On your way here, did you see the cypress in the courtyard?” Perhaps the student was not yet very mindful. The master was saying that if, on the way to see our teacher, we go past a cypress tree or a beautiful plum tree in blossom and we don’t really see it, then when we arrive in front of our teacher, we won’t see our teacher either. We shouldn’t miss any opportunity to really see our cypress tree. There are wonders of life we walk past every day, and yet we haven’t truly seen them. What is the cypress tree on the path you take to work every day? If you cannot even see the tree, how can you see your loved ones? How can you see God?

Slanders, sir. For the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams—all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.

As Laura stood waiting she felt a great longing. It weighed upon her like the load of ripened fruit upon a tree. She forgot the shop, the other customers, her own errand. She forgot the winter air outside, the people going by on the wet pavements. She forgot that she was in London, she forgot the whole of her London life. She seemed to be standing alone in a darkening orchard, her feet in the grass, her arms stretched up to the pattern of leaves and fruit, her fingers seeking the rounded ovals of the fruit among the pointed ovals of the leaves. The air about her was cool and moist. There was no sound, for the birds had left off singing and the owls had not yet begun to hoot. No sound, except sometimes the soft thud of a ripe plum falling into the grass, to lie there a compact shadow among shadows. The back of her neck ached a little with the strain of holding up her arms. Her fingers searched among the leaves.

I wanted an imagination that would inhabit a world of fact, descend like a shining light upon the ordinary life of Eden Street, and not force me to exist in an "elsewhere". I wanted the light to shine upon the pigeons of Grey Street, the plum trees in our garden, the two japonica bushes (one red, one yellow), our pine plantations and gully, our summer house, our lives, and our home, the world of Oamaru, the kingdom by the sea. I refused to accept that if I were to fulfil my secret ambition to be a poet, I should spend my imaginative life among the nightingales instead of among the wax-eyes and the fantails. I wanted my life to be the "other world".

She would curl herself onto the couch and listen to him making paintings out of sound. And each piece was a different picture. In her mind’s eye, she could see a garden full of trees with white leaves and a fountain with blush-pink petals floating in the clear water—that was a concerto. The volta: scarlet and plum-colored ribbons winding around each other, battling for dominance. A requiem . . . a lone horse walking down a dimly lit cobbled road, looking for a rider that had died long ago. From these dead foreigners whose names she was slowly growing accustomed to, Nori was learning what it was to live a thousand lifetimes of joy and sorrow without ever leaving this house.

She took a puff, put the cigarette in the ashtray and stared at it. Without looking up, she said, But do you believe in love, Mr Evans? She rolled the cigarette end around in the ash tray. Do you? Outside, he thought, beyond this mountain and its snow, there was a world of countless millions of people. He could see them in their cities, in the heat and the light. And he could see this house, so remote and isolated, so far away, and he had a feeling that it once must have seemed to her and Jack, if only for a short time, like the universe with the two of them at its centre. And for a moment he was at the King of Cornwall with Amy in the room they thought of as theirs—with the sea and the sun and the shadows, with the white paint flaking off the French doors and with their rusty lock, with the breezes late of an afternoon and of a night the sound of the waves breaking—and he remembered how that too had once seemed the centre of the universe. I don’t, she said. No, I don’t. It’s too small a word, don’t you think, Mr Evans? I have a friend in Fern Tree who teaches piano. Very musical, she is. I’m tone-deaf myself. But one day she was telling me how every room has a note. You just have to find it. She started warbling away, up and down. And suddenly one note came back to us, just bounced back off the walls and rose from the floor and filled the place with this perfect hum. This beautiful sound. Like you’ve thrown a plum and an orchard comes back at you. You wouldn’t believe it, Mr Evans. These two completely different things, a note and a room, finding each other. It sounded … right. Am I being ridiculous? Do you think that’s what we mean by love, Mr Evans? The note that comes back to you? That finds you even when you don’t want to be found? That one day you find someone, and everything they are comes back to you in a strange way that hums? That fits. That’s beautiful. I’m not explaining myself at all well, am I? she said. I’m not very good with words. But that’s what we were. Jack and me. We didn’t really know each other. I’m not sure if I liked everything about him. I suppose some things about me annoyed him. But I was that room and he was that note and now he’s gone. And everything is silent.

They all hushed as Brinny, the one murderess of their crew, told them of the making of her bride cake, with primrose yellow butter and raisins of the sun, fattened on smuggled brandy. The further they sailed from England, the fonder they grew of the pleasures of home: plum trees with bowed branches, brambles in the hedge, cream from a beloved cow.

If we didn’t feel there was something problematic with eating meat, dairy, and eggs in the first place, we wouldn’t have worked so hard to justify our behavior, we wouldn’t have tried so hard to avoid looking at the processes…Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know is not what we say when confronted with how carrots are harvested from the ground or how plums are plucked from trees. Don’t tell my children what they’re really eating. It would be too upsetting for them is not what we say when asked about how apples become applesauce. In all aspects of our life, guilt serves as a red flag that something isn’t right, tapping us on the shoulder to let us know we may have strayed from our principles or goals.

