Tag Archives: Morning

1168. To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle. ~Walt Whitman

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I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic
waiting somewhere behind the morning.
~J. B. Priestley

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I have a recliner opposite my patio doors, and the doors are wide enough to afford a great view of a sizable portion of our yard and its flower beds. When I first get up in the morning, I enjoy sitting for a while in my chair watching the sun come up and the birds begin their daily activities. In the top photo above you can see a portion of a patio chair, part of the flower bed near the patio, part of another flower bed by Natalieworld, and about a third of the island bed that’s between me and the back fence. It was started decades ago before the removal of a large stand of bamboo that was behind it and the subsequent development of a new flower bed that now runs along the fence. Thus that back bed has become a sort of secret garden since you can’t see much of it until you walk around the island bed along the path near my neighbor’s fence on the north or the path that runs along the north side of the greenhouse. So it’s always fun to see what I’ll find when I finally get up and out to go look for what’s new back there on any given day. That back bed, anchored by a purple red bud tree that I’ve watched come up from a volunteer seedling, is where I threw out lots and lots of different kinds of seeds last fall. As spring advanced first came the poppies, the larkspur, the cornflowers, and the ragged ladies, and now the coneflowers, monarda, hollyhock, allium, daylilies, and a few sunflowers are blooming there currently. Also I have several kinds of vines beginning to climb on the chain link fence back there, and so soon I’ll have a host of morning glories, moonflowers, and coral vine flowers. So it is that a garden is more of a moveable feast than a static thing and when people ask what I have growing, it really depends on the week or the month. And I think that’s what I love most about it. But then there are the transitional times when not too much of anything at all is blooming.

If you really want to draw close to your garden,
you must remember first of all that you are
dealing with a being that lives and dies;
like the human body, with its poor flesh.
One cannot always see it dressed up
for a ball, manicured and immaculate.
~Fernand Lequenne

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God. People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.~Psalm 36:7-8  ✝

1159. Words are such small things, like confetti in the brain, and yet they are color and clarify everything; they stain the mind or warp the feelings. ~Diane Ackerman

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Ecstasy is what everyone craves —
not love or sex, but hot-blooded, soaring intensity,
in which being alive is a joy and a thrill.
That enravishment doesn’t give meaning to life,
and yet without it life seems meaningless.
~Diane Ackerman

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In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,
In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,
I will honor all life —
wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.
~Excerpted verses from a poem
by Diane Ackerman

Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honor. ~Proverbs 21:21  ✝

**All images (my enravishments) were taken by me in my yard.

1139. If it’s drama that you sigh for, plant a garden and you’ll get it. ~Edward A. Guest

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‘Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was born in bloom;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume…
~Excerpt from a poem by Thomas Hood

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One of my favorite poems in all of “poemdom” is this one below by Robert Browning. In fact I recite it to myself at least once every spring.

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his Heaven—
All’s right with the world!

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Spring began very early here, almost a month and a half ago, but this morning was the first one exactly like the quintessential spring morning of which Browning spoke. A heavy dew had blanketed everything that lay before my eyes making grass and flower sparkle, and in the sparkle was the sort of magic that thrills this old gardener’s heart beyond measure. So I sat spellbound forever so long in my chair watching the birds feed and the squirrels play and the breeze ruffle petals and leaves. My little piece of Eden was gloriously alive as well as all of her adoring paramours. What a  magnificent sight to behold it was as light oozed into all the dark corners, not only outside the window but also in the windows of my being! What had been created in the beginning continually points to the Creator, and oh what a Creator He is! My eyes were filled, my ears were filled, my cup of life was filled, and in and of it all was Yahweh, that Holy Presence, who continually fills my soul with His goodness and grace. Oh how I adore Him and His wondrous Eden!!!

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. ~Psalm 23: 6  ✝

1137. Innumerable as the stars of night, or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun impearls on every leaf and every flower. ~John Milton

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Morning is the best of all times in the garden.
The sun is not yet hot, sweet vapors rise from the earth.
Night dew clings to the soil and makes plants glisten.
Birds call to one another. Bees are already at work.
~William Longgood

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My garden goes to rest at night.
To wind-sweet lullabies
The flowers fold them in their slim
Green shifts and close their eyes.
Over their nodding heads the Moon
Her tranquil vigil keeps–
Oh, ‘tis a peaceful sight to see
A garden when it sleeps!
When through gray morning mists the sun
Rides splendidly to view,
The flowers flutter drowsy lids
All sweet and wet with dew!
Refreshed by slumber, every one
Its dainty toilet makes–
Oh, ‘tis a lovely thing to see
A garden when it wakes!
~Mazie V. Caruthers

