Stella!

This is the garden in front of the screened porch on the lakeside of our house and my stellas are in riotous bloom! They are stella supremas, the cousin to the stella d’oros, but are a pale yellow rather than the deep orangey gold of the d’oros.
We think this is their fourth year and we will probably divide them this fall. But they are so gorgeous right now, I had to share them with you!

I also wanted to show you two of our daily visitors. A daddy drake and son, busily grooming our yard of all the newly planted grass. And all the seed on the ground from the feeders too!

Memorial Day

There are still small towns that have decoration day on Memorial Day. Everyone gathers to clean the headstones of loved ones and sweep the leaves away from the graves. The places no longer visited will be cleaned and swept too as a grace to those that went before.
I like the idea of this renewal of ties to the dead. They are always with us and this morning I am remembering those that have gone before me: my grandparents, the Allens and the Greshams, my great grandmother, LaLocke, my Dad, my great nephew, Gabriel, born and died on the first of this month, a beloved friend’s daughter, died just last week. And in memory of my beloved niece’s brother in law, Lance Corporal Phillip Vinnedge, killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
I leave flowers for them all.

Newton’s Law or The Gravity of Peace

The weight of the burden has not changed-
grief has replaced the fear carried-
the difference being the fear’s weight increased
as the grief’s will diminish
To be replaced with what?
Peace?
Is it Newton’s Law of Gravity that states
the stone of grief and the feather of peace
will fall at the same rate of speed to the earth?
That is gravity’s responsibility,
as the grave is responsible
for reminding the living to live
So I will sit with this stone of grief
until the pin feathers sprout from my back
and the weight of the burden is filled
with the gravity of peace.

Kathleen G. Everett © 2012

Running With Scissors

Running With Scissors

For C

Running with scissors is her M O, not caring
the tearing that her soul brings to the fore.
Silver flashing blades of grass beneath her feet,
grasping the consequences of all her actions.
Moving through Time and Dreams,
her mother’s voice is calling,
calling, calling to the future of what was
and will not be again.  The remembrance
of remorse and tears unshed, of grief,
freely given and taken, when all that is left
is love, forgiveness, and unanswered prayer.

— Kathleen G. Everett  © 2012