The fruit was so plentiful that young hobbits very nearly bathed in strawberries and cream; and later they sat on the lawns under the plum-trees and ate, until they had made piles of stones like small pyramids or the heaped skulls of a conqueror, and then they moved on. And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except those who had to mow the grass.

Yet brutal actions become war crimes only if you lose.” Christine

So he raced from dogwood to blossoming peach. When they thinned out he headed for the cherry blossoms, then magnolia, chinaberry, pecan, walnut and prickly pear. At last he reached a field of apple trees whose flowers were just becoming tiny knots of fruit. Spring sauntered north, but he had to run like hell to keep it as his traveling companion. From February to July he was on the lookout for blossoms. When he lost them, and found himself without so much as a petal to guide him, he paused, climbed a tree on a hillock and scanned the horizon for a flash of pink or white in the leaf world that surrounded him. He did not touch them or stop to smell. He merely followed in their wake, a dark ragged figure guided by the blossoming plums.

In the old house in Miami, I'd wake with the feeling of a hand on my chest, my eyes open to the murky blue half-light of my bedroom. Everything quiet, though still feeling noise all around me, though my ears, behind my eyes, under my skin. In the cottage, I fall asleep slowly, counting the sounds of the night animals - crickets, frogs, squealing raccoons, a cat in heat somewhere beyond the coco plum trees. But mine is still a loneliness that shakes me from my sleep. I can forget my solitude all day, through my working hours, through errands, the evening housecleaning ritual I've made up for the cottage. Yet night remains a tomb, when I'm most vulnerable, lying down for rest without distraction. Only this body and that darkness, the whispers of the never-ending noche: You belong to no one. No one belongs to you.

Wild Peaches" When the world turns completely upside down You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore; We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town, You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color. Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor, We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown. The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong; All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all. The squirrels in their silver fur will fall Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot. 2 The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold. The misted early mornings will be cold; The little puddles will be roofed with glass. The sun, which burns from copper into brass, Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass. Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover; A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year; The spring begins before the winter’s over. By February you may find the skins Of garter snakes and water moccasins Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear. 3 When April pours the colors of a shell Upon the hills, when every little creek Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell, When strawberries go begging, and the sleek Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak, We shall live well — we shall live very well. The months between the cherries and the peaches Are brimming cornucopias which spill Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black; Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback. 4 Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones There’s something in this richness that I hate. I love the look, austere, immaculate, Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones. There’s something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate, A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones. I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray, Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves; That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath, Summer, so much too beautiful to stay, Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves, And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

When I was a schoolgirl my safe haven was a place at the uninhabited part of my parents’ house. I used to climb up to the large windowsill that was facing a spreading plum-tree in the garden. Reading books, or penning my own stories, diaries and poems, it was especially fun to rest there during the warmer seasons of the year with an open window, when the tree was all covered with tender, odorous blossom in spring, and with rich purple fruitage in summer.

Then they had grown. Edging into life from the back door. Becoming. Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, "Do this." White children said, "Give me that." White men said. "Come here." Black men said, "Lay down." The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other. But they took all of that and re-created it in their own image. They ran the houses of white people, and knew it. When white men beat their men, they cleaned up the book and went home to receive abuse from the victim. They beat their children with one hand and stole for them with the other. The hangs that felled trees also cut umbilical cords; the hands that wrung the necks of chickens and butchered hogs also nudged African violets into bloom; the arms that loaded sheaves, bales, and sacks rocked babies into sleep. They patted biscuits into flaky ovals of innocence--and shrouded the dead. They plowed all day and came home to nestle like plums under the limbs of their men, The legs that straddled a mule's back were the same ones that straddled their men's hips. And the difference was all the difference there was.

Beaumont's intention was to promote the virtue and nutritional value of fruit-bearing trees. Fifteen different genera of fruit and a number of their different species are described in the work: almonds, apricots, a barberry, cherries, quinces, figs, strawberries, gooseberries, apples, a mulberry, pears, peaches, plums, grapes, and raspberries. Each colored plate illustrates the plant's seed, foliage, blossom, fruit, and sometimes cross sections of the species.

Facing Wine Never refuse wine. I'm telling you, people come smiling in spring winds: peach and plum like old friends, their open blossoms scattering toward me, singing orioles in jade-green trees, and moonlight probing gold winejars. Yesterday we were flush with youth, and today, white hair's an onslaught. Bramble's overgrown Shih-hu Temple, and deer roam Ku-su Terrace ruins: it's always been like this, yellow dust choking even imperial gates closed in the end. If you don't drink wine, where are those ancient people now?

These men wanted Hitler in a position to put an end to the Republic and to return Germany to the days of the Kaiser. But then the chancellor had become a dictator, putting himself and his followers above the , and now they were using that power to strip the Jews of their rights

He was standing by the edge of a small pool- not more than ten feet from side to side- in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others- a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. When he tried to describe it afterwards Digory always said, "It was a rich place; as rich as plum cake.

