April Flowers, April Beauty
APRIL FLOWERS, APRIL BEAUTY
"all the more I wish to see
in those blossoms at dawn
the face of a god"
Matsu Basho
"Silently a flower blooms,
In silence it falls away;
Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,
The world of the flower, the whole of
the world is blooming.
This is the talk of the flower, the truth
of the blossom:
The glory of eternal life is fully shining here."
- Zenkei Shibayama
(The above is a fresco from Pompei and housed in the Naples Anthropology Museum. I have seen it and it really is beautiful. It amazes me that it is still in excellent shape despite being buried in the volcano ashes and the centuries of its life.)
FLORA
"In Roman mythology, Flora was a goddess of flowers and the season of spring. While she was otherwise a relatively minor figure in Roman mythology, being one among several fertility goddesses, her association with the spring gave her particular importance at the coming of springtime. Her festival, the Floralia, was held in April or early May and symbolized the renewal of the cycle of life, marked with dancing, drinking, and flowers. Her Greek equivalent was Chloris. Flora was married to Favonius, the wind god, and her companion was Hercules. Due to her association with plants, her name in modern English also means plant life. Flora achieved more prominence in the neo-pagan revival of Antiquity among Renaissance humanists than she had ever enjoyed in ancient Rome."
- Flora (Mythology) - Wikipedia
"Flora is the Roman Goddess of flowering plants, especially those that bear fruit. Spring, of course, is Her season, and She has elements of a Love-Goddess, with its attendant attributes of fertility, sex, and blossoming. She is quite ancient; the Sabines are said to have named a month for Her (which corresponds to our and the Roman April), and She was known among the Samnites as well as the Oscans, where She was called Flusia. She was originally the Goddess specifically of the flowering crops, such as the grain or fruit-trees, and Her function was to make the grain, vegetables and trees bloom so that autumn's harvest would be good. - Flora - Roman Goddess
Pear Blossoms
"An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere ..."
- Emily Dickinson, Nature: April
Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra)
The Bleeding Hearts
Delicate beauty….
Brilliant passionate hue.
Droplets of tears.
Drawing near to us.
The sweet scents of summer.
The bleeding hearts.
Capturing the essence of beginnings.
Possibilities to ponder.
Nature and self, to renew.
Fragile and fleeting beauty.
As with all hearts.
Brought to fruition by the deep, warm blood.
Slowly seeping;
to nourish and sustain.
The bleeding hearts.
Perfectly framed in tender green.
Captured for the moment.
Once again we savor;
their timely, graceful charms.
The Bleeding Hearts © 2008 Geraldine H. Hartman
Tulips
The Legend of the Dogwoods:
The legend surrounding the symbolic meaning of a dogwood tree is intrinsically linked to Christianity. It is said that the wood of the dogwood tree is the hardest and that it was chosen to be used in the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. Although there are no direct accounts that this is so, it is known that dogwood grew in the areas surrounding Jerusalem during this time period, and it is entirely likely that this wood was used.
\
Dogwoods
down the dogwood path
salamanders frogs and toads
I can only hope
-Susan Taylor Brown
First Azaleas
After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
All flower photos by Proserpina
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Updated: 23 04, 2012 21:24 GMT
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Welcome Spring!
FROM OUR VERY OWN BOGON!
Old Jack Frost is on the run,
Fleeing from the warming sun.
Spring has come to take control,
Encourage growth and to extol
The beauty that each life can bring,
The songs that each voice can sing.
Proserpina is loose again
With warming wind and rinsing rain.
Flowers follow in her train:
Summer's heralds, winter's bane.
(Beautiful Bogon! Thank you!)
Daffodowndilly
by A.A. Milne
She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead."
Spring Quiet
Christina Rossetti (1847)
Gone were but the Winter,
Come were but the Spring,
I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing.
Where in the whitethom
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.
Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs
Arching high over
A cool green house:
Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly:
“We spread no snare;
“Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.
“Here the sun shineth
Most shadily;
Here is heard an echo
Of the far sea,
Though far off it be.”
Spring Greeting
by Sidney Lanier
All faintly through my soul to-day,
As from a bell that far away
Is tinkled by some frolic fay,
Floateth a lovely chiming.
Thou magic bell, to many a fell
And many a winter-saddened dell
Thy tongue a tale of Spring doth tell,
Too passionate-sweet for rhyming.
Chime out, thou little song of Spring,
Float in the blue skies ravishing.
Thy song-of-life a joy doth bring
That's sweet, albeit fleeting.
Float on the Spring-winds e'en to my home:
And when thou to a rose shalt come
That hath begun to show her bloom,
Say, I send her greeting!
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Updated: 28 03, 2012 14:18 GMT
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