Nothing Gold Can Stay

                                                Nature’s first green is gold,
                                                Her hardest hue to hold.
                                                Her early leaf’s a flower;
                                                But only so an hour.
                                                Then leaf subsides to leaf.
                                                So Eden sank to grief,
                                                So dawn goes down to day.
                                                Nothing gold can stay. 

                                                                       — Robert Frost

A Patriotic Picnic: Cantigny Park

We recently discovered Cantigny Park, practically in our own backyard!  Where, oh where, have we been all these years!  It's located in Wheaton, Illinois and approximately 20 minutes from our house. 

Cantigny Park was the former home of Robert McCormick, who owned and ran the Chicago Tribune and made it into a formidable publication in the early part of the 20th century.  His biography is rather interesting and worthy of a read.  Upon his death in 1955 he bequeathed his estate to the McCormick Charitable Trust, now the McCormick Foundation, and at his request, the estate was opened to the public.

What a legacy!  The grounds are breathtakingly beautiful.

Filled with flowers, plants and trees of all sorts, the paths invite the visitor to walk and wander through its many gardens . . .

. . . and stop to admire the pools and statues that dot the landscape.

The marvelous Rose Garden contains more than 1,000 rose bushes, representing many, many varieties and classifications.  I could spend hours in this garden alone.  Now that we know this place is here, I must come back next year when the roses are at their peak.

This is the Chicago Peace Rose, described as a "glowing pink rose with a butter yellow heart."  This variety was hybridized in these very gardens.

Robert McCormick's second wife was very fond of oriental art, and brought back many curiosities from their many trips to Asia, especially China.  A pair of Foo Dog statues (also known as Imperial Guardian Lions) flank the front of the house.

   

The 500-acre property was originally called Red Oaks, but McCormick renamed it Cantigny, after the battle in France in which he saw action with the Army's 1st Battalion.

He also endowed the First Division Museum on the same premises, but it's currently closed for remodeling.  It contains all kinds of tanks from WWI, and from other wars that followed it.  It's now become a military museum.

Once the museum reopens, we'll have to go back.  Alas!  What sacrifice!

After wandering around all morning, and visiting his former home (no pictures allowed, unfortunately), it was time for lunch in one of their picnic groves.

And because military history enveloped us everywhere, it seemed logical to bring out the red, white and blue.

I prepared an easy and delicious picnic that could stay in the car for a few hours while we wandered around the park:  Sandwiches made with Egg and Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade on French Baguette. To drink we had lemonade.  We had also tucked a bottle of Sancerre in the picnic basket but it was so hot that we craved the lemonade above all else and never got around to opening the wine.

The sandwiches were messy and drippy, but utterly delicious.  The recipe was simplicity itself:  I sliced hard-boiled eggs, and added some Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade from a jar (that you should always keep in your pantry for emergencies, sometimes it's called Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta).  A dash of salt and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes enhanced the flavor, but were not really needed, so feel free to skip these, if you'd rather.

The sandwich was hard to photograph because it wanted to fall apart; I need to work on my sandwich building skills.  My husband, reluctantly held out what was left of his so I could snap a photo.  I should've made a couple more!

Then, for dessert, we had freshly cubed peaches marinated in Grand Marnier, and served with Madeleines to help soak up the boozy juice.  Light and so perfectly suited for the season!  The peaches have been marvelous this year here in the Midwest!

I love museum gift shops.  They always carry such intriguing merchandise!  And books, of course, wonderful books.  I found this small collection of poems from World War I, the most famous of which is "In Flanders' Fields."  It is very poignant and reminds us of how truly tragic war can be.  

I wish I had been able to find red poppies instead of red carnations, to honor our fallen soldiers.  After WW I, poppies have been adopted as a symbol of remembrance.  But my local florists didn't have any.  It would have required a special order.  Why don't I ever see poppies at the florist or grocery store?  Note to self:  Plant some poppies in the garden this fall. 

This afternoon, I was once again reminded to be grateful for our country, with all its flaws.  And to live in the moment, and have many, many picnics!

This adorable dragonfly that I also found at the gift shop says it best:  Enjoy today!

Roses and tea . . . and a cupcake . . . oh, and a poem!

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

   

“To My Dear and Loving Husband”

—Anne Bradstreet

Poinsettia

Scarlet shades of red

Liven holiday decor

Christmastime again

—Milton Toran

Apropos of nothing . . . XYZ Riddle solved!

A few years ago, I came across a short little poem that has stuck in my head and bedeviled me ever since.  Here it is again:

The cross the fork the zigzag—a few straight lines
For pain, quandary and evasion, the last of signs.
—Robert Pinsky

I wrote about it on this blog on April 24, 2009.  Click here for the post.

And here is the comment I wrote:

O.K., I get that X is the cross (pain), Y is the fork (quandary) and Z is the zigzag (evasion). What does the author mean by "the last of signs?" Such short lines and they are giving me a headache!

Ever since, when I least expect it, the poem worms itself into my consciousness and I revisit it over and over, until, with a Gallic shrug (I pretend I'm French) I once again set it aside.  Yes, I know that X, Y and Z are the last three letters of the alphabet, but what is the metaphor? 

Then today, the skies opened up, the sun came out and I'm pretty sure I heard angels sing!  I found this analysis by Erin Yorke online.  And here are the two beautiful sentences that jumped out at me from that essay:

“At the end of the alphabet, they are closing the end of communication, of signals, of individual lives and life itself, ‘the last of signs’.  It is almost as if the speaker has one, last brief image to leave with loved ones and strangers on the planet.”

It's so simple - now that it's been explained to me! 

Release, Maria . . . you can let this one go now . . .  Life is good.

Thyme

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.”

—William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I particularly like this variegated lemon thyme, and keep it it on the kitchen window throughout the summer.  It's fabulous on an herbed vinaigrette, or simply scattered on a fresh tomato salad, or on fish or chicken . . .

Legend has it that thyme was an essential ingredient in a magic potion that allowed the drinker to see the fairies.  Simply touching the leaves infuses the kitchen with a delightful lemony scent, and it's so delicate-looking, one might easily imagine fairies fluttering amongst its leaves . . .  Another of the pleasures of summer . . . there’s never enough thyme . . .

A Very Valentine

Very fine is my valentine.

Very fine and very mine.

Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.

Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and

mine is my valentine.

—Gertrude Stein

*Strawberry marshmallow hearts from World Market.

I'm joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for this week's Tablescape Thursday blog party.  Please stop by to see admire the creativity of these amazing tablescapers.

Thanksgiving

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Balm in Gilead

“Is there no balm in Gilead?” So cries
dour Jeremiah in granite tones.
“There is a balm in Gilead,” replies
a Negro Spiritual.  The baritone

who chants it, leaning forward on the platform,
looks up, not knowing his voice is a rainstorm
that rinses air to reveal earth's surprises.
Today, the summer gone, four monarch butterflies,

their breed's survivor's, sucked a flower's last blooms,
opened their wings, orange-and-black stained glass,
and printed on the sky in zigzag lines,
watch bright things rise:  winter moons, the white undersides
of a California condor, once thought doomed,

now flapping wide like the first bird from ashes.

—Grace Schulman

from The Paintings of Our Lives:  Poems by Grace Schulman

Seasonal Sundays at The Tablescaper

The Argument of His Book

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,

Of April, May, of June and July flowers.

I sing of Maypoles, hock carts, wassails, wakes,

Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.

I write of youth, of love, and have access

By these to sing of cleanly wantonness.

I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece,

Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.

I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write

How roses first came red and lilies white.

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing

The court of Mab and of the fairy king.

I write of hell; I sing (and ever shall)

Of heaven, and hope to have it after all.

                                                          —Robert Herrick

A little piece of heaven on earth:  The daffodils are blooming!

Melancholic Autumn

I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest
wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

—Autumn Movement, Carl Sandburg

A book

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot

That bears a human soul!

—Emily Dickinson

I'm starting a new one tonight . . .

Nature . . . Hmm . . .

This week's PHOTO OF THE DAY theme really had me stumped. A nature girl, I'm not. I've always lived in cities and adore its many conveniences. I like to enjoy nature in pictures. Then, I can marvel at all of God's creations and only think beautiful thoughts. Real nature is seldom idyllic.

What to post . . . ? What to post . . . ? Ahhh! Of course! There is one aspect of nature that I am drawn to . . . water.

I was 21 years old when this photo was taken on my first visit to Niagara Falls. Somehow, I forgot to be suspicious of nature. The Falls really touched me. It might be a cliché, but I truly felt God's love in this spot. I know that some people experience that same feeling in other places, and when I saw the Mighty Niagara, I understood.

José María Heredia, Cuba's National Poet, one of the first romantic poets in the New World, wrote his Ode to Niagara in 1832. It is a beautiful, long, melancholic, long, instrospective poem that shows his love of nature . . . did I mention long? He reminds me so much of Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poem was my introduction to the Falls . . .

It truly is a lovely poem. I didn't quite like it at fifteen, when I first read it, but I re-read it as an adult and found it profoundly moving.

There's a plaque on the American side of the Falls honoring Heredia. He's called "The Sublime Singer of the Wonderous Greatness of Niagara Falls."

I strongly recommend a visit. Yes, there are lots of tourist traps nearby. Ignore them. Just stand on one of the many lookout points and listen to the water's roar. Feel the mist on your face . . .

Be still. There's tremendous power to be felt in this place . . .

