Tag Archives: Gray

551. The sun’ll come out tomorrow; bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun. ~Excerpt from ANNIE written by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin

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Just thinkin’ about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
‘Til there’s none!

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When I’m stuck in a day
That’s gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And Grin,
And Say,
Oh!
The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
‘Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!
You’re always A day A way!
~All lyrics above are from ANNIE
written by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin

As you can see in my photo, Jack Frost came for a brief visit during the night and added a touch of icy sparkle to the edges of a yellowed, fading leafy nugget. And after a series of gray, gloomy, below-freezing days, the sun has come out filling our hearts with hope and glorifying autumn’s remnants with lovely, luscious light.

As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise You more and more. ~Psalm 71:14   ✝

550. I saw old Autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening to silence. ~Thomas Hood

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The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness.
~Excerpts from a poem by
John Updike

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In hushed stillness a gloomy, gray shroud has hung over the garden today, and out of the chilling grayness November has weeped drippy tears. Drip, drip, drip started the mist in the night, and ever since the ground has been soaking up the felicitous wealth. On and on it has drizzled as it often does in autumn knowing that, though the garden wanes, earth’s womb has begun mothering spring’s progeny. Roots, strong and deep, need the moisture to grow and gather the vigor they’ll need months from now to push life forth from naked branch and barren soil. And in the muted stillness of the day, I’ve felt is a familiar Presence, a holy Presence, the Overseer of all things great and small. Though it be the Sabbath, God walks His Eden still in the cool of the day for therein lies the heartbeat of Creation, child of His love and light.

Those who sow with tears will reap songs of joy. ~Psalm 126:5  ✝

497. I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life… ~George Washington Carver

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i thank You God for this most amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything which is natural
which is infinite
which is yes
~e.e. cummings

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Of What Surrounds Me

Whatever it is I am saying, I always
Need a leaf or a flower, if not an
Entire field. As for sky, I am wildly
In love with each day’s inventions, cool blue
Or cat gray or full
Of the ships of clouds,I simply can’t
Say whatever it is I am saying without
At least one skyful. That leaves water, a
Creek or a well, river or ocean, it has to be
There. For the heart to be there. For the pen
To be poised. For the idea to come.

~Mary Oliver

The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. ~Ecclesiastes 1:8b   ✝

** Image of Dahlia via Pinterest

322. A sudden softness has replaced the meadow’s wintry grey. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

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Just as the remnant green in tinted pot
So are these leaves, now rough and wrecked
Behind the flower umbels, that reflect
Only a hue of blue, more do they not.

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Reflected are they, tear-stained, imperfect,
As if this they were prone to cease,
And as in blue and aged paper leaves
There’s yellow within, grey and violet.

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Faded like a washed-out pinafore
No longer worn and of so little use:
How do we our too-short life endure.

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But suddenly a blue renewed is seen
Among one of the umbels, and I sense
A blue delighted, smiling at the green.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

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Not all the hydrangeas in the photos are blue like the one Rilke is describing, but I found these at the nursery today and they were just too gorgeous not to share. I have 5 hydrangeas in my garden, but the late freeze at the beginning of March has really set them back if not killed them. I’m seeing a few green leaves but by now they would normally be fully leafed out with signs of budding. Not so this year sadly.

For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living. ~Psalm 116:8-9 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us!

282. Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living. ~Soren Kierkegaard

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Crowfoot, chief of the Blackfoot Nation, once asked, “What is life?”  He then answered his own question with haunting and graphic wisdom.  He said, “it is the flash of the firefly in the night.  It is the breath of the buffalo in wintertime.  It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

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Life, that spark, that whispering breath of God over the void, grows faint in winter.  Cloistered behind the grays and browns of gloomy veils, its glow, its hum, its buzz, pales and lowers, but as we near the vernal equinox, Eden’s heartbeat becomes a little more perceptible each day.  It has been said that “God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled,” and today I’ve discovered right here in my back yard that through dark, seemingly dead branches life into the lifeless has been poured again without any wasted spillage.  It is on the trailing tendrils of a “Clematis armandii” vine that life has flowed silently and secretly until it could no longer be contained.  As it burst forth into the newness you see in my photos, it is proof that the Holy One tends His Eden still.  His divine, hidden forces of life have become tangibly visible, and a new spark has ignited a tiny flame.  Soon a steady succession of similar sparks will fuel a blaze, a blaze that will spread like a wildfire lighting the world anew with evidence of God’s never-ending glory.

Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?  In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.  ~Job 12:9-10  ✝

272. I love snow, snow, and all the forms of radiant frost.  ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Look up at the miracle of the falling snow,–
the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes,
noiselessly transforming the world,
the exquisite crystals dropping in ditch and gutter,
and disguising in the same suit of spotless livery
all objects upon which they fall.
~John Burroughs

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Yesterday was a double, good whammy kind of day, and the whamminess began and ended in the heavens.  Right after first light little, bitty snow flakes began to fall, and by noon the frigid, gray day had been punctuated with a lovely smattering of snow.  The north wind was a contributor in the snowscapade because at times it seemed to be blowing down even more of the “exquisite crystals” from the white clouds of heaven’s expanse.  The second whammy played out when sparkling stars and a slender slice of the ancient moon punctuated heaven’s then blackened dome and prettified to a greater extent the frosting of snow on the ground.