Jess and Polly stood without speaking, letting the sounds of the garden resettle. A flock of tiny fairy wrens darted busily in and around the base of a nearby plum tree, crickets ticked in the long grass, and a sense of timelessness, of nature, older and more pervasive than anything human beings and their histories could generate, grew thick and warm around them. "Shall we take a walk down together?" said Polly. Jess noticed a new note of self-possession in her mother's voice. Summery air threaded across the back of her neck, and she felt a pull, suddenly, deep inside her. She didn't know whether it was being here, in this place, or the beautiful weather that evoked long childhood days in which the hours stretched away to be filled only with pleasure, or the fact that it was Christmas Eve, or that her mother was standing here with her, solid and present in a way she hadn't been before, so that Jess was seeing her as if for the first time. But she felt a sensation in her chest that was quite the opposite of loneliness. "Are you with me?" Polly was searching Jess's face, waiting for an answer. Jess gave a nod and smiled. "I am.

Pop trips over some vegetation and lets go. I’m roaring down the slanting, bumpy dirt path, trying to dodge the rocks and shrieking with delighted terror. I’m heading into the stand of Java plum trees at the end of our clearing when I lose balance and crash into a lantana bush. I’m winded and scratched as I try to crawl out of the prickly bush. My bike lies in the path, tires spinning, already getting smeared with red Kauai dirt. Pop runs over and picks me up to see if I’m okay. My knees have hit something and are scraped, lantana thorns tangle my hair, but I’m panting with excitement. “Let’s do it again!

Again the starter and the engine, and after a minute or two the rattle and pop of gravel as the DeSoto eased backward out of the barn. It gleamed darkly and demurely, like a ripe plum. Its chrome was polished, hubcaps and grille, and the side walls of the tires were snowy white. There was a preposterous beauty in all that shine that made her laugh. Jack put his arm out of the window, waiving his hat like a visiting dignitary, backed into the street, and floated away, gentling the gleaming dirigible through the shadows of arching elm trees, light dropping on it through their leaves like confetti as it made its ceremonious passage.

We navigate the produce stands, plucking palms full of cherries from every pile we pass, chewing them and spitting the seeds on the ground. We eat tiny tomatoes with taut skins that snap under gentle pressure, releasing the rabid energy of the Sardinian sun trapped inside. We crack asparagus like twigs and watch the stalks weep chlorophyll tears. We attack anything and everything that grows on trees- oranges, plums, apricots, peaches- leaving pits and peels, seeds and skins in our wake. Downstairs in the seafood section, the heart of the market, the pace quickens. Roberto turns the market into a roving raw seafood bar, passing me pieces of marine life at every stand: brawny, tight-lipped mussels; juicy clams on the half shell with a shocking burst of sweetness; tiny raw shrimp with beads of blue coral clinging to their bodies like gaudy jewelry. We place dominoes of ruby tuna flesh on our tongues like communion wafers, the final act in this sacred procession.

Then she laughed out loud and hugged him tight with both arms. She smelled like pine trees and lichens and hot sand. How odd, thought Roger, that after all, this is what it took - not a flock of scarlet ibises or golden-crowned kinglets, but just the names of chicken, hovering in the air like the sulpher butterflies at the dump.

haunches, looking dejected. “Where’s the other monkey?” I asked him. Carl looked up. The monkey was in a tree. “What’s he doing there?” Carl shrugged. “This was a stupid idea,” I said to Diesel. “Yeah, but at least you walked off your sausage-and-egg sandwich. It would have gone straight to your ass.” “I’m going back to Gail’s house, and then

The gutted ruins of the Amazing Kingdom were razed, and the land was replanted with native trees, including buttonwoods, pigeon plums, torchwoods, brittle palms, tamarinds, gumbo-limbos and mangroves. This restoration was accomplished in spite of rigid opposition from the Monroe County Commission, which had hoped to use the property as a public dump.

A lemon tree was nearly universal; other trees varied with climate - almond trees in Adelaide and Perth, plums and apples in Melbourne, choke vines and bananas in Sydney and Brisbane, a mango in Cairns, figs and loquats everywhere. For a few weeks, there was a gross overabundance of fruit and much trading ('I'll take some of your plums if you take some of my apples next month').

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

And there were so many places to go. Thickets of bramble. Fallen trees. Ferns, and violets, and gorse, paths all lined with soft green moss. And in the very heart of the wood, there was a clearing, with a circle of stones, and an old well in the middle, next to a big dead oak tree, and everything- fallen branches, standing stones, even the well, with its rusty pump- draped and festooned and piled knee-high with ruffles and flounces of strawberries, with blackbirds picking over the fruit, and the scent like all of summer. It wasn't like the rest of the farm. Narcisse's farm is very neat, with everything set out in its place. A little field for sunflowers: one for cabbages; one for squash; one for Jerusalem artichokes. Apple trees to one side; peaches and plums to the other. And in the polytunnels, there were daffodils, tulips, freesias; and in season, lettuce, tomatoes, beans. All neatly planted, in rows, with nets to keep the birds from stealing them. But here there were no nets, or polytunnels, or windmills to frighten away the birds. Just that clearing of strawberries, and the old well in the circle of stones. There was no bucket in the well. Just the broken pump, and the trough, and a grate to cover the hole, which was very deep, and not quite straight, and filled with ferns and that swampy smell. And if you put your eye to the grate, you could see a roundel of sky reflected in the water, and little pink flowers growing out from between the cracks in the old stone. And there was a kind of draught coming up from under the ground, as if something was hiding there and breathing, very quietly.