Lines

Draw a line. Write a line. There.
Stay in line, hold the line, a glance
between the lines is fine but don't
turn corners, cross, cut in, go over,
or out, between two points of no
return's a line of flight, between
two points of view's a line of vision.
But a line of thought is rarely
straight, an open line's no party
line, however fine your point.
A line of fire communicates, but drop
your weapons and drop your line,
consider the shortest distance from x
to y, let x be me, let y be you.

—Martha Collins

"Lines" from Some Things Words Can Do

I'm fascinated by the possibilities of language as shown by word plays. I liked this one. And here are some other tangled lines - beads left over from a Mardi Gras celebration at work.

Happy Valentine's Day!

“I have not spent a day without loving you; I have not spent a night without embracing you; I have not so much as drunk a single cup of tea without cursing the pride and ambition which force me to remain separated from the moving spirit of my life.”

—Napoleon Bonaparte,

excerpted from a letter to Josephine, his wife

Well . . . we know they had their problems, didn't they? Still, these words might seduce any woman, even today . . . especially today when letter writing has all but become extinct. It's hard to envision words like that strung together into a text message; as for Twitter . . . I think this might have gone over the character limit . . .

My very own lover is not so eloquent with words, but age has shown me that love is manifested in many ways. He has seduced me with his innate kindness, his patience, his perseverance, his humor . . . and his love for me. I'm still staggered by that love. I am so lucky that my lover also happens to be my husband of twenty five years . . . Happy Valentine's Day, darling!

Poem for Salt

The biggest snowstorm to hit Denver in twenty years.
What is the world to do, freed from the shackles
of the eight hours needed to earn its daily salary?

Only on a day such as this does salt overshadow gold.
Salt, with its lips of blue fire, common as gossip,
ordinary as sin. Like true love and gasoline,
missed only when they run out. Salt spilling
from a blue container a young girl is holding,
along with an umbrella, on the label of a blue
container of salt that the woman across the street,
under her umbrella is pouring behind her left rear wheel,
to no avail this discontented, unbuttoned December
morning.

—Leroy V. Quintana

Hug O' War

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

—Shel Silverstein

The Elephant in the Room

I got an e-mail at work today: "Congrats, I heard you made the cut." No, I didn't get a promotion, what I did was manage to avoid getting cut - cut out of a job, that is. This has been a horrible, sad two weeks at work. It's actually been longer. For months, there have been hints that a "Reduction in Force" was coming and we've lived with Damocles sword hanging over our heads because what else was there to do but wait? That has been the Elephant in the Room of my life for the last few months. I've talked of so many trivial things on this blog, always avoiding mention of the one thing most likely to affect my immediate life.

Well, the time finally arrived and that sword came down and did some bloody damage. Long time employees, sometimes with twenty years or more with the company, have been packaged along with employees that were hired six months ago. People have not been slotted for jobs at the same time that their positions, or very similar ones have been left open. Alternatively, people have been slotted into positions in which they have no interest, thus keeping them from being able to receive a termination package. It's been awful, and no one really knows what criteria was used to decide who goes and who stays.

I've been kept awake at night thinking of a co-worker currently undergoing radiation, who is hoping that her package will last at least as long as her remaining treatment, because that is also the length of time that she will be covered by insurance. I think about another co-worker who has an enormous tumor in her stomach and was waiting for her overall health to stabilize before scheduling further surgery, and whose husband of 13 years just walked out on her. What is she going to do now? There are so many other stories.

Yes, I survived the cut. My job is changing completely, although I'm keeping the same salary and benefits. But it saddens me that when they slotted me they showed so little understanding of where my strengths lie (It's nothing personal, Maria. I know, I know . . . ). I'll do the best I can with the job, it's not in me to give less than my best. And, who knows, maybe it'll be better than I think right now.

I keep telling myself that this job does not define me, that maybe God or the universe has another plan for me and I should go with the flow and let the plan reveal itself. And I'm trying very hard to be grateful that in this economy I have a job.

But right now, it's painful going to work and seeing the living dead: Those that have been told that they will no longer have a job as of next Monday. I think of John Donne's lines:

"Each man's death diminishes me
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
for whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee."

May God watch over us all.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one:

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

—W.H. Auden

Remembering my father who passed away on November 2, 1986. He was my North, South, East and West. My true compass for perseverance and moral rectitude. He taught me to appreciate literature and history. He demonstrated to us daily what it meant to love unconditionally. He sacrificed for me, although he would have taken deep umbrage at my suggestion that it was a sacrifice. He loved me and he understood me. I miss him.

Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun

Give me the splendid silent sun with all its beams full-dazzling,
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows,
Give me an arbor, give me the trellised grape,
Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals
teaching content.
Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the
Mississippi, and I am looking up at the stars,
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I
can walk undisturbed.

— Walt Whitman

I love quiet time when you can hear yourself think. Modern life is so frantic; we just don’t take enough undisturbed walks. Emerson has a quote I love: “Hospitality: a little fire, a little food, and an immense quiet.” Here's wishing you some quiet time.