Thoughts of Love…

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Beauty, Lauren DiMarco, Love, Poetry, Sonnet XXVII

© Lauren DiMarco

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts–from far where I abide–
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.
Sonnet XXVII by William Shakespeare

In that wonderful place between wakefulness and sleep, I think of you.

Model: Lauren DiMarco

Winter solstice…

Tags

Hope, Poetry, Susan Cooper, Syracuse, WInter Solstice

_{© David Dodds}

The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us — listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
by Susan Cooper
The Shortest Day book

There is something magical about the winter solstice. It is a time to celebrate! Despite all the woes of this last year, we have made it through to its shortest day and can now look forward to longer, lighter, and dare to hope for, better days ahead!

After 800 years, The Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter can be seen again tonight after sunset.

A snapshot of the day….

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Happiness, Jane Kenyon, Photography, Poetry

_{© James Currie}

There’s just no accounting for happiness
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
from Happiness by Jane Kenyon

It was a day of happiness and it was wonderful!

Another spring…

Tags

Bird nest, Christina Rossetti, Nest, Poetry, Spring, Victorian poetry

Spring Nest © Joan Currie

Another Spring
If I might see another Spring,
I’d not plant summer flowers and wait:
I’d have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snow-drops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
To blow at once, not late.

If I might see another Spring
I’d listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
I’d listen to the lusty herds,
The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I’d find out music in the hail
And all the winds that blow.

If I might see another Spring –
Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in “if” –
If I might see another Spring,
I’d laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not wait for anything:
I’d use to-day that cannot last,
Be glad to-day and sing.

By Christina Rossetti

Savoring the signs of spring…

You, on the other side…

Tags

Art, Grieving, Loss of loved one, Memories, Mixed media, Poetry, Remembering, Woman with Roses

Lauren DiMarco at Joshua Tree

 Still Too Sharp
by Joan Currie

My memories of you are like shards of glass, 
they have to be handled very carefully.
Fearing that if I were to sustain a wound,
the bleeding would never stop…

A life worth living…

Tags

Alfred Austin, Art, Charcoal sketch, Poetry, Summer, Youth

African White Iris © Joan Currie

When Summer, lingering half-forlorn,
On Autumn loves to lean,
And fields of slowly yellowing corn
Are girt by woods still green;
When hazel-nuts wax brown and plump,
And apples rosy-red,
And the owlet hoots from hollow stump,
And the dormouse makes its bed;
from Is Life Worth Living? – by Alfred Austin

This poem brought me back to the delicious summers of my childhood…

A lasting fragrance…

Tags

Aging, Fashion, Lauren DiMarco, Longfellow, Photography, Poetry, Time

Party dress @ Joan Currie

Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme, Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, For oh, it is not always May!

from It Is Not Always May by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sometimes it is hard not to lament the passing of time…

Getty image

Standing pretty…

Tags

Fashion, John Burroughs, Poetry, Shoes, watercolor

Lauren DiMarco in Joshua Tree

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
from the poem Waiting by John Burroughs

Still hopeful that you will stand by my side one day…

Hallowe’en…

Tags

Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en costume, Poetry, Robert Herrick poem, Witch

© Joan Currie

To work magic is to weave the unseen forces into form; to soar beyond sight; to explore the uncharted dream realm of the hidden reality. – Starhawk from Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach

My childhood Hallowe’en costumes were always some variation on the witch theme, with the capes becoming more and more elaborate as the years went on. I think I fared better than my siblings who opted for ghost garb.

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Red hot…

Tags

Emily Dickinson, Fashion, Love, Photography, Poetry

© Joan Currie

That I did always love
I bring thee Proof
That till I loved
I never lived-Enough-
from That I did always love by Emily Dickinson

Perhaps it is time to turn up the heat…