Lilacs

Photo of a neighbors lilac tree taken just a few days ago. According to Wikipedia, Lilacs "...produce more flowers if left unpruned. If pruned, the plant responds by producing fast-growing young vegetative growth with no flowers in an attempt to restore the removed branches."

We had a beautiful lilac tree at the house on Stevens. I remember Mom pointing it out to me when we moved there when I was three years old. After some years it stopped flowering. We didn't realize that pruning the flowers was detrimental to producing more. I pulled off way too many. It remained for many years but Dad eventually had it removed. It was probably more a lilac bush than a tree but we called it that anyway. 

"In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings, 

Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, 

With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, 

With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard, 

With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, 

A sprig with its flower I break."

  -From When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd by Walt Whitman

June

June

The sun is rich
   And gladly pays
In golden hours,
   Silver days,

And long green weeks
   That never end.
School's out. The time
   Is ours to spend.

There's Little League,
   Hopscotch, the creek,
And after supper,
   Hide and seek.

That live-long light
   Is like a dream,
And freckles come
   Like flies to cream.

  --John Updike

The part...:

"And long green weeks
   That never end.
School's out. The time
   Is ours to spend."

...speaks to me because I still have summers off and I truly appreciate that the time is mine to spend.

As a kid, I loved walking Minnehaha Creek in the summer. I have especially fond memories of walking Willie, the family dog. After supper our version of hide and seek was kick the can.

Bad Haiku

The snow remover

Shovels the powdery snow

Methodically

September 29th Full Moon - Poem

Another treated version of a photo I took of the September Harvest Moon.

A harvest Moon!
And on the mats-
Shadows of pine boughs.
-Takarai Kikaku, Japanese poet (1661-1707)

February 13, 1975 - A Poem by James Schuyler

FEBRUARY 13, 1975

Tomorrow is St. Valentine's:

tomorrow I'll think about

that. Always nervous, even

after a good sleep I'd like

to climb back into. The sun

shines on yesterday's new-

fallen snow and yestereven

it turned the world to pink

and rose and steel-blue

buildings. Helene is restless:

leaving soon. And what then

will I do with myself? Some-

one is watching morning

TV. I'm not reduced to that

yet. I wish one could press

snowflakes in a book like flowers.

-James Schuyler

(Photos taken Feb. 13, 2011)

Winter Dark by Lilian Moore

Winter Dark

Winter dark comes early

mixing afternoon

and night.

Soon

there's a comma of a moon,

and each street light

along the

way

puts its period

to the end of day.

Now

a neon sign

punctuates the

dark with a bright blinking

breathless

exclamation mark!

-Lilian Moore

(Candle standing in for neon sign.)

Photo taken at 5:11 p.m.