Freshen the Flowers, She Said

Freshen the Flowers, She Said 

So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain

was tender,

and took out the tattered and cut each stem

on a slant,

trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all -

roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,

and more whose names I don't know, in bright new water -

gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take

their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,

the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,

perhaps fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes of music

with nothing playing.

-Mary Oliver-

"Are my boots old?  Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?"

-Mary Oliver-

"Sometimes," said Pooh, "the smallest things take up

the most room in your heart."

- A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh -

"Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing 

to be dazzled--

to cast side the weight of facts

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great master.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing--

that the light is everything--that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and falling.  And I do."

-Mary Oliver-

"Close friendships are one of life's miracles--that a few people get to know you deeply, 

all your messy or shadowy stuff along with the beauty and sweetness, and they still love you.  

Not only still love you, but love you more and more deeply. 

 I would do anything for my closest friends, and they would do almost anything for me,

 and that is about as spiritual a truth as you can get."

-Anne Lamott-

"When the subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, 

there can be no freshness of vision."

-Edward Weston-

"When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world,

yourself included."

-Mary Oliver-