May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness… ~Excerpt from Genesis 27:28  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1127. I consider myself kind of a reporter – one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write. ~Mary Oliver

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I love the line of Flaubert
about observing things very intensely.
I think our duty as writers
begins not with our own feelings,
but with the powers of observing.
~Mary Oliver

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I worried a lot.
Will the garden grow,
will the rivers flow
in the right direction,
will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not,
how shall I correct it?
Was I right,
was I wrong,
will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing,
even the sparrows
can do it and
I am, well, hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading
or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get
rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying
had come to nothing.
And gave it up.
And took my old body
and went out
into the morning,
and sang.
~Mary Oliver

Cast all your anxiety on him (God) because He cares for you. ~1 Peter 5:7  ✝

1063. Remembering Norman…

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I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through
I’ll be seeing you in every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way
I’ll find you in the mornin’ sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you
~Excerpted lyrics by Irving Kahal and Sammy Fain

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It’s funny how an old song just pops into your head for no apparent reason. Maybe it was something in the morning light like it said in this old song, a song that was much loved during WWII when it became an anthem for those serving overseas. I remember listening to it on the radio as a child, and then later on I heard it again and again in movies about the war. From the get go it was a favorite of mine, and it has stuck with me over the years. Thus for whatever reason, it came to me again in the day’s first light. Since the song always reminds me of my dad, I was thinking about Norman as I started looking at posts on Facebook. The first one I saw was the one in the collage about the impact losing your dad has on your life, and that’s when the tears started running down my face even though it has been over 50 years since he died. It was 1961. I had just turned 18, I was a freshman in college, and yet at times the hurt still feels like it happened only yesterday. I’ve read that “our lives are defined by moments, especially the ones we never see coming.” And this one certainly defined mine. Though we weren’t exactly blindsided by it, it was quick enough that it hit us all like we’d never seen it coming. Dad had a massive heart attack on a Friday night and by Saturday night he was gone. No last smile, no last hug, no last kiss, no last goodbye! And I remember in the aftermath, people trying to comfort me with words, but like the quote in the collage says, “Somethings cannot be fixed.” Ever! “They can only be carried.” So here’s to my sweet daddy, Norman. I’ve been remembering you today, and I do carry you still wherever I go. I found you again today in the morning sun, and I’ll be seeing you again because you truly are never far from my thoughts. Love, Natalie

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. ~1 Corinthians 13:1-3  ✝

1040. It’s not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit. ~J.R.R. Tolkien

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The human spirit needs
places where nature
has not been rearranged
by the hand of man.
~Author Unknown

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The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning

in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather

plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body’s world,
instinct

and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,

to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is —

so it enters us —
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;

and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.
~Poem by Mary Oliver

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering the waters. ~Genesis 1:2  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage created by Natalie

 

1001. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. ~D. H. Lawrence

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I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird,
or the rising of the sun on a misty morning.
There they are, and they are beautiful.
~Pete Hamill

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As a bird soars high
In the free holding of the wind,
Clear of the certainty of the ground,
Opening the imagination of wings
Into the grace of emptiness
To fulfill new voyagings,
May your life awaken
To the call of its freedom.
~John O’Donohue

Now the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ~2 Corinthians 3:17  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

955. My sun sets to rise again. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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The sun does not shine for a few trees and
flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.
~Henry Ward Beecher

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Have you ever seen anything
in your life more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening, relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea, and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness, every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower streaming upward
on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early light,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt
for anything such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere,
in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure that fills you,
as the sun reaches out,
as it warms you as you stand there,
empty-handed–or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too gone crazy
for power, for things?
~Mary Oliver

And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. ~Deuteronomy 4:19  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

872. The sun is new each day. ~Heraclitus

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Every day is the world made new.
I have lived all my life up to this moment,
to come to this day. I shall make of this day –
each moment of this day – a heaven on earth.
~Dan Custer

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Every morning the world is created.
Under the orange sticks of the sun
the heaped ashes of the night
turn into leaves again and
fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear like black cloth
on which are painted islands of summer lilies.
If it is your nature to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails for hours,
your imagination alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit carries within it
the thorn that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging —
there is still somewhere deep within you a beast
shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer
heard and answered lavishly, every morning,
whether or not you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not you have ever dared to pray.
~Mary Oliver

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. ~Psalm 65:8  ✝

**Image via Pinterest