I know a beautiful garden, where there are a great many children in fine little coats, and they go under the trees and gather beautiful apples and pears, cherries and plums; they sing and run about and are as happy as they can be. Sometimes they ride on nice little ponies, with golden bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man whose garden it is, “What little children are these?” And he told me, “They are little children who love to pray and learn and are good.

Your jam puts store-bought to shame. As I ate it on a fresh croissant from the French bakery at the Farmers Market down the street from my house, I savored the image you painted with your words. I would love to spend a summer morning in the Pacific Northwest sunshine picking wild blackberries. I also crave your backyard access to crisp apples, plums, and pears, although I am not sure I would trade them for the grapefruit and oranges I pluck from my own trees for breakfast whenever I like.

The world is sharp. So sharply in focus that my eyes see everything—in fact, beyond everything, if one can suspend the logic of that sentence. If you show me a painting of a bowl with citrons and figs and plums and pears, I can describe the woman who picked the fruit off the tree, and can describe her with such tenderness that I can see myself reflected in her iris, like a candle, the sole source of light. Show me a painting of a ray fish, dripping sea off a kitchen table, and I'll tell you about the man who caught it.

Fine. Then you’ll be able to tell me: in love does one always behave like a damned fool?” “How do you mean, like a damned fool?” “Well, as if one were half-tight. Skite and blather and swindle.” Lenz burst out laughing. “My dear baby! the whole thing is a swindle. A wonderful swindle by Mama Nature. Look at the plum tree, for instance. Making herself more beautiful than she will be afterwards. It would be just terrible if love had any truck with truth. Thank God the damned moralists can’t get everything under their thumbs.” I sat up. “You mean, without some swindle it just wouldn’t go at all.” “Absolutely not, my child.” “A man can make himself damned ridiculous though,” said I. Lenz grinned. “Mark this one thing, my boy: never, never, never can a man make himself ridiculous in the eyes of a woman by anything he may do on her account. Not even by the most childish performances. Do anything you like—stand on your head, talk the most utter twaddle, swank like a peacock, sing under her window—anything at all but one thing: don’t be matter-of-fact. Don’t be sensible.

and so the wheel turns, for everything there is a season. I would not want to have the leaves fall in June, or the fruits ripen in March, to eat plum pudding on a blazing hot day or see the peas fat in their pods in the kitchen garden in snow. Naturally not, who would? The same people who want chrysanthemums all the year round and frozen raspberries on bonfire night, that’s who, and they have been gaining ground, trying to regularise and standardise, and alter the natural, productive cycle of the year to suit themselves, to force and freeze.

Greenery Juniper, Oracle Oak and Hop Tree, California Buckeye, and Elderberry. Pacific Dogwood and the pale green Eucalyptus, Quaking Aspen and Flannelbush. raw, sprouting, lush green love green with envy green with youth green with early spring olive, emerald, avocado, greenlight ready, set, GO! greenhouse, greenbelts, ocean kelp, cucumber, lizard, lime and forest green, spruce, teal, and putting green. green-eyed, verdant, grassy, immature green and leafy green half-formed tender, pleasant, alluring temperate freshly sawed vigorous not ripe yet promising greenbriar, greenbug, green dragon greenshanks running along the ocean's edge greenlings swimming greenlets singing greengage plums green thumbs greenhorns and greenflies- how on earth amid sage swells kelly hillsides and swirls of firs did I ever find that green of hers? holly, drake, and brewster green, pistachio, shamrock, serpentine terre verde, Brunswick, tourmaline, lotus, jade, and spinach green: start to finish lowlands to highs no field, no forest, no leaf, no blade can catch the light or trap the shade; no earthly tones will ever rise to match the green enchantment of her eyes.

Of late I feel a cold blue wind through my life and need to go backwards myself to the outback I once knew so well where there were too many mosquitoes, blackflies, curious bears, flowering berry trees of sugar plum and chokeberry, and where sodden and hot with salty sweat I'd slide into a cold river and drift along until I floated against a warm sandbar, thinking of driving again the gravel backroads of America at thirty-five miles per hour in order to see the ditches and gulleys, the birds in the fields, the mountains and rivers, the skies that hold our 10,000 generations of mothers in the clouds waiting for us to fall back into their arms again.

