A Gift for You - A Flower and A Poem

When I go walking in my neighborhood I walk by a deserted university campus very near my home. In the garden are winter camellias in bloom. They just make me smile. Looking forward to a day next year when the campus again has students roaming the grounds. For now neighbors enjoy walking there and noticing flowers, berries, gorgeous trees, and picking up pinecones and seed pods. I do believe this year I will have a wooden bowl of pinecones and seed pods to decorate my home.

 Lingering in Happiness

After rain after many days without rain,

it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,

and the dampness there, married now to gravity,

falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground

where it will disappear---but not, of course, vanish

except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,

and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss; 

a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole's tunnel;

and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,

will feel themselves being touched.

~Mary Oliver

Why I Wake Early

I just thought Mary Oliver would have some special word to say today as we approach Thanksgiving. I really loved these words and images. Can you imagine touching a stone buried for a thousand years?  

In the same family as the flower above, but a different variety is blooming in my own garden. It is camellia sininsis, better known as a tea plant. Can you see the similarities and differences between the two flowers?
 

Have a most delightful week preparing for the season of joy, family, and warm things to sip.