Enjoy summer's pleasures

Enjoy summer's pleasures day by day

before they are quickly gone away.

Much too soon, it's back to school

with darker nights and the air so cool.

I'm taking advantage of every hour

While strolling the fields and smelling flowers.

If you can, swim in a lake or the sea

 That feeling of freedom will set you free.

Nothing's better than that salty air

with sunshine and wind blowing through your hair.

And if you'll excuse me, I will now disappear

As the smell of autumn is much too near.

(poem by me!)

(And just because it's summer, take a peek at book covers that match bathing suits!)

( images via Vanessa Jackman, Eastern Breezes, Here comes the Sun)

The Summer Day

I've been reading a lot lately: novels, biographies and some poetry. It's been refreshing and quite re-energizing.  I came across this poem through a friend and wanted to share it with you:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver, The House Light Beacon Press Boston, 1990.

So tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

(Images via here)

A Stunning Editorial

This is one of the most gorgeous editorials I've come across in a while. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. I'm hiding way to write for a few days then off to Ottawa next Monday and Tuesday to sign some books. Wishing you a lovely day!

A Relationship is like a Rose

A relationship is like a rose,
How long it lasts, no one knows;
Love can erase an awful past,
Love can be yours, you'll see at last;
To feel that love, it makes you sigh,
To have it leave, you'd rather die;
You hope you've found that special rose,
Cause you love and care for the one you chose.

-Rob Cella

(Images Marie-Claire via Trinidad Fashionista)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

To all my American readers and friends, may your Thanksgiving be filled with joy, great food and wine.

 Not what we give,
But what we share,
For the gift
without the giver
Is bare.

~James Russell Lowell

(Images via Vogue, Hermes, Dress, Design Decor)

And Spring arose....

And Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

You are Not

Image: Vi.sualize.us

A friend's poem that I find captivating. Please enjoy!

You Are Not

 

You are not who you said you were.

 

This is the line

Echoing in my head for years

The beginning of a short story

A novel

A poem

I say this to someone who has hurt me

A husband

A boyfriend

A character says it to same

Man to woman

Woman to man

It is always fictitious

A story

I wake up

It’s real

The line repeats itself in my head

But it’s not me saying it

Instead it’s being said to me.

“You are not who you said you were.”

 

My life has written itself

Without my speaking

Without my picking up the pen.

The irony

Of it.

 

Carolyne Van Der Meer

Previously published in Helios, Vol. 9, No. 8, 2008

 

The bee's kiss

Photography by Patrice Commune

The moth's kiss, first!

Kiss me as if you made me believe

You were not sure, this eve,

How my face, your flower, had pursed

Its petals up; so, here and there

You brush it, till I grow aware

Who wants me, and widen ope I burst.

The bee's kiss, now!

Kiss me as if you enter'd gay

My heart at some noonday,

A bud that dares not disallow

The claim, so all is render'd up,

And passively its shatter'd cup

Over your head to sleep I bow.

In a Gondola by Robert Browning