July 8th, 2012

By cool Siloam's shady rill
how sweet the lily grows
How sweet the breath beneath the hill
of Sharon's dewy rose.

Richard Heber

It is the time of the lilies, and they are so beautiful here in the town garden, and in the

garden on the hill.

Mary Oliver writes endearingly of the Lily, - of all lilies

I have been thinking

about living

like the lilies

that blow in the fields.

They rise and fall

in the edge of the wind,

and have no shelter

from the tongues of the cattle,

and have no closets or cupboards,

and have no legs.

Still I would like to be

as wonderful

as the old idea.

But if I were a lily

I think I would wait all day

for the green face

of the hummingbird

to touch me.

What I mean is,

could I forget myself

even in those feathery fields?

When Van Gogh

preached to the poor

of course he wanted to save someone -

most of all himself.

He wasn't a lily,

and wandering through the bright fields

only gave him more ideas

it would take his life to solve.

I think I will always be lonely

in this world, where the cattle

graze like a black and white river -

where the vanishing lilies

melt, without protest, on their tongues -

where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,

just rises and floats away.

And do you know,  it is the last two lines of this poem that touch me most, and

which I find quite sweetly enticing.

"where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,

just rises and floats away.

illustration Amy Wolfe