The Geranium by Kate Northrop How can you stand it-looking at things? For example, the geranium out on the patio, the single pink blossom in the sun? Or stand the sunlight moving through it, illuminating, holding the flower open like a high clear note, an ecstatic widening which arrives, arrives. What do you dowith it? While the shrubs and the lowest overhanging leaves lift slightly in the wind, the blossom doesn't move. It's the object of affection, and this is how it hurts you: by holding the note open- Past the front of the apartment, traffic goes by: one truck, then another comes on, disappears. And I have the blossom in my vision- sunlight, like vision, making clear the tiniest hidden veins. I don't know why I should be here, alive and having to see this, this bright thing living in time or have to see it later, at the end of the afternoon, when the sun's lower, its light diagonal across the pot, its light then pulling away across the mossed brick like a wave, only slower, slower. The blossom is still pink, but no longer brilliant. I'll go back into the kitchen. But you, are you stronger than I? Can you stay in love with it? Make promises, marry it? Are you so sure of your position in the world?"Road at Chantilly" by Paul Cézanne Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 54. O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.The trees reflected in the river -- they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near to them. So are we. - Nathaniel Hawthorne Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. - Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through ItInnumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower. - John Milton
Dania Lynn Bennett

Be the change you wish to see in the world--Gandhi
Troilus and Cressida. by William Shakespeare A brave soldier, Achilles, speaks: My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred, And I myself see not the bottom of it. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tze wrote, "Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as the water from a fountain. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass the fountain."A Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare: A young maiden speaks: Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer. she continues: Now, my fair'st friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day; and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bight Phoebus in his strength--a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack, To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, To strew him o'er and o'er!Juliet: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."The sound of the water says what I think. - Chuang TzuLANTANA FIELD by Bakul Banerjee White fields of today are filled by dead silence of snow, whipped up by fierce wind. Stubborn young oak stands waiting for spring and another cycle of birth, yet holding on to its old coat of brown leaves, cannot let go, dreaming of acorns yet to come for many years, spreading roots beyond the snowline. You live far, far away from here, away from my time, my place, my list of meaningless tasks but our memories always converge to the limits of our childhood under hidden roots touching times and places and chores. We rolled down the emerald meadow with the silver bezel of a sparse road dotted by hand carts, pushed by patient people, perfumed by roasted corns on the glowing fire of charcoal. We played hide and seek around neat rounds of shrubs with prolific flowers, but with no name, scratchy leaves holding possible poisons to protect those brilliant colors of crimson red, cadmium yellow, magenta, and lavender. You made me mad, sucking the honey from the flowers, just teasing me. I did beat you up with the scare of poison on my mind. Later, we walked past the bamboo grove of our childhood kicking shallow roots, but not the passive snakes under our feet, the rhythm of Kerosene lantern illuminating swinging tree fairies. The wick, trimmed neatly by our mother, dared not to spew up soot as it drank the foul fuel. In the darkness, I wished to name the flower with invisible roots shooting for ever to live and making memories for me and perhaps for you. It is invasive Lantana, I found out today, waiting for humming birds to drink from their numerous cups of honey From now on, Lantana will live forever under my white field of snow.

The Garden

This page is dedicated to those using alternate systems to view the internet and it is rich in alt tags and poetry in lieu of viewing the photos seen here.