I Wish I Could...

 ...I wish I could start off my 2023 garden blog with a blog post full of colorful flowers, composed of images taken just today, right from my garden, blooming happily and weed-less-ly as it is already in my imagination.   Alas, however, I am woe, yea woe is me, and I can show you merely the captured sunrise of three days past Christmas, the morning I returned to this garden from faraway family, this image a pitiful substitute, I know, for the glory of waxy petals and errant bees, of life in full exuberance.  Fire in the sky and remnants of snow on the ground are all I can summon from the past week to draw your attention.

...I wish I could entice you into 2023 with the mysteries of new plants and new plantings, of garden beds created from catalogues and prayers, dreams borne into substance with spade and trowel.   Sadly, however, I can show you only the mysteries of another sunrise, two days after the first above, borne in fog and mist, warm ground shunning colder air, my garden isolated and shunning the sun, cloaked and calm and safe for a moment from the greater world.  The growth and glory of 2023's garden is hidden in shadows, lurking in dried stems and promising seed heads, dormant and patient.  What will come first?   A snow crocus?  A daffodil?  A budded magnolia swelling to burst?

...I wish I could show you, at the onset of 2023, more than bland beige landscapes of grasses past, remnants of a once-green and thriving prairie, brought low by cold and drought and time.  From inside the house, the Flint Hills roll on, golden and yet lifeless from seasonal death, the only visible stirring the flash of a hawk as it pounces on its next meal or the gradual lope of a coyote on its scavenging circuit.  It is an act of faith now to see this vista in my mind as it will be in a few mere months, green and tossed with the wind, fed by rain and sunshine in its eternal cycle of birth, growth, fire, and rebirth.

...I wish I could stay each morning in 2023, restful and still, to witness each day the morning turn into afternoon, verdant buds opening and following the sun's path, blue skies and fluffy clouds, through evening until the sun passes the earth on to moon.  To feel the freedom of time unshackled from job and errand, to pass the days alongside the grasses and dream of tomorrow beside them, sunshine and moisture in time and abundance, forever and ever.   This is my garden as it begins 2023, this morning, and at least I am here, today, present in the present and hopeful for the coming year.

Welcome to 2023!  Happy New Year to everyone!

Aubade Appreciation

 In an attempt to expand his horizons and improve on his lack of culture and grace, ProfessorRoush has, for several weeks. received a "word of the day" email from schoolofwordplay.com.  To be honest, I have no idea when I consented to be on this mailing list and I have already been finding myself less than enthusiastic about having to delete that email every morning among the 200 emails I get most every day.  In fact, just a few days ago I contemplated hitting that "unsubscribe" link and then moving the whole kit and caboodle into my Junk folder for good measure. 

This morning, however, I'm glad that my procrastination turned this nuisance into a positive note, because the word of the day for today was "aubade", pronounced as oh-bahd.  For the general unwashed among my readers, "aubade", which I did not have as part of my vocabulary until this morning, originated in the late 17th century from Spanish and French influences, and it is defined as "a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning."

My introduction to "aubade" eerily has coincided with an automatic re-post of the photo above from my wife's Facebook page that popped up earlier this week.  Now folks, ProfessorRoush is a little dense at times, and often slow to discern when the universe is trying to nudge me in a certain direction, but I can see the obvious hand of fate as well as the next fellow, and I decided perhaps I should post these photos here on my own blog. 

I, myself, took these pictures of our house from the road in front just almost a year ago (1/6/2020), at 7:39 a.m. on my way to work.  Pre-pandemic, they do have an innocence about them that tugs at me now with nostalgia, the calm pink sky giving way to the relentless yellow sun still just below the horizon, tranquility captured in the click of an iPhone.   

This isn't an eloquent poem proclaiming the beauty of that morning, nor have I composed music sufficient to convey what this picture means to my soul.  Rodgers and Hammersteins "Oh What A Beautiful Morning" from the musical Oklahoma comes to mind and is likely the pinnacle of music in regards to worshiping the sunrise, so I am too intimidated in its shadow to even try.  You'll have to just accept that my aubade today is simply this reverent post, remembering a morning when America was still innocent and our people unmasked and serene.