There it lay in the early sunshine of spring. It looked a town rather than a house, but a town built, not hither and thither, as this man wished or that, but circumspectly, by a single architect with one idea in his head. Courts and buildings, grey, red, plum colour, lay orderly and symmetrical; the courts were some of them oblong and some square; in this was a fountain; in that a statue; the buildings were some of them low, some pointed; here was a chapel, there a belfry; spaces of the greenest grass lay in between and clumps of cedar trees and beds of bright flowers; all were clasped — yet so well set out was it that it seemed that every part had room to spread itself fittingly — by the roll of a massive wall; while smoke from innumerable chimneys curled perpetually into the air. This vast, yet ordered building, which could house a thousand men and perhaps two thousand horses, was built, Orlando thought, by workmen whose names are unknown. Here have lived, for more centuries than I can count, the obscure generations of my own obscure family. Not one of these Richards, Johns, Annes, Elizabeths has left a token of himself behind him, yet all, working together with their spades and their needles, their love-making and their child-bearing, have left this. Never had the house looked more noble and humane.

The rapid growth of Message- combined with an outpouring of florists offering consultations in the language of flowers to the streams of brides Marlena and I turned away- caused a subtle but concrete shift in the Bay Area flower industry. Marlena reported that peony, marigold, and lavender lingered in their plastic buckets at the flower market while tulips, lilac, and passionflower sold out before the sun rose. For the first time anyone could remember, jonquil became available long after its natural bloom season had ended. By the end of July, bold brides carried ceramic bowls of strawberries or fragrant clusters of fennel, and no one questioned their aesthetics but rather marveled at the simplicity of their desire. If the trajectory continued, I realized, Message would alter the quantities of anger, grief, and mistrust growing in the earth on a massive scale. Farmers would uproot fields of foxglove to plant yarrow, the soft clusters of pink, yellow, and cream the cure to a broken heart. The prices of sage, ranunculus, and stock would steadily increase. Plum trees would be planted for the sole purpose of harvesting their delicate, clustered blossoms and sunflowers would fall permanently out of fashion, disappearing from flower stands, craft stores, and country kitchens. Thistle would be cleared compulsively from empty lots and overgrown gardens.

This garden was peaceful and calm. Pink cherry blossoms and violet plum blossoms graced the sweeping trees. The petals fell like snowflakes, dancing and swirling until they touched the soft, verdant grass. There was something familiar about this place. Her eyes traveled down the flat stone steps. She knew this path, knew those stones. The third one from the bottom had a crack in the middle- from when she was five and the neighbor's boy convinced her there were worms on the other side of the stones. She'd hammered the stone in half, eager to catch a few worms to play with. There weren't any, of course, but her mother had helped her find some dragonflies by the pond instead, and they'd spent an afternoon counting them in the garden. Mulan smiled wistfully at the memory. This can't be the same garden. I'm in Diyu. Yet no painter could have re-created what she saw more convincingly. Every detail was as she remembered. At the bottom of the stone-cobbled path was a pond with rose-flushed lilies, and a marble bench under the cherry tree. She used to play by the pond when she was a little girl, catching frogs and fireflies in wine jugs and feeding the fish leftover rice husks and sesame seeds until her mother scolded her. And beyond the moon gate was- Mulan's hand jumped to her mouth. Home. That smell of home- of Baba's incense from the family temple, sharp with amber and cedar; of noodles in Grandmother Fa's special pork broth; of jasmine flowers that Mama used to scent her skin.

I'll never forget that time, when we first came here, and our horse had the colic, and I ran over to your place—your father was away, and you came home with me and showed father how to let the wind out of the horse. You were only a little girl then, but you knew ever so much more about farm work than poor father. You remember how homesick I used to get, and what long talks we used to have coming from school? We've someway always felt alike about things.” “Yes, that's it; we've liked the same things and we've liked them together, without anybody else knowing. And we've had good times, hunting for Christmas trees and going for ducks and making our plum wine together every year. We've never either of us had any other close friend. And now”—Alexandra wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron—

