the blush lasted a day,
a day and maybe a minute—
a small window to admire the brevity of beauty
Tea Rose
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Excerpt From: Cider with Rosie, 3 of 3
Almost anything that caught her wandering eye, Mother gathered and brought indoors. In bottles, tea pots, dishes, and jugs, in anything old or beautiful, she’d put roses, beech-boughs, parsley, hellebore, garlic, cornstalks, and rhubarb.
from Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee, 1959
Excerpt From: cider with Rosie, 2 of 3
That blow in the night, which gave me concussion, scarred me, I think, forever–put a stain of darkness upon my brow and opened a sinister door in my brain, a door though which I am regularly visited by messengers whose words just escape me, by glimpses of worlds I can never quite grasp, by grief, exultation, and panic…
from Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee, 1959
Excerpt from: Cider with Rosie, 1 of 3
A farm-dog barked far across the valley, fixing the time and distance exactly. Warned by the dog and some hooting owls, I could sense the night valley emptying, stretching in mists of stars and water, growing slowly more secret and late.
from Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee, 1959
At Home
vases with faces and pine cones for hats
books strewn here and there about painted houses and childhood ramblings and motorcycle journeys in the sun
coffee brewing and candles burning and fox calls in the dead of night
In Dreams
city streets and secret gardens
sparkling rivers dressed in a winter sun
postcards from Chagall
The Shadow
he noticed the shadow from the dried flowers on the sill—
and it’s that noticing of something so slight,
so seemingly inconsequential
that brings love closer
An Excerpt: The Peony
It was named after Paeon, a physician to the gods, who obtained the plant on Mount Olympus from the mother of Apollo. Once planted the Peony likes to be left alone and punishes those who try to move it by not flowering again for several years. Once established, however, it produces spendid blooms each year for decades.
From Penhaligon’s Scented Treasury of Verse and Prose: The Language of Flowers, 1990
The Patina of Age
on iron doors
and gilded mirrors,
around her blue eyes
and her soft, rounded hips,
on mercury glass
and cracked porcelain jugs,
on her dreams
and what she once thought of as
destiny
Winter Days
a frosted palette of grays
reflects the sentiment of these winter days
spanishwoods 