On A Green Day In June…

Chautauqua-spread-blog

Still loving June and trying to say yes every chance I get, soaking up every precious day. Spent a lovely morning with my friend Alix sketching at Chautauqua Park and lunching in the old grand dame of a dining hall - a retreat to a bygone time. Meanwhile back in the studio I fleshed out my sketches to capture the very first day, of my very favorite month in this journal spread. Mary Oliver captures the essence of the month for me in this beautiful poem entitled Writing Poems:


This morning I watched

the pale green cones of the rhododendrons

opening their small pink and red blouses –

 

the bodies of the flowers

were instantly beautiful to the bees, they hurried

out of that dark place in the thick tree

 

one after another, an invisible line

upon which their iridescence caught fire

as the sun caught them, sliding down.

 

Is there anything more important

than hunger and happiness? Each bee entered

the frills of a flower to find

 

the sticky fountain, and if some dust

spilled on the walkways of the petals

and caught onto their bodies, I don’t know

 

if the bees know that otherwise death

is everywhere, even in the red swamp

of a flower. But they did this

 

with no small amount of desperation – you might say: love.

 

And the flowers, as daft as mud, poured out their honey.

 

1 thought on “On A Green Day In June…”

Leave a Comment