A Flower To Auroville Mother-42
Wallich Geranium(Geranium wallichianum)
Geranium Buxton Blue(Geranium wallichianum 'Buxton Blue')
Roundleaf Geranium(Geranium rotundifolium)
Small Geranium(Geranium pusillum)
Trailing Geranium(Geranium procurrens)
Meadow Cranesbill, Meadow Geranium(Geranium pratense)
Black Eyed Geranium(Geranium ocellatum)
Nepal Geranium(Geranium nepalense)
Himalayan Geranium(Lilac Cranesbill, Geranium himalayense)
Don's Geranium(Geranium donianum)
Alike and similar somewhat, somewhat
Hey, geraniums, such halcyon breeze
You colour along with dulcet delight
While the Himalayas proudly greets
In acceptance welcoming me thereat
How do I thank you in great words
When I'm wordless with wonder-heart
O'Wallich of rose-pink and red-purple
O' Buxton Blue of opal or angel-blue
O'Roundleaf Geranium of pale purple
O'Small Geranium of rosy pink hue
O'Trailing Geranium of pinkish purple
Of leaves similar, hairy sparse so true
So true mercy hearts hearty yours all
O'Meadow Geranium purplish red and white
O'Black Eyed Geranium black eyed purple
O'Nepal Geranium wild and small and white
O'Himalayan Geranium blue and beautiful
O'Don's Geranium pinkish purple and sweet
Of herbs and veins similar and beautiful
So true mercy hearts hearty yours sweet
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Related quotes
Mabel Osborne
Your red blossoms amid green leaves
Are drooping, beautiful geranium!
But you do not ask for water.
You cannot speak! You do not need to speak --
Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst,
Yet they do not bring water!
They pass on, saying:
"The geranium wants water."
And I, who had happiness to share
And longed to share your happiness;
I who loved you, Spoon River,
And craved your love,
Withered before your eyes, Spoon River --
Thirsting, thirsting,
Voiceless from chasteness of soul to ask you for love,
You who knew and saw me perish before you,
Like this geranium which someone has planted over me,
And left to die.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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Dear Grif
'Dear Grif,
Here is a whiff
Of beautiful spring flowers;
The big red rose
Is for your nose,
As toward the sky it towers.
'Oh, do not frown
Upon this crown
Of green pinks and blue geranium
But think of me
When this you see,
And put it on your cranium.'
poem by Louisa May Alcott
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0377 Should be, but
I should be writing a poem
about those small wisps of white cloud
moving unusually fast across a blue blue sky
on their way to somewhere else
as if they're late for an appointment.
I should be writing a poem
about the way the breeze is so gentle
that it seems to have a secret plan with the sun
and the new green leaves
to do something quite extraordinary.
I should be writing a poem
about the way that the trailing geranium leaves
are giving out a scent more white than green
more heavenly than any thought.
I should be writing a poem
about the way that the purple and blue and yellow and white flowers
seem to say nothing but beauty.
I should be writing a poem
but all I can do is gaze in amazement
at what I've seen before
and never seen before.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Touch Her Yellow Skirt
In a world of pain,
Eyes weep more abundantly
Than an April rain.
I’m searching
For a geranium path
Where I can breathe perfume
And kiss her hand,
Find myself in awe
To touch her yellow skirt.
I wish we both had sunlight and coffee,
Apple pie from a city bakery,
And that we were smiling
Like we never smiled before.
poem by Uriah Hamilton
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The Leaf
This silver-edged geranium leaf
Is one sign of a bitter grief
Whose symbols are a myriad more;
They cluster round a carven stone
Where she who sleeps is never alone
For two hearts at the core,
Bound with her heart make one of three,
A trinity in unity,
One sentient heart that grieves;
And myriad dark-leaved memories keep
Vigil above the triune sleep,--
Edged all with silver are the leaves.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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I was the slightest in the House
486
I was the slightest in the House—
I took the smallest Room—
At night, my little Lamp, and Book—
And one Geranium—
So stationed I could catch the Mint
That never ceased to fall—
And just my Basket—
Let me think—I'm sure—
That this was all—
I never spoke—unless addressed—
And then, 'twas brief and low—
I could not bear to live—aloud—
The Racket shamed me so—
And if it had not been so far—
And any one I knew
Were going—I had often thought
How noteless—I could die—
poem by Emily Dickinson
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The Sewing-Girl
The humble garret where I dwell
Is in that Quarter called the Latin;
It isn't spacious -- truth to tell,
There's hardly room to swing a cat in.
