The First Day of Summer
Woke at 5 a.m. to pouring rain - Caspar and I both back to bed!
At seven the rain had stopped, - a few brights spots in the sky, and since then it has been dry and overcast, with gusts of wind bending the trees and stirring the flowers in the garden.
The fourteen day forecast predicts temperature below normal, and the little icons at the top hardly ever show a bright sun, - just various degrees of clouds and showers.
But the gardens have flourished in this cool rainy spring - they have grown tall and luxuriant, - the poppies especially have been like great orange bowls hiding their dark silken tassels in the depths.
June has not been merry and bright, but it has been kind to the garden.....
Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. John Ruskin
To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat
Beverly Nichols
Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.
Lydia M. Child
There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every event under heaven - a time to give birth, and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
On this June day the buds in my garden are almost as enchanting as the open flowers.
Things in bud bring, in the heat of a June noontide, the recollection of the loveliest days of the year - those days of May when all is suggested, nothing yet fulfilled.
Francis King
The flower offered of itself and eloquently spoke of Gods in languages of rainbows, perfumes and secret silence, Phillip Pulfrey
Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.
William Cowper
I'm glad I am alive, to see and feel
The full deliciousness of this bright day,
That's like a heart with nothing to conceal;
The young leaves scarcely tremblin; the blue-grey
Rimming the cloudless ether far away.....
A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring
William Carlos Williams
O Day after day we can't help growing older. Year after year spring can't help seeming younger.
Come let's enjoy our winecup today, Nor pity the flowers fallen.
Wang Wei, on Parting with Spring
Give me at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. - Walt Whitman
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
The Gospel according to Zen
Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world.
Emerson
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. - Marcus Aurelius
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
James Russell Lowell
The garden, like the labyrinth, requires a going in and a coming out.
Happiness? The color of it must be spring green, impossible to describe until I see a just-hatched lizard sunning on a stone. That color, the glowing green lizard skin, repeats in every new lea.... The regenerative power of nature explodes in every weed, stalk, branch. Working in the mild sun I feel the green fuse of my body, too. Surges of energy, kaleidoscopic sunlight through the leaves, the soft breeze that makes me want to say the word 'zephyr' - this mindless simplicity can be called happiness.
Frances Mayes, Bella Tuscany
And this is the garden in the midst of June - I have put my knitting aside and closed my eyes to the dust that shimmers in the sunlight and the making of stews and the baking of pies.
Life is delightful, and the morning hours in the garden pass quickly, in enchanted moments, - even those devoted to the delicate weed removal from tender young annuals that will be charming in August. I throw aside my gloves and get lost in that wonderful green energy.
