Friday, April 27th, 2012

The storm clouds rolled away and there was no more rain.

The whole world was just fantastically green!!

Charles installed the snap on hose connections that came in the mail via an inviting TV ad, and I cut the handkerchief lawn in the back garden.  This is a man sized handkerchief lawn, - not like the front one that is dainty and has a little tatted lace edging around it.

The newly planted grass said thank you for the rain and all the great fertilizer it brought with it out of the sky (Charles tells me this is so) and also for the sun that is making all the plants smile.

The people I met on the street while grocery shopping, too, - they were all smiling and cheerful, and only one person said to me "Oh, you just wait, - we'll all be complaining that it's too hot soon enough"!!!  I hate to admit that she is probably right.

I went to the pharmacy to buy sympathy cards and a birthday present, and to pick up three one inch cane tips that Charles had ordered for his three legged stool.  Alas, - only two came in.  He will have to wait. Or sit lopsided on his three legged stool.

I found a pretty straw hat for a birthday present though, all floppy and romantic.

It's been a lovely day, and now it is almost Happy Hour, I still have some  meat balls in barbecue sauce to warm up for supper and Doc Martin is on TV tonight.  What more could a girl ask for......

ABCWednesday

Oh, Oh, Oh  - the letter this week is O


O is for Opulence

An 'Opulent' Hotel in Budapest

Opulence is such an ambivalent word.

The sumptuous beauty and the gilded richness it describes

somehow carry with them a faint hint of Obscenity and Decadence.

Centuries ago Aeschylus said.....

'Human prosperity never rests but always craves more, till blown up with pride it totters and falls.  

From the Opulent mansions pointed at by all passers-by none warns it away,

none cries, 'Let no more riches enter'

And although there is a certain opulence in nature,

in an over-the-top sunset

or a majestic sea-scape

still, I'm with Wordsworth.....

The World is too much with us;  late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.........

I figure that true happiness and sensibility lie in moderation

but a glimpse of opulence is nice

if not our passion!

For more comments on the letter O visit here at ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her Obedient helpers.

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes.  Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith:  what we need

is here.  And we pray not

for new heaven and earth, but take

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear.  What we need is here.

Wendell Berry

This morning I was able to catch part of Wendell Berry's conversation at the
National Episcopalian Cathedral in Washington.

A humble farmer as well as a great conservationist
he spoke about being part of the 'low life'
the closer to the earth the better!

He spoke also of the importance of broadening conversation
to make the peoples of the world more aware of stewardship.

And wasn't it the gardener and the farmer who first held
the earth precious, and planted trees they may never sit beneath
but which will provide shade and life when they are gone, and make
the world breath easier.

Here is another of Wendell Berry's poems......

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.