But what of that! It's there I fight
For food and fame, my Muse inviting,
And all the day and half the night
You'll find me writing, writing, writing.
Now, it was in the month of May
As, wrestling with a rhyme rheumatic,
I chanced to look across the way,
And lo! within a neighbor attic,
A hand drew back the window shade,
And there, a picture glad and glowing,
I saw a sweet and slender maid,
And she was sewing, sewing, sewing.
So poor the room, so small, so scant,
Yet somehow oh, so bright and airy.
There was a pink geranium plant,
Likewise a very pert canary.
And in the maiden's heart it seemed
Some fount of gladness must be springing,
For as alone I sadly dreamed
I heard her singing, singing, singing.
God love her! how it cheered me then
To see her there so brave and pretty;
So she with needle, I with pen,
We slaved and sang above the city.
And as across my streams of ink
I watched her from a poet's distance,
She stitched and sang . . . I scarcely think
She was aware of my existence.
And then one day she sang no more.
That put me out, there's no denying.
I looked -- she labored as before,
But, bless me! she was crying, crying.
Her poor canary chirped in vain;
Her pink geranium drooped in sorrow;
"Of course," said I, "she'll sing again.
Maybe," I sighed, "she will to-morrow."
Poor child; 'twas finished with her song:
Day after day her tears were flowing;
And as I wondered what was wrong
She pined and peaked above her sewing.
And then one day the blind she drew,
Ah! though I sought with vain endeavor
To pierce the darkness, well I knew
My sewing-girl had gone for ever.
And as I sit alone to-night
My eyes unto her room are turning . . .
I'd give the sum of all I write
Once more to see her candle burning,
Once more to glimpse her happy face,
And while my rhymes of cheer I'm ringing,
Across the sunny sweep of space
To hear her singing, singing, singing.
poem by Robert William Service
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Evelyn Hope
I
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.
II
Sixteen years old, when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,—
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
III
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew—
And, just because I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, nought beside?
IV
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
V
But the time will come,—at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red—
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.
VI
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!
VII
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while.
My heart seemed full as it could hold?
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Old Tara
My cat Tara
Was sharp swift and full of fun;
A gift from high
In the garden a smoking gun
Ever alert to predators.
Velvet paws in the house
The loveliest cat ever
To grace the family home.
Tara didn't like sudden bangs,
Guy Fawkes shenanigans
She would ban.
She would come to my side
Tail up: purr purr
Trying to tell me her cat news,
A true and faithful friend.
The years rolled on
Her eyes grew dim.
No more quick movements to her stride.
In my heart I knew one day
The vet would say,
There's nothing more I can do for Tara!
She staggered to me one evening
Bade me a cat's goodbye,
Crept to a geranium pot
In a quiet spot on the floor,
Trying to hide her agony
And keep her dignity.
There she died like the warrior she was.
Tara is now at peace
Her memory will never grow old.
poem by Katie Kent
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Red-Tiled Roof
Poets may praise a wattle thatch
Doubtfully waterproof;
Let me uplift my lowly latch
Beneath a rose-tiled roof.
Let it be gay and rich in hue,
Soft bleached by burning days,
Where skies ineffably are blue,
And seas a golden glaze.
But set me in the surly North
Beneath a roof of slate,
And as I sourly sally forth
My heart will hum with hate;
And I will brood beneath a pine
Where Nature seldom smiles,
Heart-longing for a starry vine
And roof of ruddy tiles.
For oh the South's a bonny clime
And sunshine is its life;
So there I'll finish up my time
A stranger unto strife.
