The Soul Bringer

                                                                   
                                                                                                         

© Copyright Maureen Kavaney Tillman 2013

Flaming June

     One of my most favorite paintings - Flaming June
               by Fredrick Lord Leighton 1830-1896

The Answer by Carl Sandburg

You have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far
For the answer is:
Silence.

In the republic
Of the winking stars
and spent cataclysms
Sure we are it is off there the answer
is hidden and folded over,
Sleeping in the sun, careless whether
it is Sunday or any other day of
the week,

Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.

Have we not seen
Purple of the pansy
out of the mulch
and mold
crawl
into a dusk
of velvet?
blur of yellow? 

www.Hypersmash.com
Pingates.com

An Observation by May Sarton

True gardeners cannot bear a glove


Between the sure touch and the tender root,


Must let their hands grow knotted as they move


With a rough sensitivity about


Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,


Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.


And so I watched my mother's hands grow scarred,


She who could heal the wounded plant or friend


With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;


I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,


But now her truth is given me to live,


As I learn for myself we must be hard


To move among the tender with an open hand,


And to stay sensitive up to the end


Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.

                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Since selling my house and moving a year ago 

 and still living in temporary quarters with my

 daughter, it is the first Springtime in my adult

 life when I don't have a flower garden. I miss

 my peonies especially, and my huge climbing

 rose which should be radiant right now. 

 So I have no beautiful photos to post here this year.

 Instead I am posting a collection of Impressionist

 women in their gardens for you to enjoy!