Bursting!

 

Summer’s not over

Fall’s not begun

Foliage is fading

Except this plant…….

It’s just bursting!

“Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination.”

~ Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897

Summer Fade

Shy flowers in October

nestled along a fence

beneath heavy heads of 

fading giant sunflowers.

“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.”

~ Oscar Wilde

A Summer and Fall Day

Incandescent heat softened by

crinkled golden leaves 

above and below.

Playfully I shuffled through them, sidewalk and lawn, 

dry gold catching between 

sole and sandal.

“By all these lovely tokens 

September days are here,

With summer’s best of weather

And autumn’s best of cheer.”

~ Helen Hunt Jackson

Only Ice Cream

It was only an ice cream cone 

on a breezy warm fall day ~

Soft chocolate with coffee crystals

swirled high in a crisp vanilla cone.

A small green jelly bean 

atop it’s delicious mound.

I do wish I could show you a picture but somehow 

it disappeared before my very eyes.

“Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos.”

~ Don Kardong

On the Island

The south east wind blows cold, flattening long grasses

til their heads bow low

obedient to the whim of this bossy wind.

Brown eyed Susans stand bright and tall, cheerily defiant in these late summer days.

Tree branches wave and bob restlessly in jazz time and tune to this gutsy weather.

Fat rain drops, refrigerated by snowy mountain tops,

are flung helter-skelter onto patient Mother Earth,

into gullied curbs, container gardens and questionably brave umbrellas.

Fall edges closer but is still days away.

Today already feels as though this hilarious

west coast winter is impatient to race in and take over.

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”

~ Mark Twain

All Season Walks

Stride out with confidence 

to meet the morning sun.

Gather wisdom and courage 

like flowers for a bouquet 

of delicacy and strength with

scents of spring, summer, fall 

and the crispness of winter.

Stride out with confidence and curiosity into each new day 

through all of our seasons 

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and 

no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

~ Gautama Buddha, Saying of Buddha

Metaphorizing

Mountains and molehills, 

intricate creations of Mother Earth ~ guides for committing to progress.

Grand snow capped mountains rise high into the sky. 

On the horizon ~ a textured screening for rise or set of the sun, rays filtering through the peaks, valleys and forests. 

Humble molehills left behind by earth-dwelling moles are at our feet ~ mounds of earth from digging deep tunnels while eating insects and grubs, damaging our perfect lawns and gardens with their burrowing.

For my eyes to see possibility and grandeur

on a horizon at the end of a chosen path

fills me with dreams and hope for more adventure

For my feet to stumble on a humble molehill,

if only gazing dreamily at the grand mountains

I may just be brought suddenly down to earth!

“Men trip not on mountains, they trip on molehills.”

~ Chinese Proverb

Life Sculpture

Early this morning, as I wrote in my journal, I realized I was living in constant apology. That doesn’t do it justice. It has taken me a long time to realize that Victoria is a jewel. I may finally been wooed by this beautiful snowfall into this frame of mind, but never the less Victoria is a jewel. There is a price to pay for being handed this gift. Not the price of dollars and cents, although costs here are high for food and shelter. We live, rather inconveniently sometimes, on an island that does cut us off somewhat when the weather challenges our ferries. Another price to pay. 

The biggest price is that of flowers and snow wrapped in fragile grey paper of apology, tied up with the tiniest bit of silver guilt feelings. In the spring and summer, beautiful plants grow early and in abundance. Fall flows through the weeks gradually passing into winter without much notice except for gold and red foliage. Deepening mists settle in Victoria’s parks. In winter, it is usually rain and cloud, often cheered on by winds. And there is a second apology for that hovering darkness and cold wet.

Apologies are to the rest of Canada suffering long cold winters for sharing with information freely. Our cold is uncomfortable for many. Our snow can be slushy dangerous watery snow beneath the pillows and blankets of snow. But I love the snow. I spent this afternoon trudging with a friend in deep snow - only running shoes on my feet. Visiting the park heavily laden with snow, snowmen inhabited the deepest snow, a couple rolled a great ball of snow down a hill and a young man was creating a snow sculpture, one of several he has planned. 

The other apology? To Victorians that grew up in the rain and the dark that love this weather. I am sorry that I do not like rain and grey week after week, when it blots out the sun and gets me cold and wet.We live in service to the weather, wherever we are and wherever we have come from. The weather dictates our lives, even the weather we were born to.

“A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.”

~ Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way