The woman [Cadsuane] looked at the battered tea things as if she had all the time in the world. “Now you know,” she said at last, calm as ever, “that I know your future, and your present. The Light’s mercy fades to nothing for a man who can channel. Some see that and believe the Light denies those men. I do not. Have you begun to hear voices, yet?” “What do you mean?” he asked slowly. He could feel Lews Therin listening. [...] “Some men who can channel begin to hear voices.” She spoke almost absently, frowning at the flattened sphere of silver and gold. “It is a part of the madness. Voices conversing with them, telling them what to do.” The teapot drifted gently to the floor by her feet. “Have you heard any?” [...] “I will ask the questions,” Rand said firmly. “You seem to forget. I am the Dragon Reborn.” You are real, aren’t you? he wondered. There was no answer. Lews Therin? Sometimes the man did not answer, but Aes Sedai always drew him. Lews Therin? He was not mad; the voice was real, not imagination. Not madness. A sudden desire to laugh did not help. Cadsuane sighed. “You are a young man who has little idea where he is going or why, or what lies ahead. You seem overwrought. Perhaps we can speak when you are more settled. Have you any objection to my taking Merana and Annoura away for a little while? I’ve seen neither in quite some time.” Rand gaped at her. She swooped in, insulted him, threatened him, casually announced she knew about the voice in his head, and with that she wanted to leave and talk with Merana and Annoura? Is she mad? Still no answer from Lews Therin. The man was real. He was! “Go away,” he said. “Go away, and...” He was not mad. “All of you, get out! Get out!” [...] Finally they were all gone, and he was alone. Alone. Convulsively he hurled the Dragon Scepter. The spear-point stuck quivering in the back of one the chairs, the tassels swaying. “I am not mad,” he said to the empty room. Lews Therin had told him things; he would never have escaped Galina’s chest without the dead man’s voice. But he had used the Power before he ever heard the voice; he had figured out how to call lightning and hurl fire and form a construct that had killed hundreds of Trollocs. But then, maybe that had been Lews Therin, like those memories of climbing trees in a plum orchard, and entering the Hall of the Servants, and a dozen more that crept up on him unawares. And maybe those memories were all fancies, mad dreams of a mad mind, just like the voice.

Sunday Morning V She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. VI Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. VII Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest. VIII She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings

Toward an Organic Philosophy SPRING, COAST RANGE The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless, The circle of white ash widens around it. I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller. Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw; The moon has come before them, the light Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees. It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish, Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons; The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall. There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now. There were sheep here after the farm, and fire Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch, The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat And plate the surface like scales. Twenty years ago the spreading gully Toppled the big oak over onto the house. Now there is nothing left but the foundations Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge, Six lonely, ominous fenceposts; The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge Over the deep waterless creek bed; The hills are covered with wild oats Dry and white by midsummer. I walk in the random survivals of the orchard. In a patch of moonlight a mole Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein; Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean; Leo crouches under the zenith. There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees. The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible. As the wind dies down their fragrance Clusters around them like thick smoke. All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight They are silent and immaculate. SPRING, SIERRA NEVADA Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant, Like an inspiration in the brain of Archimedes. I have seen its light over the warm sea, Over the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing; And the living light in the water Shivering away from the swimming hand, Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair. Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stays late, The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone. The relationship of stone, ice and stars is systematic and enduring: Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs, The glacier contracts and turns grayer, The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow, The sun moves through space and the earth with it, The stars change places. The snow has lasted longer this year, Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake, The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered with snow, Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet, In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops, Spangled with sunset at the top, black and muscular Where it disappears again in the snow. The world is filled with hidden running water That pounds in the ears like ether; The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel; Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red, The white snow breaks at the edge of it; The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes Of someone kissed in sleep. I descend to camp, To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves, To the first violets and wild cyclamen, And cook supper in the blue twilight. All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves, In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass At the edge of the snow.

I Have Seen Bengal’s Face - Poem by Jibanananda Das Autoplay next video I have seen Bengal’s face, that is why I do not seek Beauty of the earth any more: I wake up in the dark And see the dawn’s magpie-robin perched under the parasol-like huge leaf Of the fig tree – on all sides I see mounds of leaves of Black plum – banyan – jackfruit – oak – pipal lying still; Their shadows fall on the spurge bushes on zedoary clumps; Who knows when Chand near Champa from his madhukar boat Saw such oaks – banyans – gamboge’s blue shades Bengal’s beauty incomparable. Behula too someday floating on raft on Gangur’s water – When the fullmoon of the tenebrous twelfth night died on the river’s shoal – Saw countless pipals and banyans beside the golden corn, Alas, heard the tender songs of shama – and one day going to Amara. When she danced like a torn wagtail in Indra’s court Bengal’s river field, wild violets wept at her feet like anklet bells.

Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, “Do this.” White children said, “Give me that.” White men said, “Come here.” Black men said, “Lay down.” The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other. But they took all of that and re-created it in their own image. They ran the houses of white people, and knew it. When white men beat their men, they cleaned up the blood and went home to receive abuse from the victim. They beat their children with one hand and stole for them with the other. The hands that felled trees also cut umbilical cords; the hands that wrung the necks of chickens and butchered hogs also nudged African violets into bloom; the arms that loaded sheaves, bales, and sacks rocked babies into sleep. They patted biscuits into flaky ovals of innocence—and shrouded the dead. They plowed all day and came home to nestle like plums under the limbs of their men. The legs that straddled a mule’s back were the same ones that straddled their men’s hips. And the difference was all the difference there was. Then they were old.

There it lay in the early sunshine of spring. It looked a town rather than a house, but a town built, not hither and thither, as this man wished or that, but circumspectly, by a single architect with one idea in his head. Courts and buildings, grey, red, plum colour, lay orderly and symmetrical; the courts were some of them oblong and some square; in this was a fountain; in that a statue; the buildings were some of them low, some pointed; here was a chapel, there a belfry; spaces of the greenest grass lay in between and clumps of cedar trees and beds of bright flowers; all were clasped — yet so well set out was it that it seemed that every part had room to spread itself fittingly — by the roll of a massive wall; while smoke from innumerable chimneys curled perpetually into the air. This vast, yet ordered building, which could house a thousand men and perhaps two thousand horses, was built, Orlando thought, by workmen whose names are unknown. Here have lived, for more centuries than I can count, the obscure generations of my own obscure family. Not one of these Richards, Johns, Annes, Elizabeths has left a token of himself behind him, yet all, working together with their spades and their needles, their love-making and their child-bearing, have left this. Never had the house looked more noble and humane.

He lay under the great bearskin and stared out of the window at the stars of spring, no longer frosty and metallic, but as if they had been new washed and had swollen with the moisture. It was a lovely evening, without rain or cloud. The sky between the stars was of the deepest and fullest velvet. Framed in the thick western window, Alderbaran and Betelgeuse were racing Sirius over the horizon, the hunting dog-star looking back to his master Orion, who had not yet heaved himself above the rim. In at the window came also the unfolding scent of benighted flowers, for the currants, the wild cherries, the plums and the hawthorn were already in bloom, and no less than five nightingales within earshot were holding a contest of beauty among the bowery, the looming trees...He watched out at the stars in a kind of trance. Soon it would be the summer again, when he could sleep on the battlements and watch these stars hovering as close as moths above his face and, in the Milky Way at least, with something of the mothy pollen. They would be at the same time so distant that unutterable thoughts of space and eternity would baffle themselves in his sighing breast, and he would imagine to himself how he was falling upward higher and higher among them, never reaching, never ending, leaving and losing everything in the tranquil speed of space.

This Compost" Something startles me where I thought I was safest, I withdraw from the still woods I loved, I will not go now on the pastures to walk, I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea, I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? How can you be alive you growths of spring? How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you? Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd, I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath, I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. 2 Behold this compost! behold it well! Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold! The grass of spring covers the prairies, The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests, The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs, The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare, Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves, Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards, The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead. What chemistry! That the winds are really not infectious, That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me, That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it, That all is clean forever and forever, That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease. Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas'd corpses, It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

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.

My mother had a passion for all fruit except oranges, which she refused to allow in the house. She named each one of us, on a seeming whim, after a fruit and a recipe- Cassis, for her thick black-currant cake. Framboise, her raspberry liqueur, and Reinette after the reine-claude greengages that grew against the south wall of the house, thick as grapes, syrupy with wasps in midsummer. At one time we had over a hundred trees (apples, pears, plums, gages, cherries, quinces), not to mention the raspberry canes and the fields of strawberries, gooseberries, currants- the fruits of which were dried, stored, made into jams and liqueurs and wonderful cartwheel tarts on pâte brisée and crème pâtissière and almond paste. My memories are flavored with their scents, their colors, their names. My mother tended them as if they were her favorite children. Smudge pots against the frost, which we base every spring. And in summer, to keep the birds away, we would tie shapes cut out of silver paper onto the ends of the branches that would shiver and flick-flack in the wind, moose blowers of string drawn tightly across empty tin cans to make eerie bird-frightening sounds, windmills of colored paper that would spin wildly, so that the orchard was a carnival of baubles and shining ribbons and shrieking wires, like a Christmas party in midsummer. And the trees all had names. Belle Yvonne, my mother would say as she passed a gnarled pear tree. Rose d'Aquitane. Beurre du Roe Henry. Her voice at these times was soft, almost monotone. I could not tell whether she was speaking to me or to herself. Conference. Williams. Ghislane de Penthièvre. This sweetness.

The cuisine of Northern Iran, overlooked and underrated, is unlike most Persian food in that it's unfussy and lighthearted as the people from that region. The fertile seaside villages of Mazandaran and Rasht, where Soli grew up before moving to the congested capital, were lush with orchards and rice fields. His father had cultivated citrus trees and the family was raised on the fruits and grains they harvested. Alone in the kitchen, without Zod's supervision, he found himself turning to the wholesome food of his childhood, not only for the comfort the simple compositions offered, but because it was what he knew so well as he set about preparing a homecoming feast for Zod's only son. He pulled two kilos of fava beans from the freezer. Gathered last May, shucked and peeled on a quiet afternoon, they defrosted in a colander for a layered frittata his mother used to make with fistfuls of dill and sprinkled with sea salt. One flat of pale green figs and a bushel of new harvest walnuts were tied to the back of his scooter, along with two crates of pomegranates- half to squeeze for fresh morning juice and the other to split and seed for rice-and-meatball soup. Three fat chickens pecked in the yard, unaware of their destiny as he sharpened his cleaver. Tomorrow they would braise in a rich, tangy stew with sour red plums, their hearts and livers skewered and grilled, then wrapped in sheets of lavash with bouquets of tarragon and mint. Basmati rice soaked in salted water to be steamed with green garlic and mounds of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, then served with a whole roasted, eight kilo white fish stuffed with barberries, pistachios, and lime. On the farthest burner, whole bitter oranges bobbed in blossom syrup, to accompany rice pudding, next to a simmering pot of figs studded with cardamom pods for preserves.

