L'aura del Campo

"Pot of portulaca", Baltimore orioles in my yard.

Pot of portulaca

Fifty years later and my grandmother's face
is a pot of portulaca:
scarlet, lemon, snow, magenta,
waiting by the backporch swing
for our visit every August
when her soft silk petals opened with the morning
smell of baking bread or the simmering kettle
of split green peas.
Her succulent arms would ask us to pick
the posies she'd planted in white tires
to place beside her kitchen window.
White wisps surrounded her serenity
like moss rose she planted new each spring:
ivory, golden, pink, vermillion.

© Kåre Enga [164.137] 07-07-16

Portulaca link: http://www.floridata.com/ref/P/port_gra.cfm

IMAGES:

Saturday at the theatre: peacock blue dress and drum, timbals and tambourine; Tall thin man with a ney (flute); long bearded Alonso in a white shirt singing along, playing his saz; "bubba" playing the bass.

2 1/2 year old Rayden dancing to the music at intermission; a shimmy of gold and black and copper; black and blue outfits and bellies jiggling; a duet of mother and daughter in blue and pink silk; the Empress of the World ('O fortuna imperatrix mundi') breaking a dervish on the wheel of fate ('I weep for the wounds of fortune').

OVERHEARD:

"'Limburger on the manifold' ... that was my evil twin Twana talking ..." Ruth.

"Let me give you a pimento of my appreciation." Carol.

THOUGHTS:

Redecorating Lisa. Does her daughter Kayleigh, who's due August 16th or 23rd, prefer old rose or country blue? No word yet on that, but she has been restless.

They did a study showing heart attacks can be brought on by anger, exercise and sex. Anyone for 'happy pills', a twelve-pack and a Barcalounger? ... maybe not yet ...

'Patience is a virtue' or 'don't wait for them to come to you, go to them' ... When I was 10 my fav baseball team was the Baltimore Orioles, my color was orange, I refused to wear blue (wore green and browns instead), my tree was the elm out front. I dreamed of the day it would become huge and spreading with oriole nests in its hair, orange birds flitting in and out. At 15 the elm was diseased and cut down.

On Thursday, my neighbor Lee told me there was an oriole in the neighborhood. On Friday I bought an oriole feeder. Before I got to put it up I saw a streak of gold going to the big spreading elm. It was a Baltimore oriole. On Sunday afternoon I set beneath that tree when it came back searching for bugs. I believe I saw two fledglings searching on the ground last night.

When some things do not come to you ... time to go to them.

QUOTE:

"I am remote, cause me to approach the threshold of Thy mercifulness. O Lord! Make me a brilliant lamp, a shining star and a blessed tree, adorned with fruit, its branches overshadowing all these regions." ~ 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

excerpt from a prayer for the Central States: http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/c/BP/bp-156.html

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