Monthly Archives: April 2015

703. Well-apparel’d April on the heel of limping Winter treads. ~William Shakespeare

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…Thus in each flower and simple bell,
That in our path untrodden lie,
Are sweet remembrancers who tell
How fast the winged moments fly.
Time will steal on with ceaseless pace,
Yet lose we not the fleeting hours,
Who still their fairy footsteps trace,
As light they dance among the flowers.
~Charlotte Turner Smith

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First there came yellow,
soft and dotted, next to buds
on a pretty rose

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Then appeared a pink
hibiscus with emboldened
stamen and pollen

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Next a huge orange
rose with a touch of pink in
her heart’s center

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At last there was a
wee rose who bore all shades
amid glossy green
~All haikus by written by
Natalie after a trip, camera in hand,
to a local nursery

I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. ~Isaiah 45:3   ✝

702. Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done? ~Matthew Arnold

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What delights us in the spring is
more a sensation than an appearance,
more a hope than any visible reality.
There is something in the softness of the air,
in the lengthening of the days,
in the very sounds and odors of the sweet time,
that caresses us and consoles us
after the rigorous weeks of winter.
~Philip Gilbert Hamerton

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Gerbera, what’s in
a name they say, but yours
belies your beauty
~Natalie Scarberry

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~Romans 15:13 ✝

701. Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; and give us not to think so far away… ~Robert Frost

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I love the spring.
For every day
There’s something new
That’s comes our way.
Another bud
Another bird
Another blade…
~Author Unknown

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Came spring on warm wings
but the hotter pinks arise
as sweet April advances
~Natalie Scarberry

You make known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand. ~Psalm 51:16    ✝

700. And in the woods a fragrance rare of wild azaleas fills the air as they flutter in their gaudy gowns… ~Edited line by Dora Read Goodale

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Fair nature’s priestesses! to whom,
In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,
Her mysteries are told;
Who wise in lore of wood and mead,
The seasons’ pictured scrolls can read,
In lessons manifold!
~Excerpted lines from a poem by
John Greenleaf Whittier

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Azaleas – whitest of white!
White as the drifted snow
Fresh-fallen out of the night,
Before the coming glow.
Tinges the morning light;
When the light is like the snow,
White,
And the silence is like the light:
Light, and silence, and snow, –
All – white!
White as an embodied hush;
A very rapture of white;
A wedlock of silence and light:
White, white as the wonder undefiled
Of Eve just wakened in Paradise;
Nay, white as the angel of a child
That looks into God’s own eyes!
~Excerpted lines from a poem by
Harriet McEwen Kimball

Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. ~Ecclesiastes 9:8   ✝

**As you can see from the photo my white azaleas, though very, very, white indeed, do have a bit of a pink in their freckles especially as the age.

699. Thou art the iris, fair among the fairest… ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Iris was the Greek goddess for the Messenger of Love; the iris, her sacred flower, was considered the symbol of communication and messages. And as it was her duty to take the souls of women to the Elysian fields, Greek men would often plant an iris on the graves of their beloved women. ~Edited commentary by Hana Monogatari

Beauty: the adjustment of all parts proportionately

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so that one cannot add or subtract or change without

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impairing the harmony of the whole.
~Leon Battista Alberti

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As beauteous parts
each add extravagance to
the sum of the charms
~Natalie Scarberry

Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ~1 Peter 3:4   ✝

I love the luscious colors of all parts of this iris.  Strangely, it was one I planted years ago, but until last year it hadn’t bloomed in some time.  I’m so glad it’s back to blooming again.

698. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower. ~Samuel Smiles

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Finger-like ancient
flowers dating back to the
reign of Edward III

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Freckled are your tube-
like prettily colored bells
that look like a glove

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And are a lurking
place of the wee folk who clap
the fairy thunder

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Stately foxglove with
the lambs-tongue-leaves you thrill
the eye and heal hearts

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But beware to all
who know not you can kill a
man as well as heal

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Favorite of mine
are you in the garden but
grow you not in heat

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So it is that I
must find you early in the
year to grow in pots

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Where a favorite
of the buzzing bees and
my camera are you

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Because you see
I love your freckly poetry
of apostrophes

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My blogging friend, Bette Stevens, posted this week that April is national poetry month, and so I set out to write a series of haikus about a favorite flower of mine. I’m certainly no poet but I had fun trying to tell some of the lore about this flower in haiku fashion. Along with the verses are photos I’ve taken and others I found on Pinterest.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. ~Isaiah 40:8   ✝