Gold-Fuzzed Bee and Rose - Missoula, Montana,

"It became a game that I took to with immense gusto: to see how much I could remember about dandelions themselves, ... or searching out the smell of the gold-fuzzed bees that hung around our back porch grape arbor. Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers."

– Ray Bradbury, from Just This Side of Byzantium,

An Introduction [to some editions of Dandelion Wine], Summer 1974

(I suppose this quote merited my crouching patiently next to any dandelion bloom peppering the backyard... but this little flier conveniently buzzed at shoulder height, so there you have it. I will pencil in crouching for another day.)

Rose - Missoula, Montana

"...Of course an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than you altogether, since she's the one I've watered...Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except for two or three for butterflies). Since's she the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose..." 

- from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Wild Rose Blooming - Missoula, Montana

"Wild roses are fairest, 
and nature a better gardener than art." 

- Louisa May Alcott, A Long Fatal Love Chase

Full Bloom - Missoula, Montana

"I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter 'til they bloom, 'til you yourself burst into bloom." - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Full Bloom - Missoula, Montana

“The... branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. “ - from “A Story About The Most Important Thing’ by  Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937)

Fragrant Beauty, Missoula, Montana

A little under a half block away, the velvety fragrance of an over-achieving rose bush beckoned me to breathe in this beauty from a closer perspective.

Fragrant Self, Missoula, Montana

"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came...."

 

- from As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins  

(Read the full poem here.)

Centered, Missoula, Montana

I've been compelled to stop and stare into the center of this rose every day since bouquet delivery on Monday.  Very distracting. I literally walk by, return, pause, gaze - forcibly snap out of it, back to work - why was I headed this way? All the other blooms are lovely, but they fade to mere peripheral  blurs.  It's not that it's perfect - you can see the slight blemishes. Rather, something of character mesmerized me - the swirling, unfurling of completeness, at its very apogee.  Gazing into it kind of makes me feel something similar to the banketing peace gained by gazing out at the ocean or a wind-rippling grain field. (Insert happy sigh.)