Fortifying my heart…

Tags

Fashion, Love, Ode: Intimations of Immortality, Photography, Poetry, Relationships, Ukushu Khrystyna, William Wordsworth

© Ukushu Khrystyna

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind…
from Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth

Still searching for strength in the ruins of what was a beautiful life – rest in peace.

Among the hydrangeas…

Tags

Again and Again - However We Know the Landscape of Love, Garden, Hydrangea, Photography, Poetry, Rilke

© Joan Currie

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient tree, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.
from Again And Again, However We Know The Landscape Of Love by Rilke

 Glorious palette of colors, glorious day of love…

Dear and loving husband…

Tags

Anne Bradstreet, Photography, Poetry, To my Dear and Loving Husband, Writing

© Joan Currie

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
from To My Dear And Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet

You are adored still and forevermore….

212 degrees Fahrenheit…

Tags

Charles Swinburne, Fashion, Photography, Poetry, Ukushu Khrystyna

© Ukushu Khrystyna

And her lips opened amorously, and said-
I wist not what, saving one word – Delight.
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to mine eyes;
from Love and Sleep by Charles Swinburne

Turning up the heat on this 4th of July…

Mulligans…

Tags

Matthew Arnold, Poetry, Resolutions, Summer Solstice, The Scholar Gipsy, Ukushu Khrystyna

© Ukushu Khrystyna

For whom each year we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day-
from The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold 

Summer Solstice – a time to begin anew with the New Year’s resolutions that have fallen short.

A new path….

Tags

Fashion, Happiness, Jane Kenyon, Photography, Poetry, Writing

© Joan 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 

Happiness turned up at every corner today. I know not why – but how wonderful!

Loving again and again…

Tags

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, If Thou Must Love Me, Love, Photography, Poetry, romance, Tea time

© Joan Currie

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
‘I love her for her smile – her look – her way
Of speaking gently, – for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’ –
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee – and love,
so wrought.
from If Though Must Love Me by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

 Surely after all these years our love is transcendent.

Love’s arrival…

Tags

If Love Should Come, Love, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Photography, Poetry, Writing

National Gallery, London

If love should come,
Against him would I dare to bar the door,
And, unregretful, bid him come no more?
from the poem If Love Should Come by Lucy Maud Montgomery 

Love is welcome at my door.

Failure to thrive…

Tags

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fashion, Love, Love Is Not All, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Writing

© Lauren DiMarco

Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
from Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Hold me, kiss me, love me…

The end of pillow talk…

Tags

Bed, Christina Rossetti, Love, Love lost, Photography, Pillow talk, Poetry, Relationships, Tears, Writing

© Joan Currie

Lie still, lie still my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream’s sake.
by Christina Rossetti

Thinking of the days that will never be…