WONDER. DREAMS. PAPER BOATS.;

PAPER BOATS ( 1913) Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) 

                                        Childhood wonder , dreams and the journey .

Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running stream.

In big black letters I write my name on them, and the village where I live.

I hope that someone in some strange land will find them

And know who I am......

I load my little boats with shiuli flowers from our garden

(Shiuili :*Nycanthes arbor-tristis: fragrant night blooming Jasmine from south Asia)

I hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely to land in the night...

I launch my paper boats and look up into the sky

and see the little clouds setting their white bulging sails.

I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down the air to race with my boats!

When night comes I bury my face in my arms

And dream that my paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars.

The fairies of sleep are sailing in them

And the lading (*cargo) is their baskets full of dreams.........

"Clouds come floating into my sunset sky, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky...." -Tagore

Photographs 2025.

  "Paper Boats" is from the "Crescent Moon" collection  1913 by Rabindranath Tagore ( in the public domain)

 

THREE....

"Pick a flower on earth and you move the farthest star..." 

- Paul Dirac

 ONE....

Sighhhhh...Sweet Peas. Not summer without them.  This year, the season has been so slowwwww. Everything dragging out. Roses six weeks late. Sweet peas a no show, till two days ago....

"The flower is a tethered butterfly..." -Ecouchard LeBrun

"What you discover about life's shell game is that it's hardest to follow the pea, when you're the pea!"-Robert Breault

TWO....

Meanwhile, the "Bee Hotels" are about six to seven feet tall. Just starting to bloom. Their flowers look like yellow daisies. Rent is cheap. The bees flock to them...

If you're really early in the morning, you will find bees sleeping inside the flowers. You can even stroke their fuzzy bodies. They are so drunk with pollen, they won't even stir.

"When the flower blossoms, the bee will come..."  -Srikumar Rao

"Here's an idea....let's get over ourselves. Go buy a cherry pie and enjoy life!" -Tom Robbins

"A lily or a rose never pretends...and its beauty is that it IS..." 

-Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold....

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old....

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten, long and long ago....

As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall...in a long forgotten snow.." -Sara Teasdale

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose, that makes it so important..."

                                                                                                     -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

One sweet pea, again.....

"Here are sweet peas , on tiptoe for a flight;  with wings of gentle flush, over delicate white....

And taper fingers catching at all things.....to bind them all about with tiny rings...."- John Keats

THREE...

Sighhhhhh.....and then there were the Sweet Peas of 2021. So many ,my grandmother's vase was overflowing........so I stare at the photo and count my sweet peas to date. One. Two. Three.......am hoping for  four.......

Photography 2025 

 

I WISH I PLAYED GOLF....

"Summer afternoon....summer afternoon; to me those have been the two most beautiful words in the English language..." -Henry James

Hot summer afternoon, spent it visiting the new "Naturally Pacific Resort" (Golf Course) in Campbell River, B.C. Serene and green and peaceful, with its stone wedding Chapel , that hovers on the edge , designed by Graham Cooke. It's fresh. New. Beautiful. Ravens nest in the pine trees; they swoop over the green like vampire bats.

"Summer, after all,  is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people..." -Roman Payne

You can wander the paths  and see the ocean and mountains hovering above . It's peaceful. I don't play golf, but this place makes me wish I did.

Walk thru the huge glass doors and enter. Everyone you meet seems as if they've found the nicest place on earth, and there is nowhere else you would rather be...

"....and so many colours I will have seen....pine greens, soft pinks and purples of spring, and summer blues..." - Sanober Khan

It's a retreat, even for just an afternoon. Sip iced tea over quiet conversation hushed over the hum of dozing bees. 

It rained, like it does so much, here on the North Island. It rained. It dripped.

We huddled under the canopies, waiting for the rain to  stop. Just the ravens chasing each other in the sky . Summer heat through the rain. Thunder far off. 

"Summertime, it was a song. It was a season..." - Benjamin Alire Saenz

Brand new. 

It's like wandering in a secret garden. The outside world seems to stop at the big glass doors. Someone opens the door, so you can go back out into the worldly noise.  

"In summer, the slow breeze and the warm sun write our memories..." -Debasish Mridha

People strolling quietly , gently hurried to get under the arbours , out of the rain, away from the thunder. But no one really wanted to hide from the rain.  

As  thunder loomed, the cold wind washed over us, then the sun blasted its heat, and those ravens in the pine tree squawked, I kind of wished I played golf, at that moment. But the huge glass doors beckoned and back into the real world we shuffled...

"Under the summer roses, when the flagrant crimson lurks in the dusk...." -Carl Sandburg

 Photographs 2025  "Naturally Pacific Resort", in Campbell River, B.C.