Quote of the Day

A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.

                                                                                       - Neil Gaiman

Blueberries

- James Lasdun

 

I’m talking to you old man.

Listen to me as you step inside this garden

to fill a breakfast bowl with blueberries

ripened on the bushes I’m planting now,

twenty years back from where you’re standing.

It’s strictly a long-term project—first year

pull off the blossoms before they open,

second year let them flower, watch the bees

bobbing in every bonnet,

but don’t touch the fruit till year three,

and then only sample a handful or two . . .

Old man I’m doing this for you!

You know what they say about blueberries:

blood-cleansing, mood-lifting memory-boosters;

every bush a little fountain of youth

sparkling with flavonoids, anthocyanin . . .

I’ve spent all summer clearing brush

sawing locust poles for the frames,

digging in mounds of pine needles, bales of peat moss—

I thought I’d do it while I still could.

You can do something for me in turn:

think about the things an old man should;

things I’ve shied away from, last things.

Care about them only don’t care too

(you’ll know better than I do what I mean

or what I couldn’t say, but meant).

Reconcile, forgive, repent,

but don’t go soft on me; keep the faith,

our infidels’ implicit vow:

“not the hereafter but the here and now  . . . ”

Weigh your heart against the feather of truth

as the Egyptians did, and purge its sin,

but for your own sake, not your soul’s.

And since the only certain

eternity’s the one that stretches backward,

look for it here inside this garden:

Blueray, Bluecrop, Bluetta, Hardy Blue;

little fat droplets of transubstantiate sky,

each in its yeast-misted wineskin, chilled in dew.

This was your labor, these are the fruits thereof.

Fill up your bowl old man and bring them in.

from: Bluestone. Copyright 2015. 

 

Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

Truth

It's A Garden Party - Bird Baths & Bountiful Beds

This feature, originally known as Saturday Farmer's Market, was created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and was then hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

If anyone would like to share their own gardening adventures with me - large or small, inside or out - I would love to see them.

Just leave a link to your post in the comments.

My little make shift Bird Bath has settled in with the happy Cape Honeysuckle filling in all around it.

It actually looks like I will have to move the bird bath out a bit by the end of the year.

The choice is to move the bird bath out or cut the Cape Honeysuckle back, and I don't want to cut.






After seeing how happy this plant is this year, I have decided to let the bed go as wild as it wants.

I will, however, have to move both the Fortnight Lily (not pictured) and the Agave further from the exuberant Cape Honeysuckle.

The Agave, as you can see, is incognito, but quite healthy and growing well.

Four Birds

- Howard Moss

“Wake to the sun,” the rooster croaked,

First bird of the day. The world, light-flecked,

Chiselled its lineaments into form.

Where was all that fine light coming from?

“Trance at the wonder,” the second sang.

Whose five dry notes urged the ongoing

Afternoon on. “Why wake and stir?”

It asked. And asked. There was no answer.

“Live through the muddle.” That from the next one.

Not very helpful. It looked like rain,

Or fog in the offing. Twilight. Then

It sang again from an oak or pine.

Silence. How I waited for the fourth!

Time was a negative dipped into its bath,

The dark a fixative that slowly made

For every windowpane its window shade.

No messages arrived. No music bared

The soul for its penitence. Up the stairs

No hint of a footfall. The night passed.

“Croak by your hand,” said the crow at last.

from: New Selected Poems. Copyright 1985.

Solomon Grundy

- Alice Oswald

 

Born on Monday and a tiny

world-containing grain of light

passed through each eye like heaven through a needle.

And on Tuesday

he screamed for a small ear in which to hide.

He rolled on Wednesday, rolled his whole body

full of immense salt spaces, slowly

from one horizon to the other.

And on Thursday, trembling, crippled,

broke beyond his given strength and crawled.

And on Friday he stood upright.

And on Saturday he tested a footstep

and the sky came down and alit on his shoulder

full of various languages in which one bird doesn’t answer to another.

And on Sunday he dreamed he was flying

and his mind grew gold watching the moon

and he began to sing to the brink of speaking

 

from: Spacecraft Voyager 1. Copyright 2007.

It Is What It Is

Buzzfeed ran a post with haiku about being "a book nerd." I personally would have made it about being "a book lover" or "an avid reader," but it wasn't up to me.

Here is one I thought especially pertinent:

You can check out the rest

{here}

One of My Favorite Quotes

If you have a garden and a library,

you have everything you need.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero