Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

Peony Season (June 2018)

Peonies at Dusk
by Jane Kenyon

White peonies blooming along the porch
send out light
while the rest of the yard grows dim.

Outrageous flowers as big as human
heads! They’re staggered
by their own luxuriance: I had
to prop them up with stakes and twine.

The moist air intensifies their scent,
and the moon moves around the barn
to find out what it’s coming from.

In the darkening June evening
I draw a blossom near, and bending close
search it as a woman searches
a loved one’s face.

 

June 9, 2018

that peony!
I want to dash cold water
on her face ~ Kaken

 

a rice bowl
filled to the brim
one peony 
                                 ~ Buson

 

half a mind
to dress up and bow down
to this peony
                                       Shiki

6.19.2018

Mother stands by the peony bed,
Reaches for one bloom, opens its petals,
And looks for a long time into peony lands,
Where one short instant equals a whole year.
           By the Peonies, Czeslaw Miloisz

They ask but our Delight --
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile.
                                   Emily Dickinson

 

Peonies of June

June 17, 2914

Susan Dunn's peonies brought to mind Jane Sexton's poem: 

Peonies at Dusk

White peonies blooming along the porch
send out light
while the rest of the yard grows dim.

Outrageous flowers as big as human
heads! They’re staggered
by their own luxuriance: I had
to prop them up with stakes and twine.

The moist air intensifies their scent,
and the moon moves around the barn
to find out what it’s coming from.

In the darkening June evening
I draw a blossom near, and bending close
search it as a woman searches
a loved one’s face.

Jane Kenyon from Constance (1993)

Garden of Chinese Lanterns

bright sunshine, clear sky
a field of scattered lanterns
autumnal prologue

(haiku and photos by Yoon Cohen)

Down Green River Road, in Williamstown, there's a small public park, River's Edge Park, that is rarely frequented.  In the late summer and fall a large portion of the ground is covered by Chinese lanterns.  Over the years, I have watched this ornamental weed spread over the grounds. Its orange flowers are down-hanging bells of arresting beauty.

Wayne Winterrowd wrote to us about Chinese Lanterns a few years back: Download Chinese Lanterns - C2S

Photos taken September 5, 2013

 Yoon photographing lanterns at River's Edge Park

 

 

Queen Anne's Lace

by William Carlos Williams (Listen to the Poem)

Her body is not so white as

anemony petals nor so smooth—nor

so remote a thing. It is a field

of the wild carrot taking

the field by force; the grass

does not raise above it.

Here is no question of whiteness,

white as can be, with a purple mole

at the center of each flower.

Each flower is a hand’s span

of her whiteness. Wherever

his hand has lain there is

a tiny purple blemish. Each part

is a blossom under his touch

to which the fibres of her being

stem one by one, each to its end,

until the whole field is a

white desire, empty, a single stem,

a cluster, flower by flower,

a pious wish to whiteness gone over—

or nothing.

LIsten

Chicory

"Chicory, Cichorium intybus, is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Various varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons (blanched buds), or for roots (var. sativum), which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and additive. It lives as a wild plant on roadsides in its native Europe, and in North America and Australia, where it has become naturalized." (Wikipedia)   Chicory thrives in Williamsown and brightens our roadsides.

Children and Flowers

For those who proclaim
they’ve grown weary of children,
there are no flowers

Basho

Entrepreneurial Car Washers

 

Their Flyer

 

 

A Thing of Beauty

A world-famous collection of waterlilies incongruously resides in a  little west central Texas city plagued by heat, drought and wildfire. Here are hundreds of hardy and tropical waterlilies blooming day and night.  See the NY Times article: Texas Waterlily Refuge.  The multimedia link is pretty amazing.

Water lilies float
Serene and motionless as
Raindrops splash the pool
                                                                        Basho

The Lily (Emily Dickinson)

Through the Dark Sod -- as Education --
The Lily passes sure --
Feels her white foot -- no trepidation --
Her faith -- no fear --

Afterward -- in the Meadow --
Swinging her Beryl Bell --
The Mold-life -- all forgotten -- now --
In Ecstasy -- and Dell --

North Hill, Readesboro, VT August 5, 2011

Queen Anne's Lace

Her body is not so white as
anemone petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing.   William Carlos Williams.   



 
 

Res Ipsa Loquitur

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