About a month ago, some lads brought a horse to graze on the plot of land alongside ours. Sadly, though unsurprisingly, la yegua isn’t doing a very good job of clearing the brambles.
There’s another plant, too, that she seems to be studiously avoiding, and the other night the car headlights caught this pale army standing menacingly tall on the other side of the wall:
Two fragments from old poems written about the same time, and clearly written at this time of year:
From The language of flowers:
[…] Shocking pink
petunias shout aloud,
while pompom marigolds,
in shades of summer, shine
like a myriad cartoon suns.
From In due season:
The hennaed heads of marigolds
rubberneck from roundabouts
and corporation window boxes shout
with yellow pansies.
I posted a picture of what I mistakenly thought was a white laburnum a while back, and am amazed how many people have since turned up here after searching on that term.
It makes me think that other people may find this picture of male and female kiwi blossoms useful:
When wondering what to put as the post title to accompany this photo, I did a quick search for quotations about roses and came across this, attributed to J M Barrie:
God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.
I also found this by George Herbert:
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, a box where sweets compacted lie.
That would have been a lovely quote for this morning, when I took the picture, but we’re now in the middle of a torrential storm, with thunder and lightning and a minor gale blowing.
Something tells me those roses won’t look so lovely tomorrow, so perhaps God gave me memory so I might have roses on San Isidro.
(In fact my comments about the weather are no longer accurate at the time of posting – the storm took out the internet connection, so I’m posting this a bit later when it’s abated a bit and ‘normal service’ seems to have been resumed.)
It’s been hot as summer for the last few days, but there are storms in the offing for the weekend, so, as I’ve been too busy to write, I’ll post a couple of sunny pictures to brighten the page:
a spattering of free-range broom in egg-yolk yellow speckles the hillside
Continue reading “sunshine yellow”
don't confuse the narrator 