She Kept A Parrot
A Journal For Charlie
I picked up another Amaryllis at Walgreen Pharmacy early in June.
The foliage and the buds were pale with only a hint of pink.
I didn’t have much confidence that she’d turn out too well,
But the configuration of the plant was good.
At least, she wasn’t She-Devil Red…
It has two stalks and ten buds on one bulb!
The stalks are well-proportioned and sturdy
No, long, lanky stalks and leaves here.
I set it on the porch
And watched the blossoms open.
To my delight, the blossoms are lovely shades of pink on white.
It is a lovely Asiatic Amaryllis as the card on the plant said it would be.
The color of the pink and white blossoms deepens as the blossoms open.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Amaryllis with so many buds
Or one that is quite as compact as this one
♦
♥
I’ve enjoyed this Pink Lady
And I did not have to wrestle with Old Faithful Lens to photograph her.
(You recall the story of She-Devil Red…)
🙂
(Please forgive the mix of present and past tense… Chuckle…)
I’m cleaning out my draft cache, and am not motivated to change much!
Making a Fist
Naomi Shihab Nye
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
‘How do you know if you are going to die?’
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
‘When you can no longer make a fist.’
Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.
I swore that I would never post again until I answered every wonderful comment on my last post.
I am still well, but I have had a few small complications that kept me from concentrating.
I apologize.
I just had to share this birthday wish with you.
I laughed and laughed.
A dear friend, who shares my macabre sense of humor, sent it to me today.
Many kind friends sent good wishes.
Glenda, a good friend of more than thirty years,
brought this beautiful orchid and some tasty pastries.
We had a wonderful visit as we always do.
My sister, Linda, sent these heavenly scented lilies that have just begun to open.
I love lilies as much as I love orchids, of course, and these are especially beautiful.
I had a great birthday.
I expect that it will be my last, but that’s good, too.
I have enjoyed a great seventy-three years.
I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do.
I’ve lived far longer than I ever expected.
And I am happy.
Blessings to all of my WP friends!
🙂
Last year, the poor little clematis managed to produce one tendril.
It made it all the way to the top of the trellis and produced one blossom.
During the winter, the plant turned brown.
I assumed it was dead in the pot until I saw a tiny green leaf at the top.
The rain came and she began to grow.
Finally.
I am reminded of the children’s story book, The little Engine that Could.
🙂
Easter Egg
If I saw the little bowl by itself, I would think, “oh, that’s just precious!” It’s intricate, delicate, beautiful. But when the egg is placed on it, the beauty of the bowl fades into the background. The egg is infinitely more precious…intricate…and awe inspiring. We know that a human made the bowl and appreciate the talent it took to make it. The egg? Just wow! Made by God with beauty and intricacy that boggles my little brain. And planned to be life–something humans can’t give no matter how arrogantly we try. No wonder eggs are symbols of Easter. The more we contemplate the mysteries of creation and redemption, the more real–AND more mysterious they become. ~Donna Pote Clark (Twitter: @Donna Pote Clark)
Several years ago, a friend gave me several little eggs from her beautiful Silkie hens.
I kept three of them in the refrigerator.
I wondered if they would dehydrate (mummify) or simply rot.
After about a year, they began to rattle when I shook them.
I knew the yolks had separated from the shells.
One night, I decided to place one on an egg stand.
When I reached for the stand, I felt my thumb break through the fragile shell.
I photographed one of the eggs that is much smaller than it appears in the photograph.
There was another, even smaller, green one that some culprit must have broken
Since it disappeared from the refrigerator…
The inside of the egg looks soft and fresh, but it is not.
It is as hard as a rock.
Charlie’s grandmother, MeMe, always colors eggs for the children
in the Easter tradition in which I grew up.
There is something reassuring about the keeping of the old traditions, I think.
This year’s eggs.
MeMe was kind enough to send a photo that I requested.
The kids always forget my request!
🙂
Tortures
Nothing has changed.
The body is a reservoir of pain;
it has to eat and breathe the air, and sleep,
it has thin skin and the blood is just beneath it;
it has a good supply of teeth and fingernails;
its bones can be broken; its joints can be stretched.
In tortures, all of this is considered.
