A Mild Mid-Winter Day

A mild, mid-winter day
soft on my skin
as I walk home
in the late afternoon
grateful
for this moment
and this
and this

Paved with Gold

Ginko leaves on Grammercy Street in November

Runes

Leaves scattered
like runes on the sidewalk
portents, prophesies
glistening, serpentine ribbons
slug trails
signs
telling of the past and
foretelling the fall to come.
And the little black squirrel
filling his belly
with scarlet dogwood berries
relishing this warm
September day.



September 15, 2009

Yes! There are dogwood berries. But look quick,
or they'll all be gone

Summer Wanes

Summer wanes
but it’s doing it with some
pizzazz,
some splash and flair.
Thunder storms crackle,
summer annuals are rich with
flame-colored blooms,
and while the cicadas
are winding down (the husks
of their huge green and black
bodies are sadly starting
to litter the sidewalks)
their confreres the snowy
tree crickets and katydids
are thrumming in the tree tops,
squirrels are scurrying
(there’s a little black one
dashing along my fence
right now), and the farm market
overflows with goodness,
corn, peaches, tomatoes, herbs
and greens, so death
is just a whiff, a note in
the singing symphony so full
of life and juice and the
tap-dancing celebration
that is summer’s end.

August 23, 2009

Summer Green

Don't you just love the green of summer?
Dream-like and deeply serene...

Images from a recent walk on the canal with Trudy.

Enjoy!

Sticky Cool

Sticky Cool

It's a sticky cool summer evening
on the terrace.
One sticks to the chair a little
but there's enough of a breeze
barely a zephyr but enough
to imagine
that one is someplace exotic
especially because the
father and son having dinner
nearby are speaking in a
mysterious language.
So while I wait for my son to
finish baseball practice down
the road I am far away
drinking water on a terrace
urbane and alive
at one with the sticky cool
universe.



July 21, 2008

Summer Bouquet

A summer bouquet from the farm market... for you!

Raining & Raining

It’s been raining and raining
this summer
and there’s been thunder
rolling over the landscape
and torrential downpours
soaking through shoes
puddles and rivulets
streaming down the sidewalks
and the daring art of dashing
between unpredictable deluges
has been busily practiced
all across town…
Rosenny and I arrived at our
destinations soaked through
to the skin, which is not
fashionable, especially when
it has stopped raining and
everyone else (having driven)
arrived dry as a bone.




June 21, 2009

Sudden puddles!

The moss and lichen like it :)

Summertime!

Summertime! and the livin' is easy...

Stars in the summer floral lineup...

Long shadows on the hillside..

Grazing in the grass!

My walk to work down lovely sun-dappled streets...

But now I'm on vacation for 2 weeks. Yippppeeeee!

Happy summer!

The Procession of Spring: Late May in the Bishop's Garden

Still exquisite, spring moves majestically toward summer, sharing the luxurious gifts of iris, poppy, peony, alium, salvia, nepeta, along with herbs and leafy greens... Here, a late-May tour of the Bishop's Garden and the glories therein on a recent Saturday.

Salvia, poppies & boxwood

Fennel

Ladybug friend with Dandelion Greens (?)

Two views of the upper border, with (l to r) aliums, amsonia, salvia & peach-colored iris

The Blue Border near the Gazebo


Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all women,
who care for their children, their families and each other...

A dear friend writes, There are times you provide wise guidance to me, like a mother, and for that I am grateful....

And another friend writes, I am so thankful and grateful not only to my own mother, but to the many womyn who have guided my life and made me feel special and loved.

It's such an honor to be a part of their lives! And to be a part of the community of caring women who bring love and integrity to all that they do.

I thank my mother, no longer with us, and my mother-in-law, whom I dearly treasure, for their love and guidance. I thank my beautiful women friends and colleagues, who enrich all around them with their strong and joyous spirits. And I thank Mother Earth, who provides for us all...

Happy Mother's Day!

The Procession of Spring: Early May

Pansies, Blue Border, Bishop's Garden

Dutch Iris near Dupont Circle, May 2


To brighten your day!

The Procession of Spring: There she is!

There she is!
In all her pretty
ruffled glory--
the first peony,
the zenith of
spring incarnate, with
opalescent petals of
maximum floriferousness,
serious star power
in the kingdom
of springtime,
for all to admire
and adore
in her fleeting moment
of gorgeosity!



May 2008

The Procession of Spring: The Yoshino Cherries

One of the most exquisite and evanescent experiences of the Washington spring: the flowering of the cherry blossom trees at the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial...





The Yoshino cherries, fragile, luminous, palest of pink blossoms, rim the Tidal Basin, shimmering from dawn to dusk...



First Lady Helen Taft and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Ambassador from Japan, planted the first two of over 3,000 trees given by the people of Japan to the United States in 1912 as a gift of friendship.





The blossoms shatter as the display fades, and the petals float down into the water and walkways in what the Japanese call "snow".

Photographed April 4, 7:30 am. Windy!

The Procession of Spring: Dumbarton Oaks

Dumbarton Oaks gardens are one of Washington’s most elegant gems and one of America's great gardens. Begun in 1922 by owner Mildred Bliss and the noted landscape designer Beatrix Farrand, they consist of a series of garden rooms cascading down a hillside, surrounded by softer, more informal plantings. It’s a marvelous experience to visit, ripe with surprises, vistas, splashes of color and ornament, intimate benches whereon to linger. It’s very romantic! But was also a delight with my two youngest sons on a recent spring day...

Yulan Magnolia (Magnolia denudata), east lawn, south of the orangery

Of this tree, Beatrix Farrand wrote, “This... has been christened ‘The Bride’, as when it is in full bloom in early April its loveliness is an enchantment. This tree should be preserved as long as it can be made to thrive and bloom well, and when its days are over it should be replaced by another as nearly like it as possible, as the sight of the white tree as seen from the R Street entrance gateway and as looked down upon from the orangery is one of the real horticultural events of the Dumbarton season.”

from Beatrix Farrand's Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks. Washington, DC, Trustees for Harvard University, 1980.

Mélisande’s Allée, blanketed in blue scilla

Quod Severis Metes
As you sew, so shall you reap

The motto favored by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, that appears everywhere at Dumbarton Oaks. Good point!

To read more about the gardens and learn about visiting, click here.