Pictures Taken By you...

[miss tenderness]

Janine , dreamy pictures:

[Petrarch's Love]

Janine, those are beautiful. Both a great photographer and a great gardener. I love the color blue, especially in flowers.

Virgil, thanks for the link to the Lawrence poem too. I hadn't read that one before. It's fantastic. Janine's flowers seem much too cheerful and above ground for that poem though.

[Kebi]

okay, I don't think this is brilliant, not my best-but it's kind of, well, different. Its my avatar.
Yours is great, Janine

[Janine]

Nice photos Janine. Your flowers remind me of a Lawrence poem, "Bavarian Gentians." Blue flowers are hard to come by in nature. There aren't that many.

edit: If you wish to read that Lawrence poem I once copied it in this thread: http://www.online-literature.com/for...nce#post135040, post #18.

Virgil, I love that Lawrence poem - I just read it recently, but thanks for the link. The biographer I just read said it was written indicating that Lawrence was grasping at life when he wrote it, well something like that. It is sad when you think of his fateful death at 44 by TB/comsumption. Knowing that makes this poem more poignant, and always makes me cry. So I agree with Petrarch on that one (it is so sad), but you are right, blue flowers are hard to come by. Actually these are more of a lavender....periwinkle, I suppose. Virgil, if you know of a hardy perennial that is actually blue, let me know. I would love to plant one next year. I had something that was actually blue once, but it did not survive more than one season.
Unfortunately, Petrarch, my poor garden used to be splendid but I let the weeds grow several years now and it is in disarray. You must read my sad poem about it called "Frozen Summer" in the "share a poem" thread.
Thanks miss tenderness for the dreamy compliment.
To Claes, I say - your photos are great (tell your wife she did a good job of the one of you, I am a woman so I give her all the credit...sorry) and the story was an absolute riot! I can just imagine. You should write that into a short story, Claes.
A friend of mine was transporting 2 cats to another country. Somehow his wife got aboard the plane first with the cats and he was left in the airport and they had to contact the plane to turn around. He was checking on the cats and they were on the runway. They actually came back for him, it was layover in the US and he was speaking Japanese and English and they could hardly understand him. Needless to say, they let him on the plane. Of course, that was before airports got so strick. They may have thought him a terrorist trying to pull something today. His story was funny, also. Maybe you could start a thread - "funny airport stories"! I am sure there are many, but yours really was hysterical.

[Virgil]

Virgil, I love that Lawrence poem - I just read it recently, but thanks for the link. The biographer I just read said it was written indicating that Lawrence was grasping at life when he wrote it, well something like that. It is sad when you think of his fateful death at 44 by TB/comsumption. Knowing that makes this poem more poignant, and always makes me cry. So I agree with Petrarch on that one (it is so sad), but you are right, blue flowers are hard to come by. Actually these are more of a lavender....periwinkle, I suppose. Virgil, if you know of a hardy perennial that is actually blue, let me know. I would love to plant one next year. I had something that was actually blue once, but it did not survive more than one season.

No I don't know of a blue flowering perennial. If I come across one I'll let you know. Yes that poem was towards the end of Lawrence's life. When he was ill, he did not have the energy to write novels, he lay and wrote poetry. Some of his best poetry were these end of his life poems. I've posted this one before, but it is always very touching to me.

Shadows by D.H. Lawrence

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft, strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon's in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens,
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding, folding
around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
and the silence of short days the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth's lapse and renewal.

And if, in the charming phases of man's life,
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me--

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unkown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

[kathycf]

blue flowers are hard to come by. Actually these are more of a lavender....periwinkle, I suppose. Virgil, if you know of a hardy perennial that is actually blue, let me know. I would love to plant one next year. I had something that was actually blue once, but it did not survive more than one season.

You could try Bachelor Buttons. They come in different shades but one of the nicest is a deep violety blue color. I can grow them here, so you should have no trouble in your location. Try looking here for more information. (other flowers as well as bachelor buttons)

*edit* Ok they are an annual (my mistake) but they do re-seed themselves...
info and pic here.

[Janine]

No I don't know of a blue flowering perennial. If I come across one I'll let you know. Yes that poem was towards the end of Lawrence's life. When he was ill, he did not have the energy to write novels, he lay and wrote poetry. Some of his best poetry were these end of his life poems. I've posted this one before, but it is always very touching to me.

Virgil, I had not read this poem before and it went straight to my heart, having read so much about Lawrence's life recently. Reading his travel books on Italy, I feel I really know the man. The poem made me cry. I love it. I will have to find it in my complete poetry volume that I got before Christmas. I have not gotten a chance to peruse it yet. I had the same copy from my library once awhile back. Now the poems take on much more meaning, after reading the biographies. Thanks for finding this poem. It is wonderful and so poignant.

Kathcf, Thanks for the link and the information. Yes, I do think I might have had Bachelor Buttons once awhile back, but they did not reseed for me, unfortunately. Of course it would help to water the garden once in awhile. I got lazy. But I'd love to see what the link offers......maybe....just maybe.... a revived garden this year, it's way overdue for attention. I know that you can get some annuals in a blue color. Soon I will be posting some more garden shots. I have tons of them. Next I may post the big pink hybiscus - the perennial type. The blooms can be as large as dinner plates. Also I have a lovely photo of a lily I finally lost - Horizon Lily. I enjoyed it many years but think the darn squirrels ate it. I will post garden photos so we all get a feeling of spring eventually coming...anticipation!

Ok, I revised this post to add this picture - big pink Hybiscus blossom.


Enjoy and think of summer!

[geewiz]

Here's a some from my cruise trip in the mediterranean (the ones in the link are larger):

http://i1.tinypic.com/34zc8kk.jpg
leaning tower...

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/4927/p1000387og4.jpg

http://i3.tinypic.com/2r7u592.jpg
Greece...


back to back to back, probably belong to one guy too


the artwork there is insane...

[Madhuri]

Nice pictures, geewiz. I like the cars. Are they kind of sport cars? the designs suggests this, and I like red colour

Its interesting to see the last picture of Greece (in the link), the houses in hilly areas are more like this, they cant expand, as in the breadth, and are vertical....

[geewiz]

They are all ferrari's, that's why I took the picture. Prior to this I had never seen one in person and then I got to see three of them at the same time. A lot of nice cars/buildings in the Riviera.

[Janine]

geewiz, I was about to ask you which one was your Ferrari - nice cars!!! They have to be red - look best in red. Hot little cars!

The fountain/sculpture picture is amazing. Did Michelangelo do that sculpure? I know I have seen it before in books. Wonderful!

[ClaesGefvenberg]

the artwork there is insane...

I'll say it is. Here is a night shot of the same place... Fontana di Trevi:

They have to be red - look best in red. Hot little cars!

You can say that again. Two of them passed me on the autostrada towards Venice once: Boom, boom, gone... It felt like I was standing still, but I was in fact doing 170 Km/h.... I don't even want to think about their speed.

The fountain/sculpture picture is amazing. Did Michelangelo do that sculpure? I know I have seen it before in books. Wonderful!

The sculpture in the center is Neptune by Pietro Bracci, and it is not nearly that old: It was put in place in 1762.

/Claes

[Virgil]

You really captured the Trevi Fountain well, Claes. That's not an easy picture to take. The fountain is very wide and there isn't usually enough room to back up to get it. And there is always a crowd of people in front blocking the view. A night shot makes it look magnificent. Too bad that guy was in front waving his arm.

[Janine]

Claes, you can either paint those guys out of the foreground (I do things like that all the time in Adobe or Photoshop) or you can just crop up higher than they are - you have room. It would improve the shot. It is a wonderful photo and a nite shot as Virgil pointed out with the entire width of the fountain in it. Wow!

[miss tenderness]

nice picture , Gee.


Cales , your photo is wow as always: