Tag: May

No Argentine. No Mountains. No Cows. But May. And oh, so Green.

Live & Learn18 Comments

Later, when I was in the Argentine, I used to tell myself that I could not die until I had seen another month of May, here in the mountains. The grass grows knee-high in the meadows and down the centre of the roads between the wheel ruts. If you are with a friend, you walk down the road with the grass between you. In the forest the late beech leaves come out, the greenest leaves in the world. The cows are let out of the stable for the first time. They leap, kick with their hind legs, turn in circles, jump like goats. The month itself is like a homecoming.

Notes:

  • Photos: Green @ Daybreak.  5:15 to 5:35 am, May 18, 2022. 53° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.  See more pictures from my walk here.   
  • Quote: Thank you Whiskey River

If it rains, carry an umbrella, if it’s cold, wear a jacket.

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As soon as the snow melts the grass begins to grow. Even
though the daytime high is barely above freezing, even
though May is very like November, marsh marigolds bloom
in the swamp and the popple trees produce a faint green
that hangs under the low clouds like a haze over the valley.
This is the way the saints live, no complaints, no suspicion,
no surprise. If it rains, carry an umbrella, if it’s cold, wear
a jacket.

~ Louis Jenkins, “Saints” from “Just Above Water: Prose Poems“

Notes: Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on all Channels.  Photo: Marsh Marigold in Swamp via nature preserves

Saturday Morning

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I am going to try to pay attention to the spring.

I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees.

I am going to close my eyes and listen.

~ Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Notes: Quote via risky wiver. Photo: By our very own Kiki! Taken on 10 years ago on this day on May 4th, 2009. What a coincidence!

Saturday Morning

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Many an hour I spent there lying in the grass; it was so quiet and mysterious—the only voices were those of the leaves and the birds. But I never saw the place clothed in such beauty as I did that spring. Like me, the bees had already gone out into the meadow, and now they wove and hummed in and out of the myriad violet flowers which burst open in a blue lustre from grass and moss. I gathered them and filled my pocket handkerchief; it was as if I was enchanted, in the midst of the fragrance and sunlight.

– Theodor Storm, (1817-1888) from A Quiet Musician, The Lake of the Bees

Notes: Quote via a-quiet-green-agreement. Photo: Chris A with Field.Always ( Ain, Rhone-Alpes, France)

Monday Morning

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Today I was a believer. Perfection was very near. I could touch it…

This early day in May was very windy, overcast, clouds bundling their way from window to window in a big troubled hurry, the windows clattering.

Today we begin again.

~ Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day (Published April 17, 2018)

Photo: Kuplenko (via newthom)