Friday, November 15, 2024

Final Flowers for the Day I 11-14-24

These are the final flowers for this year - all blooming today. We have had several nights of frost but
not a freeze yet.
Of course the dahlias continue to bloom.




And there are some real surprises.The azalea in the side yard has bloomed.




Never before in the fall. They usually bloom in April.

And another surprise out of season - the phlox in the gnome garden.


Many more to come.

Here is a poem from my friend Katie.

To Live in the Mercy of God

To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
               before ribs of shelter
                                           open!

To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.

And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
                      Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.

To float, upheld,
                as salt water
                would hold you,
                                        once you dared.
         
                  .

To live in the mercy of God.

To feel vibrate the enraptured

waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
                              to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
                                                   O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
                              To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
                              Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
                              Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God's love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
                      flung on resistance.

 Denise Levertov, "To Live in the Mercy of God" from Sands from the Well. 1996 

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