this sunshiny design at MagnetWorks in a variety of garden products including large size flags ! + 8 x 10 giclee prints here
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
Heading out to the garden any moment now, trimming, clipping, planting, transplanting and getting my hands very dirty. Sundays are the best days, Sundays are the days when I do pretty much whatever strikes my fancy. On of those Sunday fancies is to sit later on in our backyard forest with the dogs (Sam & Winnie) and of course Itsy Bitsy Betty and plan my 2014 SummerTime Bucket list - between 10-20 want to do summertime things. Things like swim in the ocean _ times, have a grilled sausage on a bun with fried onions, have fish n' chips from the Chips Away truck in Wallace Bay ....
It should be a very fun list to compile. What's on your summertime bucket list ?
oh & have a very happy first summertime Sunday ;-)
I love that poem, from Thirst, and know it well. Many poems in that collection have a religious or carpe diem theme, more than usual in her work, probably part of coming to terms with her partner's death. I know that poem well and its context, but it still makes me shiver.
ReplyDeleteI think you John may have introduced me to Mary Oliver - I feel she and I are kindred spirits ;-)
ReplyDeleteI would so love to see some photos of you in your garden working. You send so many lovely photos of the finished product that I need to see work-in-progress to know that it is possible for an amateur like me to get better at gardening. I have no idea what needs to be done, but I do love to putter. Would love to see you getting your hands dirty!
ReplyDeleteP.S. the loveliest of packages arrived for me this week. I was having a particularly bad day, so it was the perfect timing. I managed to hold off opening it until I got all my dirty work done so I wouldn't feel guilty. Loved everything!! Thank you! I have a little thing in return that might eventually find its way to you, purchased back in March on a little trip to Osaka (aka the big city).
Hi Alison so happy to hear that your package arrived safe & sound - a small thank-you for all the love & support you send my way here in this comment section. I do so appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteRe: my gardening skill and/or ability - it's laughable really as I am at best a very haphazard gardener, I flit from thing to thing (we have an enormous jungle ... I mean yard garden), leaving important, much tools strewn behind me and there is always way more to do then I could possible ever do. We would need a full time gardner. I might suggest that it's my photography skill that is creating the illusion with those gorgeous finished products (flowers, veg, etc...) & my passion for documenting them. I've been planning a post on just how haphazard my gardening abilities really are - giving huge hope, I hope, to all of us amateur green-ah thumbs.
much love from all of us xoxo Susan
Puttering in the garden is sheer heaven, isn't it ?
ReplyDelete