Geranium 'Rozanne' & Aconitum carmichaelli 'Arendsii' 10 October 2024

Fragmentary Blue

By Robert Frost

Why make so much of fragmentary blue

In here and there a bird, or butterfly,

Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,

When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—

Though some savants make earth include the sky;

And blue so far above us comes so high,

It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

If anything, since I started blogging in January 2006, where I combined my photographs with text, I have become much more literate. Sometimes (and this has been quite often) I find poems or short stories that match with my photographs. I have over 100 blogs that involve Emily Dickinson and almost as many dealing with Jorge Luís Borges.

Today I scanned two of Rosemary’s favourite plants as she adored blue. With Google for help I put “Blue, Robert Frost”. I found the lovely and short poem.

When I did the same with Julio Cortázar I discovered that with a famous Argentine tango composer Tata Cedrón he wrote lyrics for a record called " Veredas (sidewalks) de Buenos Aires”. One of the tangos is called “El Guante (glove) Azúl (blue).” It is one tango that has no lyrics by Julio Cortázar. I will place the link here for fun. Cortázar is the chap in the middle of the photograph below. Left is guest musician Edgardo Cantón, and Tata Cedrón on the right.

The blue gloves in my scan I found in one of Rosemary's drawers. Every other day I give my male cat Níño a human cancer pill. He has lymphatic cancer of the intestines. I am supposed to not touch the pill. I had problems with rubber gloves. Rosemary's gloves are perfect. Niño, after 8 months, is back to normal. Every day I wonder who will go first, he or his master.

El Guante Azúl

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 8 October 2024

“A.E.Housman’

by W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973)

No one, not even Cambridge was to blame

(Blame if you like the human situation):

Heart-injured in North London, he became

The Latin Scholar of his generation.

Deliberately he chose the dry-as-dust,

Kept tears like dirty postcards in a drawer;

Food was his public love, his private lust

Something to do with violence and the poor.

In savage foot-notes on unjust editions

He timidly attacked the life he led,

And put the money of his feelings on

The uncritical relations of the dead,

Where only geographical divisions

Parted the coarse hanged soldier from the don.”

At this late date in October (October 8) it is amazing how my very large English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ keeps blooming while showing off its deep red leaves on new growth.

Today is a cold rainy day. I have no idea why in the beginning of any of our four seasons I especially remember my Rosemary and what we would talk about and how the weather was going to affect our plants.

She persuaded me into growing roses at the end of the 80s in the last century. A rose to me, is gazing on the fine face of my Rosamaría.  

Because of that rain and cold I know that I would have gotten into bed with her and we would have had a gentle siesta.                           

Rosa 'In Your Eyes' 8 October 2024

Rosemary 1968

Yesterday I noticed the fine Little rose, Rosa ‘In Your Eyes’. By the evening, like most single roses (5 petals), it had closed. I cut it and put it in a vase with warm water in the kitchen. This usually makes the rose open. This morning I decided I was going to scan it. When I placed it over my scanner, the petals fell off. Now in retrospect this was a good thing as my scan is quite different from my usual “perfect” ones.

Rosemary spotted this rose, months before she died in 2020, at the Lougheed Highway Garden Works. Because she had this unusual taste for plants that were unusual, we bought it. We quickly found out that this rose changed colour within a day from light white/yellow to magenta by the evening.

I am adding another scan to this blog. It is a red English Rose, Rosa ‘Thomas à Becket’. Why? I want to show that multiple petal roses don’t close. Rosemary did not ever see this rose as I purchased it last year. She would have loved it.

-

Rosa 'Thomas à Becket' 8 October 2024

Rosa 'Mary Magdalene & Hosta 'Forbidden Fruit' 6 October 2024

 

In this 21st century with people forgetting to be kind I refrain from discussing or writing about politics or religion.

That does not mean that I cannot be fascinated by the doctrines of the world’s religions. I was raised as a Roman Catholic and my mother put me in a Catholic boarding high school in Austin, Texas that was run by the Congregation of Holy Cross. This is the same congregation in charge of Indiana’s University of Notre Dame.

I received a marvellous education at St. Edward’s High School. Without having to believe in any of what I was taught in relation to theology I can run circles around people criticizing my erstwhile religion.

My grandmother often quoted her favourite evangelist St. Luke. I like his writing as he was a doctor and he makes a lot of sense. My fave quote of his is from the King James Bible. St. Luke writes, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Every day no matter what I do I dedicate my actions to my wife, friends and dead relatives.

Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. taught me religion. It did not take me long that he was actually teaching our class theology. As an example of his teaching he told us that when we went bowling, the ball  would be returned and it would go up the ramp and move all the balls that were already there except for the last one. It didn’t move. This is how Brother Edwin taught us Aristotle’s concept of God, the unmoved mover.

In the gospel there is the story of the woman who is about to be stoned. Christ kneels and writes (scribbles?) on the ground something. The men leave and Christ tells the woman (Mary Magdalene to go and sin no more.

True or not is beside the point. Brother Edwin was telling us that this is the sole incident where Christ perhaps knew how to write.

All the above is but an excuse to place here the lovely myrrh scented English Rose, Rosa ‘Mary Magdalene’. I believe that David Austin, who hybridized it, may have done it on purpose as the rose emerges pink (loose woman?) and as it ages it becomes a virginal white.

I like the ins and outs of all that. It keeps me distracted from thinking about my Rosemary who left her life and mine on 9 December 2020. Both she and I liked the myrrh scent which many in the Vancouver Rose Society do not like. It is a combination of pepper, Magnolia grandiflora, Pernod with a little of a medicinal touch.