ZERO SUMMER

On this February day, Valentines Day, our garden is fully hidden by the snow. Pictures remind us of our rose garden in June. Poetry by T.S. Eliot recalls in words something of summer and remembrance of a garden .

Allow but a little consciousness,

To be conscious is not to be in time

But only in time can the moment in the rose garden

The moment in the arbor where the rain beat,

The moment in the draughty church at smokefall

be remembered; involved with past and future

Only through time time is conquered.

(from the Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot)

...Of snow, a bloom more sudden

Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading.

Not in the schemes of generation.

Where is the summer, the unimaginable

Zero summer?

(from The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot)

If you came this way,

Taking the route you would be likely to take

From the place you would be likely to come from,

If you came this way in May time,

you would find the hedge

White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.

(from The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot)

*******************

So, here in the middle of February we think of the garden and of the sweetness of spring and the bounty of summer.

We plan a spring menu for dinner. We select flower & vegetable seed from the catalogues.

We paint, bringing color into our lives and the lives of others.

We buy tulips, roses and hyacinths and violets to fill vases for our house.

We wait for signs of spring.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Flower Identification

Photos / top to bottom:

Rose, William Baffin

Lilac,' meyeri palibin'

Rose garden with: Heritage Rose, Ballerina Rose,

Sweet William

Heritage Rose