Blooms I have loved

 It is bleak and wintery here in the Northern hemisphere and with the end of the holidays, the bright colored lights and decorations are no longer around to relieve the gloom.  I have been browsing the cache of flower photographs and realize that if they can cheer me up, as they have today, then I should share them, so maybe they can remind other people as well

 that even in the mid winter, when the buds have not appeared, and the seeds are invisible, and everything is wet and cold

 life is gathering its strength, sleeping but not dead, waiting only to be kissed awake by the warming spring sun and burst into bloom once more.

 Live the winter months with as much enthusiasm as you live the spring, find the beauty that exists in the world around you and in memory as well, create warmth in the love of your friends and family

 Hold on to hope

With love, from echo

AKA  Dixie Goode

Sunflower Summer

In April I held the seed, cold and dry and almost lost.

I broke the earth
and tucked it in but left the warming and watering to larger hands than mine.

In May, a tiny green appeared
and so did slugs
and large pawed dogs
and fragile life seemed doomed

I went away
but when I returned
that tiny sprout
dwarfed me
and seemed to be trying to compete
with the redwoods
to tower in the sky.

Every day it caught my eye
and made my lips smile
and lightened my heart

by October. the proud giant bows its head to the reign of approaching winter

It appears to be near death
until the blue jays come
screeching joyously
swinging on the stalk
like children on a trampoline

feasting on the seeds they scatter

scattering seeds
so next April
when I break the earth and plant one
13 will grow

like this year,
like every year

renewed