And smoke my pipe and sit aloof
From care by miles and miles,
Sagaciously beneath a roof,
Geranium-gay and panic proof,
Of ruby tinted tiles.
poem by Robert William Service
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No More Music
The Porch was blazoned with geranium bloom;
Myrtle and jasmine meadows lit the lea;
With rose and violet the vale's perfume
Languished to where the hyacinthine sea
Dreamed tenderly . . . "And I must go," said he.
He spoke in that dim, ghostly voice of his:
"I was a singer; then the Was . . . and GAS."
(I had to lean to him, no word to miss.)
"We bought this little café nigh to Grasse;
With sun and flowers my last few days will pass.
"And music too. I have my mandolin:
Say! Maybe you can strum on your guitar . . .
Come on - we two will make melodious din,
While Madame sings to us behind the bar:
You'll see how sweet Italian folk-songs are."
So he would play and I would thrum the while;
I used to there every lovely day;
His wife would listen with a sunny smile,
And when I left: "Please come again," she'd say.
"He seems quite sad when you have one away."
Alas! I had to leave without good-bye,
And lived in sooty cities for ayear.
Oh, how my heart ached for that happy sky!
Then, then one day my café I drew near -
God! it was strange how I was gripped with fear.
So still it was; I saw no mandolin,
No gay guitar with ribbons blue and red;
Then all in black, stone-faced the wife came in . . .
I did not ask; I looked, she shook her head:
"La musique est fini," was all she said.
poem by Robert William Service
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Marie the Laureate
o' the laureate cried,
'oohh lala here is polonium
oohh lala here is radium'
she surmised, we can do more
than grow a geranium
the atomos is not indivisible
can we define impermissible
not allowed, not permissible
the sole winner of the prize
let's try this on for size-
marie curie- who found herself
isolating radioactive isotopes
looking through microscopes
a great top notch physicist
where is my lyricist
first woman to earn a nobel prize
in not just one but two sciences
would love to take you to dinner
the nobel prize chemistry winner
in the year nineteen eleven
born on november seven
congratulations marie
and happy birthday marie
did you know if a woman can do this
produce children and show you bliss
a woman can be president-
we have every right to represent
poem by Rachel Nichols
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Snow Is Falling
Snow is falling: snow is falling.
Geranium flowers reach
for the blizzard’s small white stars
past the window’s edge.
Snow is falling, all is lost,
the whole world’s streaming past:
the flight of steps on the back stairs,
the corner where roads cross.
Snow is falling: snow is falling,
not snowflakes stealing down,
Sky parachutes to earth instead,
in his worn dressing gown.
As if he’s playing hide-and-seek,
across the upper landings,
a mad thing, slowly sneaks,
Sky creeps down from the attic.
It’s all because life won’t wait,
before you know, it’s Christmas here.
And look, in a minute,
suddenly it’s New Year.
Snow is falling, deeper – deeper.
Maybe, with that same stride
in that same tempo,
with that same languor,
Time’s going by?
Year after year, perhaps,
passing, as snow’s falling,
like words in a poem?
Snow’s falling: snow’s falling.
Snow is falling, all is lost –
the whitened passers-by,
leaves’ startled showing,
the corners where roads cross.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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0013 Pink Without Think
My friend the gardener who manages
to combine romantic or ex-romantic
with realist and fine poet and
loving gardener and teacher
and much else, harmoniously,
points out to me that the pink geranium
swinging gently in its hanging basket
in the late September sun, with
an effusive burst of flowering
which it alternates with exhausted,
barely green recovery and dry stalk,
puts on this display simply (simply!)
to attract insects to accidentally
(accidentally!) aid it to
propagate its species..
so I, who am nothing to it
except perhaps a passing Samaritan
who gives it water in a thirsty summer
and, perhaps irrelevantly, perhaps
from deeper cause,
received just now a shout
of pure pinkness from it so that
my senses thrilled, passed the message uncommented
to what seemed like my purest being,
am indeed attracted, my nature to that of it,
animal or human I’ll leave others to decide,
and from that vaguest of cosmic relevance
intend to see it through the winter
to the birth of Spring or spring of birth
with what - my gardener friend -
may well be love
poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Geranium
How can you stand it—looking at things?
For example, the geranium
out on the patio, the single pink
blossom in the sun? Or stand the sunlight
moving through it,
illuminating, holding the flower open like a high
clear note, an ecstatic
widening
which arrives, arrives. What
do you dowith it? While the shrubs and the lowest
overhanging leaves
lift slightly in the wind, the blossom
doesn't move. It's the object
of affection, and this is how
it hurts you:
by holding the note open—
Past the front of the apartment, traffic goes by:
one truck, then another
comes on, disappears. And I have
the blossom in my vision—
sunlight, like vision,
making clear the tiniest
hidden veins. I don't know why
I should be here, alive
and having to see this, this bright thing
living in time
or have to see it later, at the end
of the afternoon, when the sun's
lower, its light diagonal across the pot,
its light then pulling away
across the mossed brick
like a wave, only slower,
slower. The blossom is still pink,
but no longer
brilliant. I'll go back
into the kitchen. But you, are you stronger than I? Can you
stay in love with it? Make promises,
marry it? Are you so sure
of your position in the world?
poem by Kate Northrop
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No, You Be A Lone Eagle
I find it very hard to be fair-minded
About people who go around being air-minded.
I just can't see any fun
In soaring up up up into the sun
When the chances are still a fresh cool orchid to a paper geranium
That you'll unsoar down down down onto your (to you) invaluable
cranium.
I know the constant refrain
About how safer up in God's trafficless heaven than in an automobile
or a train
But ...
My God, have you ever taken a good look at a strut?
Then that one about how you're in Boston before you can say antidis-
establishmentarianism
So that preferring to take five hours by rail is a pernicious example of
antiquarianism.
At least when I get on the Boston train I have a good chance of landing
in the South Station
And not in that part of the daily press which is reserved for victims of
aviation.
Then, despite the assurance that aeroplanes are terribly comfortable I
notice that when you are railroading or automobiling
You don't have to take a paper bag along just in case of a funny feeling.
It seems to me that no kind of depravity
Brings such speedy retribution as ignoring the law of gravity.
Therefore nobody could possibly indict me for perjury
When I swear that I wish the Wright brothers had gone in for silver
fox farming or tree surgery.
poem by Ogden Nash
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Dangerous Type
Can I touch you, are you out of touch
I guess I never noticed that much
Geranium lover, Im live on your wire
Oo come and take me whoever you are
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight
Oo inside angel, always upset
Keeps on forgettin that we ever met
Can I bring you out in the light
My curiositys got me tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Oo shes a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight
Museum directors with high shaking heads
They kick white shadows until they play dead
They want to crack your crossword smile
Oo can I take you out for awhile, yeah
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight
Tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight
Tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type, alright
Shes a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight
(tonight) tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Tonight
Shes a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight
Tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
Tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
Come on hold me tight
Tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
Come on hold me tight
Tonight
Shes a lot like you
The dangerous type
Shes a lot like you
(fade)
song performed by by Cars
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Miriam Tazewell
When Miriam Tazewell heard the tempest bursting
And his wrathy whips across the sky drawn crackling
She stuffed her ears for fright like a young thing
And with heart full of the flowers took to weeping.
But the earth shook dry his old back in good season,
He had weathered storms that drenched him deep as this one,
And the sun, Miriam, ascended to his dominion,
The storm was withered against his empyrean.
After the storm she went forth with skirts kilted
To see in the hot sun her lawn deflowered,
Her tulip, iris, peony strung and pelted,
Pots of geranium spilled and the stalks naked.
The spring transpired in that year with no flowers
But the regular stars went busily on their courses,
Suppers and cards were calendared, and some bridals,
And the birds demurely sang in the bitten poplars.
To Miriam Tazewell the whole world was villain,
The principle of the beast was low and masculine,
And not to unstop her own storm and be maudlin,
For weeks she went untidy, she went sullen.
poem by John Crowe Ransom
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That bit of pinky stuff on the carpet
What is it doing on the clean carpet,
that bit of pink something?
