Tag: love

How to Transplant a Flower – or – How a Child is Like a Flower

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Know where you’re going.
Make sure there is a soft and comforting bed
with all the flower needs to thrive at hand.

Work quickly.
The limbo between old home and new home
is a dangerous place and flowers wilt easily.

Sever as few roots as possible.
Flowers need roots to grow, severing too many
will stunt them and make them terribly sad.

Avoid high winds and blazing sun.
Tender little roots will shrivel under the onslaught
of nature’s volatile moods. Choose a cool, soft day.

Transplant into a nourishing environment.
Soft soil to dig their wee toes in, rain puddles,
sunshine; these are the things a flower needs.

It’s maintenance from there on.
A flower depends upon you for protection from weeds,
and pests, and unkind hands that pluck pretty flowers.

Be prepared to train the flower in how it should grow
with a loving hand, prune away the bad stuff,
provide frameworks for them to climb upon.

That’s how you transplant a flower.

 

#161

Butterflies and Corpses

lindastudley2 Comments

I used to love butterflies
till I found out they’re attracted to corpses.
I used to love sunsets
till I found out radiation can blind you.
And I used to love stars that twinkle, then I read
that apparently most of them are already dead
I’m not sure if there’s a dark side to a rainbow
but I used to love them too.

It’s a dangerous pastime and a foolish act,
loving things you know can’t love you back
and now that I understand what they really are
I’ll just like butterflies, sunsets, rainbows and stars,
but I’ll go on loving you.

 

#148

Flying

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Between nest and ground
is where all birds learn to fly
by just letting go.

And in the free fall
all weight and fear drop away
and lose their power.

I will close my eyes,
spread my arms, and fly away
if you will come too.

And we will look down
on the fallen fear and weight
so far below us.

We will watch them shrink
as we wheel and soar higher,
like fledgling eagles

and we’ll wonder why
it took so long to let go
of the nest and fly.

 

#147

Mother’s Day

lindastudley3 Comments

She was a real person.
She would not have been happy on a pedestal.

She took chances.
“What have you got to lose?” she’d say.

She enjoyed every moment
and knew the time to laugh and sing was now.

She not only smelled the roses
she planted, grew, and tended them lovingly.

Every day in my life I loved my mother.
Every day in my life I always will.

 

#140

What It Is

lindastudley3 Comments

Life is like a watercolour painting;
lots of pretty colours to play with
but work it too hard and you get mud.

Mud is like love;
soft and fun to play in
but it’s slippery and tends to leave stains.

Stains are like road maps;
clues to who or what we’ve been
but sometimes they smother beauty.

Beauty is like a watercolour;
glowing and capricious
but only a reflection of life.

 

#137

My Mother’s Quilt

lindastudleyLeave a comment

My mother’s quilt hangs on the wall.
Sometimes I touch it lightly as I walk by
Its softness reminds me of her skin and
the colours remind me of her gardens.
She loved her gardens.

I remember her rose trees,
tall as me and covered with blood red roses.
Come fall she’d loosen the soil around their roots,
lay them in a trench, and bury them.
Spring would bring the resurrection.
The stark, dirty sticks would waken,
leaf out, and bloom again.
A botanist would tell you it was a technique,
a method of wintering roses.
But I think they came back each year
because they loved my mother.

I touch the quilt again.

 

#136

You Are

lindastudley2 Comments

You are what you hate
how and why you hate
where, who,  and when you hate.
Hate being the prison

You are what you love
how and why you love
where, who, and when you love.
Love being the key.

You are what you imagine
how and why you imagine
where, who, and when you imagine
imagination being the horizon.

Take the key.
Open the prison.
Head for the horizon.
You are what you do.

 

#106

Seasons of Love

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Our love sings to my heart
in the trickling chuckle of a redwing blackbird
proclaiming the promise of a dawning spring.

Our love clings to my heart
with the sweet scent of lilacs, nodding, langourous
in the still warmth of a summer garden.

Our love plays on my heart
like a phantom melody at the edge of memory,
and the sound of leaves falling.

Our love cradles my heart
as a layer of snow protects the slumbering lilac,
patiently awaiting the seasons of love.

 

#89

Sentences Starting With I Love

lindastudley7 Comments

“I love a mystery” she says
then delves into the mystery with the sole
intent of unravelling it.

“I love the view” he says
then builds a house with a big window facing the view
so he can pull the curtains.

“I love you just the way you are” they say
then point out reasons that way is wrong and how
you should change.

Beware of sentences starting with I love.

 

#74

Valentine’s Day 101

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Today we’ll play at Valentines
I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine

We’ll send each other a long stemmed rose
and cards with someone else’s prose.
 
We’ll eat our dinner candlelit,
sit closer than we usually sit,
 
and when it’s over we’ll revert, dear,
to who we are the rest of the year.
 
For I will be your heart’s desire
and you’ll be what sets mine afire.
 
We’ll laugh and toast the day in wine
because we know that Valentines 

are for beginners, not old hands
like us who know that true romance

is something that needs time to grow.
We reap the fruit of love we sow.

 

#52