That night, Marjan dreamt of Mehregan. The original day of thanksgiving, the holiday is celebrated during the autumn equinox in Iran. A fabulous excuse for a dinner party, something that Persians the world over have a penchant for, Mehregan is also a challenge to the forces of darkness, which if left unheeded will encroach even on the brightest of flames. Bonfires and sparklers glitter in the evening skies on this night, and in homes across the country, everyone is reminded of their blessings by the smell of roasting 'ajil', a mixture of dried fruit, salty pumpkin seeds, and roasted nuts. Handfuls are showered on the poor and needy on Mehregan, with a prayer that the coming year will find them fed and showered with the love of friends and family. In Iran, it was Marjan's favorite holiday. She even preferred it to the bigger and brasher New Year's celebrations in March, anticipating the festivities months in advance. The preparations would begin as early as July, when she and the family gardener, Baba Pirooz, gathered fruit from the plum, apricot, and pear trees behind their house. Along with the green pomegranate bush, the fruit trees ran the length of the half-acre garden. Four trees deep and rustling with green and burgundy canopies, the fattened orchard always reminded Marjan of the bejeweled bushes in the story of Aladdin, the boy with the magic lamp. It was sometimes hard to believe that their home was in the middle of a teeming city and not closer to the Alborz mountains, which looked down on Tehran from loftier heights. After the fruit had been plucked and washed, it would be laid out to dry in the sun. Over the years, Marjan had paid close attention to her mother's drying technique, noting how the fruit was sliced in perfect halves and dipped in a light sugar water to help speed up the wrinkling. Once dried, it would be stored in terra-cotta canisters so vast that they could easily have hidden both both young Marjan and Bahar. And indeed, when empty the canisters had served this purpose during their hide-and-seek games.

What do you call an evil leader digging a hole? Darth Spader   What do you call Obi Wan eating crunchy toast? Obi Crumb   What do call a padawan who likes to play computer games? i'Pad' me   What do you call a starship pilot who likes to drink cocoa? Han Coco   What starship is always happy to have people aboard? The Millennium Welcome   What did Yoda say to Luke while eating dinner? Use the fork Luke.   What do you call a Sith who won't fight? A Sithy.   Which Star Wars character uses meat for a weapon instead of a Lightsaber? Obi Wan Baloney.   What do call a smelly droid? R2DPOO   What do call a droid that has wet its pants? C3PEE0   What do you call a Jedi who loves pies? Luke PieWalker?   What do call captain Rex when he emailing on a phone? Captain Text   What evil leader doesn’t need help reaching? Ladder the Hutt   What kind of evil lord will always say goodbye? Darth Later   Which rebel will always win the limbo? Han LowLow   What do you call R2D2 when he’s older? R2D3   What do you call R2D2 when he’s busting to go to the toilet? R2DLoo   What do call Padme’s father? Dadme   What’s do you call the Death Star when its wet? The Death Spa   What do call R2D2 when he climbs a tree? R2Tree2   What do you say a Jedi adding ketchup to his dinner? Use the sauce Luke.   What star wars baddy is most likely to go crazy? Count KooKoo   What do call Count Dooku when he’s really sad? Count Boohoo   Which Jedi is most likely to trick someone? Luke Liewalker   Which evil lord is most likely to be a dad? Dadda the Hutt   Which rebel likes to drink through straws? Chew Sucker   Which space station can you eat from? The Death bar   What do call a moody rebel? Luke Sighwalker   What do you call an even older droid R2D4   What do call Darth Vader with lots of scrapes? Dearth Grazer   What call an evil lord on eBay? Darth Trader   What do call it when an evil lord pays his mum? Darth Paid-her   What do call an evil insect Darth Cicada   What sith always teases? General Teasers   Who's the scariest sith? Count Spooko   Which sith always uses his spoon to eat his lunch Count Spoonu   What evil lord has lots of people living next door? Darth Neighbour   What Jedi always looks well dressed? Luke TieWalker   Which evil lord works in a restaurant? Darth waiter   What do you call a smelly storm trooper? A storm pooper   What do you call Darth Vader digging a hole? Darth Spader   What do you C3PO wetting his pants? C3PEE0   What do you call Asoka’s pet frog? Acroaka   What do you call a Jedi that loves pies? Luke Piewalker   What rebel loves hot drinks? Han Coco   What did Leia say to Luke at the dinner table? Use the fork Luke.   What do call Obi Wan eating fruit? Obi plum   What do you call Obi in a band? Obi Drum   What doe Luke take out at night? A Night Sabre   What is the favourite cooking pot on Endor? The e Wok

But good can still stand up against evil. And maybe the best place to do that is here.

And may those who know the truth speak out.

Christmas was an enduring milestone that came and went, while the world forever changed.

she was always careful to brush and re-braid her hair, making sure the blond plaits were straight