Nothing has changed.
The body still trembles as it trembled
before Rome was founded and after,
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are just what they were, only the earth has shrunk
and whatever goes on sounds as if it’s just a room away.
Nothing has changed.
Except there are more people,
Except there are more people,
and new offenses have sprung up beside the one ones–
real, make-believe, short-lived, and nonexistent.
But the cry with which the body answers for them
was, is, and will be a cry of innocence
in keeping with the age-old scale and pitch.
Nothing has changed.
Except perhaps the manners, ceremonies, dances.
The gesture of the hands shielding the head
has nonetheless remained the same.
The body writhes, jerks, and tugs,
falls to the ground when shoved, pulls up its knees,
bruises, swells, drools, and bleeds.
Nothing has changed.
Except the run of rivers,
the shapes of forests, shores, deserts, and glaciers.
The little soul roams among those landscapes,
disappears, returns, draws near, moves away,
evasive and a stranger to itself,
now sure, now uncertain of its own existence,
whereas the body is and is and is
and has nowhere to go.
~ Wislawa Szymborksa ~
(Poem shared by a friend)
Big Lucy in showoff mode!
Both Dragons are trying to bruminate after making valiant efforts to attract each other through the glass.
They still come out of the caves to bask and eat veggies, but few roaches.
Big Lucy is particularly comical.
Little Lucy isn’t nearly as funny as Big Lucy
But, she’s the sweet one.
She’s decided finally to be interested in Big Lucy.
After a few days of trying to reciprocate his advances,
She’s retreated to her cave.
(I’ll drag her out tomorrow for her hot tub spa treatment…)
🙂
Thanks to Dennis
I installed the redirect to the WP classic editor.
Adrian and Sue directed me to the easy two-step link on Dennis’ blog.
I doubt that Dennis is going to be Freshly Pressed for that invaluable post,
but I nominate him anyway!
Thank you, Guys!
Winter Rose
I feel a bit ridiculous sharing my health status, but I wanted to share it with all of you who have been so supportive and kind to me for all of these months.
You and I thought I would be dead “within six months to less than a year” according to the official prognosis.
I had an x-ray last week to rule out a pneumonia.
The radiologist could not figure out what he saw on the x-ray.
My internist sent me back to the pulmonologist who diagnosed the lung cancer.
A new x-ray ruled out a pneumonia.
What it did indicate was that the lung tumor has grown very little since July.
I was not surprised since I am not sick.
I am as fat and sassy as ever.
🙂
Thank you for cheering me along.
It seems that you are in for a few more posts from me, after all.
I suppose I am as unpredictable as this winter’s weather!
🙂
She Kept A Parrot 
Death of a Staghorn
Posted on June 7, 2015 By George Weaver in Death and Dying + Photography + Photos by George + Plants and Trees
49 Comments
We celebrate Birth and Life.
We avert our eyes from Death and Dying.
We see life in Kodachrome.
We see Death in monochrome.
After the recent freeze,
I went into the garden on a mission to study death and dying
in the plant life there.
I made many photographs of what I saw.
I want to share the death of the Staghorn here.
After the frost,
The Staghorn anchor leaves changed from tender green
to silver and gold in the sun.
The Staghorn was but an ephemera on the continuum
from stardust to stardust.
Her death a minuscule marker for those who came
before and those who will come after.
When we banish the Fear Lizard
and view death through our spirit lens,
we see the nuance of color in death as in life.
This image is as I saw it.
In death, too,
There is noise. There is darkness. There is light.
There is color.
In the end, when the leaves are shrunken, gnarled, twisted and dried
their essence is visible in their structure.
As I observed them through the lens
I was surprised and astounded by the transformation.
When they were green and broad and healthy,
the veins in their leaves were visible against the sun.
But they were only green leaves with a faint silver cover.
As I watched them die,
I understood the complex transience of life
And the incredible beauty of death.
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind
and to melt into the sun?
~Khalil Gibran
Note: Re-posted from January, 2014 (A favorite post that I wanted to share again.)
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Tags: Death, Frost, Garden, Philosophy, photographs, photography, Photos, Plants, Seasons, Social Commentary, Staghorn Fern, Stories, Winter