Let There Be Flowers

I don't have too much to say in this post, but just wanted to share some of the beauty that's been in the garden.  A friend of mine asked if I could plant something that I haven't before, what would it be?  And I said, more flowers.  Big flowers like dahlias, peonies, and roses.  But that's for another season.

The roses are from my dad's yard, but everything else has been coming up gloriously at the farm.  Perennials from Grandmother's cutting garden are still going strong and this year, I've tried some rudbeckia as well as Bells of Ireland.  I continue to adore zinnias for their natural ombre.

Put "flower farmer" on the list of things I want to be when I grow up.


Saint Francis and the Sow
By Galway Kinnell

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;   

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;   

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch   

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow   

began remembering all down her thick length,   

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,   

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine   

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering   

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.