Tag Archives: Pink

441. Bees do have smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers. ~Ray Bradbury

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The first week of August
hangs at the top of summer,
the top of the live-long year,
like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel
when it pauses turning.
The weeks that come before
are only a climb from balmy spring,
and those that follow 
a drop to the chill of autumn,
but August is motionless and hot.
~Natalie Babbit

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Months have passed since the jasmine climbed, the wisteria dangled, the snapdragons snapped, the poppies popped, and the birds obeyed spring’s pressing summons to build nests and procreate. Then after the summer solstice came and summer’s fires were stoked, the feverfew grew feverish, the pink loose-strife broke loose, the inland sea oats set sail on an ocean of green along the fence, and Columbine’s dove-like clusters turned brown, split open and spilled their bits of black seed bounty upon the ground. And whilst all this blooming was going on, the divine music of life that reached glorious crescendos in April grew more mellow in May, perkily sassy in June, and feverishly sultry in July. Two days hence from now, it would normally fall into a low, oppressed hum as August opens the doors to the boiler room, but strangely enough we are and will be for the next week experiencing some cooler than usual days. Though curious about the reason for such a blessing, I’ve learned never “to look a gift horse in the mouth.” The bees busily gathering nectar may grumble somewhat at this interloping gardener who sometimes stays too long in their domain or who moves to close in proximity to their pollen-rich environments such as the Texas Star Hibiscus in the photo, but grumble I shall not because normally this time of year we’re looking at the possibility of a record setting number of triple-digit-high days, days way, way too hot to enjoy even briefly being outside.

I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat. ~Hosea 13:5   ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

433. Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. ~Thomas Merton

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Frilly pink petals
Above a sea of green
Now whole are they
And full of beauty
But soon thye’ll be only remnants
Of an alluring aroma
Held captive briefly by the wind
~Natalie Scarberry

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Speaking of pink, the flowers called Pinks (Dianthus) are (in almost all species) pale to dark pink.  They typically have a frilled or pinked margin which comes from the verb “pink” that dates from the 14th century and means “to decorate with a perforated or punched pattern.”  Some have a delicious spicy fragrance which could be why one species of pinks has been long been called sweet william and also why it attracts bees, birds, and butterflies.  Many legends purport to explain how sweet william acquired its English common name, but to date none has been verified.  On a “sweet” side note, at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton included sweet william in her bouquet as tribute to her bridegroom.

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Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name.  ~Psalm 103:1   ✝

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Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us!  You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!  Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too to be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

**Song of the Pink Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker
**Flower photos via Pinterest

432. Colors are the smiles of nature. ~Leigh Hunt, British author

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Summer is the time when one sheds
one’s tensions with one’s clothes,
and the right kind of day is a jeweled balm
for the battered spirit.
A few of those days and you can become drunk
with the belief that all’s right with the world.
~Ada Louise Huxtable

What color do words like blush, coral, fuchsia, magenta, raspberry, rose, and salmon conjure up? Isn’t it pink, pink that tones down the physical passion of red, replacing it with a gentle, loving energy?

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Pink that’s the sweet side of red, pink that’s playfulness and tenderness, pink that’s the color of bubble gum and cotton candy and babies, especially little girls.

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Pink that’s charming, pink that soothes the heart and fills it with love, pink that’s feminine and romantic, affectionate and intimate, thoughtful and caring.

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Pink that’s compassion and nurturing and unconditional love, pink that’s a sign of hope, pink that represents the sweetness and innocence of the child in all of us.

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But pink is not just a color; it embodies a variety of attitudes, all of which are uplifting. There’s the cool and collected pinks, the bold and sassy hotter pinks, the soft and drowsy pinks, and the daring and dramatic deep pinks.

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In the spring I think of pink as a somewhat shy presence but as summer’s fiery temperatures rise, pink is anything but timid. In Texas the scorching days of July and August punish the flesh and the spirit relentlessly, but even the smallest touch of pink pours over them like a soothing salve of goodness. The pinks of summer may not entirely keep one from walking “without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer,” but they do keep the flames from licking up so high that they completely snuff out the breath. While locusts screech, pink flowers murmur softer melodies taking some of the edge off their discordant harmonies and human discomfort. I’ve even seen ribbons of pink in a majestic sunset at the end of a day when they seemed to cool down the heat from the intense, fiery glow of the summer sun.

Praise the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. The Lord wraps Himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chamber on their waters. ~Psalm 104:1-2   ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

425. Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soon pass away. ~William Cullen Bryant

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Pretty little pink rosebud
sitting atop your bed of gold rudbeckia
came you too late to last
for July has unlocked the gate
and  loosed the heat beast in the garden;
so it is that by mid afternoon
your sweet, rosy petals will have fried.
~Natalie Scarberry

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The Rose Fairy Poem


Best and dearest flower that grows,
Perfect both to see and smell;
Words can never, never tell
Half the beauty of a Rose-
Buds that open to disclose
Fold on fold of purest white,
Lovely pink, or red that glows
Deep, sweet-scented.
What delight 
To be a Fairy of the Rose!
~Cicely Mary Barker

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. ~Psalm 37:4   ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

393. For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom. ~William Shakespeare

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Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine,
golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers,
lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds…
The nectar collected by the bee is
the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice.
Honey is the flower transmuted,
its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste.
~Stephanie Rosenbaum

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O little bee a buzzing at your task,
is it lavender that speaks your name,
or do the coneflowers and rudbeckia,
tempt your hunger even more.
What about the roses and the jasmine
or French Hollyhock and foxglove?
Or might it be those flashy daylilies and
Spirea that recently bloomed in pink?
Grand indeed are the garden’s gifts,
And you appear to love them one and all
for everywhere that I have been
I’ve found you working there as well.
Whilst I busy myself with garden chores
I do keep a watchful eye on you
for I’d love to find your hive one day
and taste your nectar honey’s sweet.
~Natalie Scarberry

Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

389. Come let’s enjoy our winecup today… ~Wang Wei

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June is bustin’ out all over!
All over the meadow and the hill!
Buds’re bustin’ outa bushes…
~Rodgers and Hammerstein

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The garden during this first week of June has been a dazzling fiesta of color staged around lively splashes in the two courtyard fountains. Little yellow and white butterflies, though not nearly as many as usual, have been beautiful “señoritas” gaily fluttering, whirling, and dancing amid the intensely orange daylilies, the bright yellow coreopsis, the flashy pink petunias, the blazing red roses, and the rich pink, blue, and purple hues of salvia spires, lavender spikes, and althea blossoms. The new month has also brought more of the white as snow angel’s trumpets which appear to be the lead musicians in the roving Mariachi bands. Their “divine music” has been, as expected, lively Latin “salsa” rhythms as hot as the rising temperatures of an oncoming Texas summer.

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. ~Job 8:21 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

381. Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~Henry Ward Beecher

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Painting is poetry
that is seen rather than felt,
and poetry is painting
that is felt rather than seen.
~Leonardo da Vinci

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COLORS OF MY BRUSH

Blue for the eyes that loved my calm sky,
green for the soft grass we slept on,
white for the lilies we picked,
yellow for small daises,
purple for sunsets,
red for wild lips,
pink for skin,
rose for
you.
~by Andrew Crisci

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created. And no matter whether it be by painting, sculpture, architecture, music, writing (poetry, prose, drama), performing arts (theater or dance), film making, photography, or printmaking, the maker of whatever inspired the creative endeavor, has felt, experienced, and/or seen things so moving that the urge to give life to artistic expressions has erupted in his/her very soul. Why?  Because inherent in each of our souls is Yahweh’s creative abilities since we are made in His creating image.

Art is a collaboration
between God and the artist,
and the less the artist does
the better.
~André Gide

Then the Lord God formed a 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  ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!

** Image via Pinterest.

348. Primroses, the Spring may love them; Summer knows but little of them. ~William Wordsworth

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The Song of 
The Primrose Fairy
~by Cicely Mary Barker

The primrose opens wide in spring;
Her scent is sweet and good
It smells of every happy thing
In sunny lane and wood.
I have not half the skill to sing
And praise her as I should.

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She’s dear to folk throughout the land;
In her is nothing mean;
She freely spreads on ever hand
Her petals pale and clean.
And though she’s neither proud nor grand,
She is the Country Queen.

I’ve seen yellow primroses, but as you can see in the photo on the right the evening primroses that are here in my yard are pink.

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 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!

347. I believe in pink…and I believe in miracles. ~Audrey Hepburn

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I think miracles exist
in part as gifts
and in part as clues
that there is something
beyond the flat world
we see.
~Peggy Noonan

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If, I can someday see M. Claude Monet’s garden, I feel sure that I shall see something that is not so much a garden of flowers as of colours and tones, less an old-fashioned flower garden than a colour garden, so to speak, one that achieves an effect not entirely nature’s, because it was planted so that only the flowers with matching colours will bloom at the same time, harmonized in an infinite, miraculous stretch of blue or pink.  ~Edited and adapted quote by Marcel Proust

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among your peoples. ~Psalm 77:14 ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!

335. Here are the sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight: with wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, and taper fingers catching at all things, to bind them all about. ~John Keats

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By helpful fingers taught to twine
Around its trellis, grew
A delicate and dainty vine;
The bursting bud, its blossom sign,
Inlaid with honeyed-dew.
~Hattie Howard

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Between each row of houses in Belmont Shore, California, where I grew up ran an alley which was the way to get in and out of the rear facing garages; it was also a favorite place to ride my bike or skates as well as being a frequented path to the homes of neighboring friends. Besides the garages the alley skirted the back yards of the houses and on many of the fences grew Sweet Pea vines. Not only were the flowers of these vines lovely and fragrant, but for a curious and imaginative child born in and of and wedded to one of the few remaining years of innocence the world would ever know they were the home of enchanted and magical fairy creatures.

Hauntingly unforgettable indeed have been the gardens in my childhood, but it was more than just the colors, the beautiful flowers and the lovely fragrances. Along with being mesmerized by all that splendor, I was courted by the Holy One, Yahweh, whose sole intent was to capture my heart and reveal His own. Though the world and its deceptions fought long and hard to turn me away from Jesus, He would not and did not give up on what had always been His.

The world is very old;
But every Spring
It groweth young again,
And fairies sing.
~Author Unknown

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With their richly colored, yet small, delicate flowers, the sweet pea’s history can be traced back to 17th century Italy when a Sicilian monk, Franciscus Cupani, sent its seeds to England. Then Henry Eckford, a Scottish nurseryman, cross-bred the original flower and created the colorful and intensely sweet scented blossom that became the floral sensation of the late Victorian era.

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The Song of the “Sweet Pea Fairies”

Here Sweet Peas are climbing,
(Here’s the Sweet Pea rhyme!)
Here are little tendrils,
Helping them to climb.

Here are sweetest colours,
Fragrance very sweet;
Here are silky pods of peas,
None for us to eat!

Here’s a fairy sister,
Trying on with care.
Such a grand new bonnet
For the baby there.

Does it suit you Baby?
Yes, I really think
Nothing’s more becoming
Than this pretty pink!

~Cicely Mary Barker

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My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:15-16 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!

**My sweet pea vines are climbing but not blooming yet so I’m using images here that I found on Pinterest.