The past year and a half in flowers

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatfully rejoices; and with my work I will praise him.

Psalm 28 : 7 ( Sandy’s word change work instead of song.)
A 1920’s Japanese jug last seen in my post
Red hot Poker with others
is now holding a grouping of flowers. Each flower a part of
my
memory of the year and a half I have been posting on Word Press.
Two Zinnias.
One that had its full colour in one of my many zinnia posts.
Her beauty and elegance is apparent even in her simplicity.
Then…
…a softly shaded pink one.
With each shrinking petal
layer on layer
linking time that has past
with
beautiful now.
A drumstick from a summer post.
Notice the critter or shell of a critter that once was
“I’m a critter who finds your petals soft , dry and safe.
Home.”
A dry foxglove with subtle charm a long way from summer’s warmth.
Dry curved petals
part of a spire
a sentry
a symbol of fleeting moments ,
wisdom and meaning.
Then …
….a Calandula with a Cabbage White butterfly.
The Calandula was one of the first flowers that grew so well from seed and I enjoyed working with so much during lock down.
“Then”, a word I so often use to push me through time and now to mention a poet:
Robert Graves.
His father was the celebrated Irish poet Alfred Percival Graves.
Robert was born in 1895 and died in 1985.
Here is a poem by him about the flying capabilites of a Cabbage White.
The Cabbage White

The butterfly,a cabbage -white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has- who knows so well as I?-
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness,
Even the acrobatic swift
Has not his flying - crooked gift.
Robert Grave.

There are two links below. In the first Robert Grave is being interviewed by a lady when he is in his 70’s.

Then in this second interview he is in his 80’s and he is being interviewed by a man. I was fascinated by the slow but purposeful avoidance of answering questions that Robert Grave was able to sustain during this interview. It is as if the process of thinking has become difficult. It takes patience to follow but look at their clothes their body movements. The change the years have made to him. He doesn’t clearly answer but we think we know his answers as we have listened to him speak when he was in his 70’s.

This post has taken a left/ right turn, which ever, and I have again let it take me to an interesting place I didn’t set out to find. So, Robert Grove some of us women have magic, how lovely and strange that thought is. Possibly, as good as this one by another Robert poet, Robert Frost :

” Butterflies … flowers that fly and all but sing.”

Sandy 🙂

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