Flowering Quince

Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles) in a private garden beyond and out of sight from my balcony. Discovered during a detour from the usual Westie Walk route.

Japanese Apricot

A new plant discovery at the end of February. Many thanks to my Flickr friend, Meighan, who introduced me to Prunus mume with these gorgeous images on her photostream. They inspired me to go to VanDusen Botanical Gardens one Sunday morning & admire the bright pink blossoms through my own lens.

Japanese Apricot (Prunus mume) at VanDusen Botanical Gardens

View from the balcony: January

Simple joys in early January: soft, filtered sunlight (& no rain), the sight & scent of rosemary, & a little bird to lift the spirits.

Poem: One of the Butterflies

One of the Butterflies by W.S. Merwin

The trouble with pleasure is the timing
it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems that I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn to pain.

"One of the Butterflies" by W.S. Merwin from The Shadow of Sirius © Copper Canyon Press, 2008.

Source: The Writer's Almanac poem for January 24th, 2010

Poem: Burning the Old Year

Burning the Old Year

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Burning the Old Year” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: Poetry Foundation