Most nights I go for a short walk before bedtime.  Walking alone at 9 or 10 o’clock at night is a delicious experience.  The streets are empty of traffic and most folks are inside watching TV or getting ready for bed.  Especially in wintertime for some reason, it feels like I’m the only one left in the universe except for God.  And His presence is so large and close I feel like I could just extend my hand and feel it slip into His.  When I see my exhaling breath as one can when it’s terribly cold, I feel as if He’s just breathed those first breaths of life into me once again.  The air is so cold and crisp and invigorating, and the solitude is filled with His holy peacefulness.

–then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  ~Genesis 2:7  ✝

254. January opens the box of the year and brings out days that are bright and clear and brings out days that are cold and gray and shouts, “Come see what I brought today!” ~Leland B. Jacobs

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Is it winter? Is it not?
Is it cold? Is it hot?
The two-headed Janus knows not.

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Where I live unseasonable warming trends often occur in January, and when the month keeps its “box” open-ended long enough, some things in the garden are duped into thinking it’s time to get going.  If the lie that spring is upon us continues on into February, that month as well is made a partner in the deceiving treachery.   Then when the wintry weather falls back into place and worsens, as it nearly always does, the new growth is the innocent victim of the two traitorous libertines.  Such is exactly what happened last year when they were finally exposed as the charlatans they were by a mid-February ice storm.  After weeks of mild weather, frigid rain descended from a whitish cloud cover blown in on arctic winds.  As the temperatures fell from the 70’s and 80’s to well below the freezing mark and everything became encapsulated in tombs of ice, an almost audible death knell sounded.  For days the sun was unable to burn a hole in the clouds, and while the storm’s icy bite endured, the birds who over winter in my yard were, if visible at all, seen only in the mornings.  When they were present, I’d see them huddled close to their birdhouses or in the bay tree or azaleas near the house, but by afternoon they’d have disappeared completely into the day’s dismal gloom.  Neither did I see any of my neighbors nor the squirrels who’d been so busy as of late, and that collective absence of life forms led to a disturbing sense of aloneness that I did not like at all.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by.  Psalm 57:1  ✝

249. The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. ~Hanna Rion

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What pure delight a garden brings!
What joy in watching growing things.
Up springing from the sodden mold
Their wealth of beauty to unfold–
‘Tis here my spirit soars and sings!

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To note the flash of painted wings,
And hark the bees soft murmurings
In quests of sweets the blossoms hold;
Where all gray days are days of gold,
Strolling its paths bright wanderings,
What pure delight!
~Louella C. Poole

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My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies.  ~Song of Solomon 6:2  ✝

204. The autumn leaves drift by my window, the autumn leaves of red and gold…and soon I’ll hear old winter’s song… ~Excerpts from a tune by Johnny Mercer

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There is music in the meadows, in the air…
Leaves are crimson, brown, and yellow…
There is rhythm in the woods,
And in the fields, nature yields…
~Excerpts from LYRIC OF AUTUMN by
William Stanley Braithwaite

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It was 1947 when Johnny Mercer borrowed lines from a French song to create the lyrics to his unforgettable melody, AUTUMN LEAVES, a song I find myself singing, at least the parts I remember, almost every year as I tear November’s page off the calendar.  Why?  I don’t know.  The words just seem appropriate when autumn’s persistent winds, wild with leaves, blow wide open the final month’s portals, and this year’s opening was no different.  November’s yet in place blustery gales did in fact sweep December onto its throne.  Once seated, the 12th month opened under bright, sunny skies, but by noon day one had become shrouded in unending shades of gray.   When night fell, there were few, if any, remaining leaves on the redbud and willow at the back of the yard.  The beneficiaries of these as well as the oak’s leaves when they fall are the big island bed and my secret garden in the north corner.  So now not only can my voice be heard singing autumn’s anthems, but wherever these tinted tidbits lie, I’ll be able to hear them crooning their embracing ballads of promise.  And theirs, songs different from the ones in springtime, pledge warmth and declare they’ll keep my plants safe during the bitter, stone-cold days of winter.  But wait, things like trees and leaves sing?  Really? As a matter of fact, according to some Scriptural references and to those of us who listen carefully, they do!

The Lord reigns…Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it.  Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing with joy.  ~Psalm 96:11-12  ✝

188. We have not wings; we cannot soar; but, we have feet to scale and climb, by slow degrees, by more and more, the cloudy summits of our time. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up…to more than I can be.
~Josh Groban, American singer and songwriter

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There is a peacefulness in a gray, cloudy day.  The air, normally charged with energy from the sun, loses its intensity and floats lightly on the gentle wings of tranquil contentment.  Noises are quieter and more mellow under lowering, billowy clouds not angry with the fury of storms.  My steps are slower, less urgent, as I move on the footpaths of the routine daily tasks before me.  Pushing up from deep within a still, small voice, often neglected, is more audible in the day’s silences.  It speaks of matters of the heart and the spirit, never of worldly affairs, nor greed, nor lust, nor gain in this world of men and madness.  Instead the voice nudges me to be in active pursuit of His plans for my life, not in the grand designs of my own folly.  It tries to keep me from complacency hiding under the guise of ignorance and brings light into dark places where I’m to face bigger issues that I often would rather ignore because it’s so much easier to do so.  The voice is not, however, a judgmental one; it is instead an encouraging, affirming agent that lifts me up on high, sacred ground.

“And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”  1 Kings 19:12  ✝