Snowballs in April

No green thumb is to be found on either of my two hands.

And yet I am as fascinated as the next person by plant life.

Someone else sowed what comes up on our land. I only enjoy.

For example, the twenty-foot-high snowball bush -- viburnum opulus; I looked it up -- in our side yard has been catching my eye of late.

Last week we had a day of overcast skies and spates of rain. I chose that day to ask the snowball bush to pose for me.

The brave ranks of yellow bearded iris, standing buttery sentinel behind a retaining wall in back, have been imposed upon in a similar fashion.

If only people could be ever as beautiful and cooperative, as patient and their generosity as plenteous, as flowers.

Why the snowball bush and the iris -- and the cascading purple of wisteria blossoms which captivated me earlier this month but now are gone --remind me of this poem by Emily Brontë, I cannot say.

I believe Emily's human hero and heroine, Heathcliff and Cathy -- although heather was their thing, and they were fictional -- would have appreciated both the petals and the poem.

The tragic lovers counted rather heavily on immortality.

Ralph Waldo Emerson opined: The earth laughs in flowers.

I like that but I like this idea better: Flowers glorify God just by showing up.

And in their simple yet complex obedience is a lesson to us all.

No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere;

I see Heaven’s glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life — that in me has rest,

As I — undying Life — have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men’s hearts — unutterably vain;

Worthless as withered weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by Thine infinity;

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,

And suns and universes ceased to be,

And Thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void;

Thou — Thou art Being and Breath,

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

Emily Brontë

=0=0=0=

~ Happy Wednesday ~

=0=0=0=

Comments

[Mari]

So pretty! I like what you said about flowers glorifying God. I think all the beauty around us, and the power we sometimes see in this world does a good job at that.
And if this world is this beautiful - what must heaven be like?

[irene]

glorious, love anything that grows and glorifies God.

[Donna (Texas)]

Oh Miss Jenny!!!! SO BEAUTIFUL! And I LOVE your edits on them!
Jealous here!
hughugs

[Skunkfeathers]

You don't need green thumbs; you have an awesome camera ;-)