Since I need to be working on my infernal overdue article, and since I want to be mucking around in my garden, I’m not going to say much today. Instead, I’ll defer to Robert Frost, who I think might’ve had my little garden in mind when he wrote this, one of my favorite poems: “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”
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.
And yeah, I realize that’s an awfully melancholy sentiment on a mild spring day awash in unfamiliar brilliant sunshine. Yet this poem has been running through my head all day as I’ve biked past trees that are just leafing out green-gold, the very newness of their buds whispering a story older than Eden of transience, loss, and rebirth.
All photos are from my garden, taken a few days ago.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
Isn’t that the poem quoted in the movie, The Outsiders? Or am I just really sleep deprived?
I’m sleep deprived but well caffeinated, and I just don’t know if that movie uses the poem. It’s been too long. I *do* know it appears in one of the Baby Einstein videos. (Argh! this is the kind of crap that uses up all my brainspace.)
Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon
As yet the early rising sun
Hath not attained …
and so forth. Our daffodils have lost their lustre, our crocuses are fallen by the wayside. Your photographs are much appreciated at La Casa de Los Gatos (we admit, los gatos are trying to nibble them right off the screen).
Very nice, Political Cat – and you’ve managed to pick an even more gloomy poem than I did! You’re in California, right? I’m glad if you can enjoy my daffodils out of season. By now, they’re a couple of days past their peak – but the tulips are in full bloom.
I’ve often wondered how cats evolved to have such an obsession with computers. One of my old laptops became nearly nonfunctional due to cat hair in the keyboard.