OUR YARD IN BLOOM

Enjoying a southern yard before the spoils ...


Officially summer has not arrived but in Louisiana you would not believe it as we're nearing triple digit numbers expected this weekend. Before long the heat will win out and the grass now lush and green will wilt and die, turning brown, crisp and ugly. The flowers now bright and healthy will drop and turn. So we bear the heat, the mosquitoes and the humidity to revel in the beauty of God's handiwork of which we toil to experience. We feel the tranquility and the serenity found at dusk when the traffic has stopped and the neighborhood begins to wind down.



The swing promises a nice place to sit and think, to enjoy an occasional breeze with a glass of icy lemonaid



and the flag proudly waves with Uncle Sam protectivly keeping company.

I did a bit of reading searching for a nice poem for my flowers and learned that Emily Dickinson was as known for her love of gardening as she was for her poetry.

A Sepal -- Petal -- And A Thorn
By Emily Dickinson

A sepal -- petal -- and a thorn
Opon a common summer's morn --
A flask of Dew -- A Bee or two --
A Breeze -- a'caper in the trees --
And I'm a Rose!


She wrote most of her poetry sitting at a small desk. She would go out to visit her brother and sister-in-law next door, come back, and then light a lamp in the window to let them know she had returned.

Dickinson rarely left the estate — she did not even attend her father's funeral in 1874. The garden, and the path between the two houses — in Dickinson's words, "just wide enough for two who love," according to Rothman — was her entire world.

She used to bring her niece Maddy to her room and she would close the door and lock it, and say, 'This is freedom,' And so she really felt that when she was in her room and she was looking out along the wooded path between her family homes, that she was free.

Her current exhibition concludes in the Botanical Garden's library, where objects from Dickinson's life are on display — including the white cotton dress she wore even while gardening. She always kept a poem she was working on in the pocket of the dress.



I like to think that if we have in some small way made the earth smile today we have achieved something wonderful.