Not a curse upon the house-proud
nor a criticising comment on the housekeeper,
or retribution for the gap under the front door,
or – it it’s blown in from the garden –
a hint of early autumn threatening poetic sadness
or a reminder of the fragile evanescence of all things
it is a whisper from God
which has eluded the debris whirling between stars,
the heat of the sun, its solar dust,
the icy-cold of atmospheres,
airless space of ether,
antennae of early-warning systems,
hover of spy-planes,
click and silent breath of listening devices,
tick tick tick of incriminating tapes recording,
unforgiving eye of spy cameras,
the chatter of minds forever elsewhere,
it is a petal shed from the geranium outside the door,
of the most delicate, almost transparent
pink no rose no shell no just itself
of a fine fine substance which no man can yet make
on its long, long pilgrimage
from beyond the whole vast cosmos of
innumerable solar systems, beyond where
space bends upon itself in homage
where the mind of God dwells
to find itself again in my suddenly open heart
as if it had never travelled from or to,
this whisper of pinky-rosy-shell-like stuff
on the carpet by the warm bare foot.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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0205 Front porch days
London, six o'clock in June, two-o-o-five:
These streets were built in nineteen-five or thereabouts
in unimaginative grid, on London clay and previous watercress beds
by builders and those, quote, 'developers',
whose sudden stroke of luck was that the Tube line was diverted
and foreshortened, now to pass this way all overground;
it took a century, and climate change, to prove
that cracked-out summer clay and winter watercourse,
and building onto earth, are not the best foundation...
but these terraces of modest houses
(alternate houses gabled, bayed, to suggest they're twice the size)
have stood the test of time, when, often, underpinned;
intended for the aspirational working-class,
they've now become, these last few years,
'first homes' for the equally aspirational middle-class;
tonight the streets are nose-to-tail with silent, gleaming
four-wheelers looking down their grilles
at nifty runabouts - some, I regret to say,
parked where suburban front-gardens once declared respectability
in token concrete-and-flower three metres square of space
as subtly expressive in miniature
as any grandly-vista-ed and avenued ducal drive.
All is very quiet at this hour; doors firmly closed;
front gardens are for show just like front parlours were.
Across the road, for all I know,
(for this is London; one does not often chum across the street)
our neighbours may live sunburned Southern lives
in long back gardens which face West (ours, East and overshadowed) :
while on this side, just one front door is out of line:
like some beached whale (or dolphin sounds more cute)
providing a double-take but just too late for passing pedestrians,
I sit at open door with paperback, in jasmine heaven,
which may last - three weeks? but which in this first year of flower,
is both a song of praise and Southern holiday;
it's lost its first exhilaration, but acquired
a subtle maturity so that, one lungful gloried in,
one's ready straightway for yet more perfection;
a week or so, and its poignant sharp-sour scent
will bring back memories of summer's ripe Venetian back-canals.
This new-found gazebo, to you in Southern climes
will be just commonplace - as afternoon front porch,
or sociable evening verandah or leisured stoep,
where West Indians, for instance, wait to pass the time of day
with passing neighbours; for me, exotic new delight;
so that I'm quietly proud when the Trinidadians from two doors away
take my presence, sitting there, as invitation to pause there at my gate
and pass the time of day.
On one side of the door, vermilion geraniums
survived a mildish winter; their colour in this evening sun
incredible: blazing colour from one petal, sun-glowed in another;
can vermilion really be, as reason and art-teachers say,
a mixture of yellow in with red? Not here, today...and so, itself,
that you can feel it hit the retina and demand
more than the physics of the eye can stand....
and then, the other side, the pink geranium
sings quite a different song - one hears, but cannot say
just where the difference lies in colour's music scale.
Metaphysics, for three thousand years or more
in East and West, has held in high debate
whether what, like this, the senses' scene, provides
may be direct connection with what's called divine;
or whether this must be transcended in some mindful way.
The answer, here, today, for me is in
one glimpse of sunlight through geranium.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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