Let it grow

I often leave the radio off when I'm driving. Some of my best prayer time is in the car. Today the roadside was in full bloom... a beautiful sight. My backyard is a tangle of Creeping Charlie. The pots I never planted this year have sprouted latent purple petunias.

In the quiet of the car

The queen anne’s lace

The blue and yellow flowers

I have not identified

Wave to me

From the unmown edges

Of the road.

Do not mow.

Do not mow.

Do not mow.

There used to be signs

Specific signs

They declared these flowers

Off limits.

Now they seem

To be left on their own

To wave

Proclaim white and blue and yellow

In unplanted swathes,

In unmown patches.

Let it grow

Let it grow

Let it grow

Watch from the edges

What emerges.

Advent Eve

Advent is my favorite season.  It seems the only season of the Church year which waits for two things at once, seemingly opposite things.  This waiting time feels, well, liminal to me.  An in-between time of sorts. This year we also get to wait for the comet to appear in the sky just before dawn.  

Advent Eve

The sun has set

The day will dawn blue

Tomorrow

Unless I look

Just before the sun rises

For the promised comet;

Unless I watch the sky,

Darkness incarnate

With a growing purple tinge,

Melting into final day blue.

Hope holds her hands

Pressed

On the baby

Riding safe inside;

Hope holds her hands outstretched

To the Promised One  

Who will return

Again.

The stage is set.

Advent Eve.

I await

The comet

Out the other side

Of the sun.

The sky will change

From darkness incarnate

To purple

To a final blue.

Hope bows down.

Her hands wait

In her lap.

Blues and purples

This started as a piece on how certain blues in flowers almost glow when the sun is barely setting.  Clearly it didn*t go there.  Kinda like the clematis, almost not trainable in its growth.  A few years ago we began collecting metal sculptures for the yard, welded-together pieces of farm implements, painted with weather-durable paint.  The purple dog is now placed next to the rhubarb.

In flowers

I favor

The blues and purples.

They grab my attention

Every time.

Today the blue wild indigo

Thrives in the back yard,

Graces the front table

With blue-purple blossomed curves.

The lobelia

Promises accent

In the front planters.

The clematis of unknown origin

Will show purple

In late June.

This year it is barely trainable

With its vines and tendrils.

This year

The clematis spans two columns.

I have added more garden twine

For its growth.

Even the thistle

Has perfect purple top-knots

If allowed to grow.

There is low purple-flowered growth

Next to the rhubarb,

Unidentified

In the vegetable bed.

The bed no longer harbors vegetables.

Instead it holds the rhubarb,

A leggy elderberry bush,

And our painted purple metal dog sculpture.

The sculpture marks the garden

As a piece of art.