High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘beauty’

The flowers of May come dancing through our days, giving so freely of their beauty.  Like slow-motion fireworks, they come from nowhere, bursting with dazzling beauty, and then, as quickly as they came, fading away.

Most beauty is fleeting—and all the more precious because it is so.

But oh, while these flowers  bloom, how they bless us!  How could you think we are not loved, for the world to bring forth such creations?

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Sweet, bounteous April opens her morning arms again, and in one graceful sweep, covers our paths with flowers.

She’s strewn them across the lawns and hung them like garlands from branches.  She’s scattered them along the woodland floor, beside the busy highways, in doorways and gardens, along the rivers and streams.

Their colors sing and are beyond naming.  They blush and glow; they delight and inspire.  And each is a work of art.

This beauty is more than we ever could have asked for, more than we ever could have dreamed.

And it comes to us this lovely April morning asking nothing in return, for no other reason than to sing the Great Yes to us, that we may feel its love and know its joy.

Some beauty is too tender for any season but spring.   Even then, when it is wrapped in the soft blue air, you wonder how it dares to be.

Snow could blow in on harsh winds at any moment.   Torrents of pelting rain could fall.  You hold your breath, seeing the sweet, fragile blossoms on the branches.  You want to give it some of your life in exchange for the gift that it has given yours.

You stare at it, burning its perfection into your mind.  When you fall asleep, it dances in your dreams and the calls of song birds echo into morning.

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Because it was her last weekend with us, February put on her winter best.

She will be packing her bags tomorrow, and meeting with incoming staff to bring them up to speed.

But today she was free, and she chose to gift our world with one last, sparkling snow.

The flakes rode in on a great, blustery wind that prepared the way for their coming.  It was evening before they arrived and they fell throughout the night.

In the morning, the world outside our windows was transformed, its beauty leaving us in awe of February’s artistry and power.

Before noon, she cleared the clouds and the sky was a startling blue.   “Remember me,” she whispered, as we walked through the drifts of powdery dazzling diamonds.

Then she turned, and was gone.

All the sounds are liquid and deafening.  The pouring rain beats on the tree bark, on the melting leaves.  It plunks into the pools gathered in the hollows of the ground, the round ripples leaping in tiny waves.

I splash through it to the bank of the green, swollen creek and its roar rises to meet the falling rain.  Even the drenched air cannot mute it, though it wraps itself, cloud-like, around every twig and fills all the spaces.

The light is like ground pearls, milky and luminescent.  It laughs as it rides the rushing waters, as it slides down the naked braches and over the leathery surface of the leaves.

In town, people hurried along beneath black umbrellas, their shoulders hunched, their eyes cast down to the drab sidewalks, blind to the rivers of light that ran down the gutters.

But here, the colors glow, and the world is raining beauty.

You wrote yourself indelibly on our lives, oh quickly fading year.  You tried us, and tested us, and made us stronger.  Against the backdrop of your seasons, we loved and laughed, said our hellos and goodbyes, poured new learning into our hearts and minds, gathered fresh bundles of wisdom and grew our souls.

And although there were times of darkness and heartache, although we mourned and were afraid, in the end, we found ourselves braver and truer somehow, more determined, surer of ourselves and of our meaning.  Even in the darkness, you wrote poems on our hearts and filled them new understanding and compassion.

You brought us gifts of beauty and unfolded pathways of hope.  Your hours opened to us new wonders and discoveries that thrilled our minds and let us see the depths of our potential.   You brought us moments of triumph that let our spirits soar.

Now, as you take our yesterdays to the temple of times past, take with you, too, this deep red rose as a token of our heartfelt thanks for all the gifts you gave, for all the love you taught us, for all the joy.

Farewell, 2011.  Farewell.

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Even when the world is windless and drained of color, your beauty takes my breath away.

I know you give no thought to it, to the way you stand apart from the crowd, to the simplicity and balance of your life.

You think of yourself as ordinary, passing from season to season, doing what’s before you to be done.

And yet you do it all so well, with such harmony and grace.

I know that you would laugh to hear me say so, but you hold more beauty than my words could ever say.

And even in the darkness, you take my breath away.

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At the very edge of the grass, which is, by the way, still quite green, right where the creek begins, where all the fallen leaves have come to rest in the shallow water, the first ice spread itself along the shore.

I might not have noticed it at all had the bright rust of the sycamore leaf not caught my eye.  But there it lay, cupping the fragile blue ice bubble, its free edge wrapping around it, calling me.

So here it was, a crisp, pale ribbon, wrapping around December’s first days, a subtle hint of things to come, a reminder that winter, too, holds great beauty.

October’s bright hues are faded, a brilliant stain in memory’s store.  The leaves rain down.  The skies are gray.

Squirrels scurry to gather the harvest of hickory nuts, walnuts and acorns to tide them through the winter.  The snow could come now, any day.

In the fields, the corn is faded, too, its thick green leaves turned to paper, its cobs hanging heavy, waiting.  Soon the great machines will roll through to collect them, their engines purring into the night, their headlights piercing the darkness.

The moment holds a poignancy.  Another round of seasons decends into frozen winter’s stillness.

Yet October is not quite ready to bid us farewell.  Even in this owl light, she glows with a lingering beauty.

A hush falls on the woodlands.  Then the cricket song begins.

Louder and louder it winds until every leaf and blade of grass is vibrating to its sound.

That’s when she makes her entrance, a whirl of pinks and roses, dancing as if she were possessed, and yet so controlled and graceful that she takes your breath away.

Even the birds cease their flutter, so mesmerized are they by her waltz, this late summer note of beauty, unfurling in the afternoon air.