Nature | Telling the Truth

February 13, 2019

Orchid Extravaganza at Longwood 2019 | Photos

Thanks to Longwood Gardens for putting on the best annual orchid show in town! Here are some favorites from D’s prolific photos — nearly 300 photos this time.

We’re in the Conservatory’s spacious indoor gardens and hallways. Imagine the best-kept indoor garden you’ve never had, plus the sound of water flowing and/or cascading down in almost every room.

The photo above shows a passage from the main fountain garden to a quieter area. A small fountain at one end keeps the shallow water moving. Potted palms sit in boxes on the pool floor. Chairs and boxes of ivy and small flowering plants line the edge of the pool. Beyond the windows on the far side (above) are water lily ponds still in hibernation.

For special events the pool is drained, and furniture set up for elegant programs, dining, dancing or other celebrations.

Time for more orchids — beginning with this unusual black orchid from Longwood’s collection.

The ‘orchid curtain’ below lines a passageway beyond the orchid room. The second photo shows the same curtain on the reverse side, this time lining a tropical plant garden.

They next two photos remind me of college days and orchid corsages. That would be in the 1960s, when an orchid corsage or even wrist adornment was the mark of a woman spoken for! Or at least hopeful. We’ve come a long way, baby! And yes, the orchids were lovely — the mark of a caring gentleman.

Several more beauties — a random mix of smiling (sort of) faces and the unexpected.

Finally, one last look at three Conservatory paths. First to the orchid room, then through the bromeliad display, and finally around the edge of the main Conservatory entrance. I wish I could capture the sounds and fragrance of this place. Maybe someday….

I hope your day is sunny, filled with fragrant beauty and moments of calm joy.

Thanks for coming along!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 13 February 2019
Photos taken by DAFraser, 5 February 2019, Longwood Gardens Conservatory

9 Comments

February 12, 2019

All I need for today

All I need for today
Is framed by my kitchen window

This is truth:
The importance of small things.
Have you counted earth’s surviving insects?

Planetary disaster goes unnoticed
The border wall calls, cries, screams
For attention
The small child in each of us
Demanding and relentless

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 February 2019
Photo of endangered North American Karner Blue Butterfly found at allaboutwildlife.com

2 Comments

February 2, 2019

My mother’s spirit

My mother’s spirit
Came calling last night
I saw her footprints
In this morning’s snow
Precise and measured
She passed quietly
Beneath my window
Step by small-hooved step
Down the driveway
Before crossing over
Into the woods beyond
Our house asleep
And dreaming

I think they were the prints of a red fox–which reminded me of my mother’s bright red coat. She would have loved the brilliant rainbow umbrella, and the fashionable leggings and boots.

The tracks down our driveway this morning told me I’m not alone. Neither are my three sisters, each of us with our own mother-daughter relationship to ponder. Mother Eileen died in mid-February 1999, twenty years ago, seven years before our sister Diane died of ALS in mid-February 2006.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 February 2019
Photo found at fiftiness.com

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January 30, 2019

The Good Old Days

With thanks to the Polar Vortex, depicted above on the left.

Cold air blankets my body
Seeps through pores
Insinuates its way
Past layers of fleece

Shivering, I opt for
Mind control

I re-mind myself
Of long hot summers
And how I’ll yearn for
These good old days
To soothe my fevered skin
And drooping brows
Long since resigned
To a losing battle against time,
gravity and the elements

With apologies to my friends in Australia, now enduring the opposite side of Polar Vortex weather.

9 Comments

January 24, 2019

Why Mary Oliver’s words matter

A few years ago a friend introduced me to Mary Oliver via one of her books of poetry, Thirst. Spare on words and extravagantly beautiful, her forty-three poems grabbed my heart and my imagination. The collection focuses on her grief after the death of her longtime partner, and her struggle to find words that capture the reality of her faith.

Mary Oliver challenges me in ways similar to Emily Dickinson, with one exception. Oliver’s poetry, also heavy with meaning, is remarkably and painfully direct. In each poem she invites me to enlarge the way I see, experience and respond to what seems everyday and ordinary.

Since her death on January 17, scores of visitors have visited this site looking for posts about Mary Oliver. At the top of the list: It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, a poem about prayer.

In the last week I’ve read and listened to multiple tributes to Mary Oliver. Her poetry is stunning; her challenge to us as human beings is direct and piercing: Wake up, Observe, Report. Not simply about nature, but about this world and its creatures as part of God’s great poem. A reality we ignore to our great loss.

Here’s one of Mary Oliver’s shorter poems. I love the way it makes simple what isn’t always easy.

Musical Notation: 2

Everything is His.
The door, the door jamb.
The wood stacked near the door.
The leaves blown upon the path
that leads to the door.
The trees that are dropping their leaves
the wind that is tripping them this way and that way,
the clouds that are high above them,
the stars that are sleeping now beyond the clouds

and, simply said, all the rest.

When I open the door I am so sure so sure
all this will be there, and it is.
I look around.
I fill my arms with the firewood.
I turn and enter His house, and close His door.

Mary Oliver, from poems in Thirst, p. 38; published by Beacon Press (2006)

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 January 2019

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January 23, 2019

Clouds of snowy ermine

Floating on water
Warm and welcoming
I drift through treetops
The color of brown
Graceful they sway
Lifting bare branches
Toward the sky
Elegant in winter
Garb accented with
Clouds of snowy ermine

Bits and pieces of this morning’s waking dream….all but the snowy ermine (stoat), too elegant to omit.

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January 20, 2019

The weather goes awry

So much
For forecasts
Or low odds
On life
Turning its tail
And running
Away
Without us

Howling wind
Sucks drafts
Of spinning leaves
And drunk robins
Heavenward
Tree branches
Lash out
In vain

All
We ever wanted
Gone
Up the chimney
In smoke
Churning with
Hopes and dreams
Unrealized

How quickly things fall apart–or fail to materialize. A death here. A death there. Unplanned events and unanticipated outcomes send us spiraling. Looking for something to soothe weary minds and hearts, and point us forward. Together, rather than scattered to the four corners of the earth.

Despair? Not yet. A sense of loss or betrayal? Sometimes. But more often aching loneliness for what might have been and may yet become. With or without us.

While I was writing this, the outside temperature plummeted toward single degrees, and wind from the north picked up speed. A good time for indoor Sabbath rest.

January 18, 2019

For all the saints

weary spirits
laid to rest lie soft
on winter’s snow
breathless we linger
beneath the heavens

Written in light of

Motionless trees coated with snow outside my kitchen window
Frigid temperatures and a gray sky
Recent and long-ago deaths of family, friends, strangers, poets and irreplaceable bright stars in our lives
Escalating upheavals of the last few years, locally and globally
This season of reflection and resolution

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January 15, 2019

Possibilities

Sun streams
Through windows
Of my heart
Warm and open
Welcoming and
Tentative

What will today bring
Of joy and beauty
And will my heart
Welcome it
With open arms
Chilled to the bone

My desk is cluttered
With possibilities
Waiting patiently
To take root and grow
Peripheral flowers
Of the field
Bits and pieces of heart
Given away
Despite the anguish
Of saying goodbye

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 15 January 2019
Photo found at fromthegrapevine.com, taken at Spring 2014 Flower Show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania