1072. Twilight fell: The sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars. ~J.K. Rowling

The setting sun had turned the blue sky a brilliant orange,
then soft pink merging to pearl; the plum velvet of night
had come out of the east, spangled with stars.
~Paul Gallico

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I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,
The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,
The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,
And the moon rises and turns them silver.
I shall see the springs, the summers,
And the autumns slowly pass;
And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight.
~Charles Baudelaire

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The moon went slowly down in loveliness;
she departed into the depth of the horizon,
and long veil-like shadows crept up the sky
through which the stars appeared.
Soon, however, they too began to pale
before a splendour in the east,
and the advent of the dawn declared itself
in the newborn blue of heaven.
~H. Rider Haggard

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years…” ~Genesis 1:14  ✝

Images via Pinterest

1067. And far and wide, in a scarlet tide, the poppy’s bonfire spread. ~Bayard Taylor

Flowers could be described as bursts
of color, pattern, and infinite grace
all governed by sacred geometry.
They are perfectly woven into the fabric of
existence to brighten up our world.
~Cherie Rae Dirksen

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To see the flower,
to really see it
takes time: knowing
what to praise
and for how long. Suppose
the poppy’s a scarlet
ibis afloat on a bed
of leaves, cardinals
in flight, a tanager calling
its mate. The artist
enlivened this flower
so you could know it.
Yet here you stand
befuddled by a poppy:
recognizable, small
delicate as a robin.
Relax. Try not to stare
so hard. It knows
you’re here admiring
its birdlike petals.
Opalescent, the red
poppy shines from within
dark, oval center
clipped from a swath
of velvet cloth.
You can feel the wings
sway: five of them
on a huge scale
gathering sun.
Not one of us
can ignore their
willful beauty.
~Georgia O’Keeffe

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Who is like the wise? Who knows the explanation of things? A person’s wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance. ~Ecclesiastes 8:1  ✝

**Some images via Pinterest; others from my archives; collage by Natalie

***Georgia O’Keeffe was regarded as one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century. She was known internationally for her boldly innovative art, being best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers such as this red poppy.

852. Silence is exhilarating at first – as noise is – but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep. ~Edward Hoagland

God’s poet is silence!  His song is unspoken
And yet so profound, and so loud, and so far,
That it thrills you and fills you in measures unbroken—
The unceasing song of the first morning star….
~Joaquin Miller

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There is a silence
into which the world cannot intrude.
There is an ancient peace you carry
in your heart and have not lost.
There is a sense of holiness in you
the thought of sin has never touched.
All this today you will remember.
~From a COURSE IN MIRACLES
by Marianne Williamson

He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters. ~Psalm 23:2  ✝

**Image of the water lily found on Pinterest

707. Silence is exhilarating at first – as noise is – but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep. ~Edward Hoaglan

Let me silent be,
For silence is the speech of love,
The music of the spheres above.
~Richard Henry Stoddard

Screen shot 2015-04-18 at 8.36.34 AMPoetic Black and White Watercolors 
of Children With Wild Animals 
by Elicia Elidanto

Spring

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her —
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.
~Mary Oliver

…a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak… ~Ecclesiastes 3:7   ✝

270. Nature looks dead in winter because her life is gathered into her heart. ~Hugh Macmillan

She (nature) withers the plant down to the root
that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger.
She calls her family together
within her inmost home to prepare them for being
scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.
~Hugh Macmillan

Image

Early morning light steals across straw-colored grass and slowly warms the biting chill of a February dawn.  Splinters of sunlight glisten and sparkle as they move over the garden’s frost-laden, bare bones.  From my vantage point inside I can make out a lone, reddish leaf, not quite ready to be a memory, clinging tenaciously to a branch in the ornamental cherry tree.  It reminds me that a wellspring of life lies dormant below in nature’s “inmost home” where “her life is gathered into her heart.”  My attention is diverted next to the dogs I hear barking up and down the alleyway.  The feral cats must be on the move in search of food.  Then birds begin to show up at the feeders and high above their flutterings I see the first squirrels running the high wires.  Soon birdsong breaks morn’s silence, and lights start coming on in the once darkened houses around us.  The neighborhood is coming alive and gearing up for the day, but no, not I.   Since retirement I’ve been able to linger as long as I like most mornings and from my well-situated chair watch the days and the changing seasons pass over my yard.  Nature’s recurrent patterns and rhythms have always comforted me, and it’s delightful to be able to partake of her daily feasts.  Though evidence of God’s grace is readily apparent in the spectacular moments of life, perhaps sweeter are the ones ferreted out of day to day, ordinary living.  These are blessings that are not unlike the contrast of a mass of diamonds scattered out on a dark piece of velvet in which all are lovely but none seems particularly more special than the other and that of a singular diamond’s loveliness on the same piece of fabric which in its aloneness is brilliantly stunning.

For the word of the Lord is right and true; He is faithful in all He does.  ~Psalm 33:4  ✝