“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
―
Huffhines Park, Richardson, Texas
The city is out, between the thunderstorms, mowing down all the patches of wildflowers. I guess that is a sign that spring is ending and the Texas summer is nigh. God help us all.
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you’re the queen of the underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave
—-Rolling Stones, Dead Flowers
McKinney, Texas
“I must have flowers, always, and always.”
― Claude Monet
Dallas Blooms, Dallas Arboretum
“You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
You belong with your love on your arm
You belong somewhere you feel free”
― Tom Petty
(click to enlarge)
“She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims…”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
Downtown Dallas, Texas
Over a month ago, I drove south of Dallas to meet a friend and take some pictures of Sunflowers (some more here). The field of yellow faces was spectacular and beautiful – can’t wait for next year to go back.
But while I was setting up a shot I looked down and saw a mess of smaller, but more colorful and every bit as beautiful, blooms.
I’m glad I noticed them.
Wildflowers south of Dallas.
(click for full size image on flickr)
I have been working too much – working through the weekends. But the other day I happened to be off. A friend of mine from Austin had posted some amazing photographs of fields of sunflowers taken somewhere between here and there. She posted on Facebook that she was driving up to get some more shots and I was able to drop what I was doing and go there.
These were taken along Interstate 35 south of Dallas, near the little town of Forreston, exit mile 391. The fields bloom in June – and I ‘m not sure how long they will be there. They were starting to wither in the heat – so I suppose they will be harvested soon.
My friend had the foresight to bring a stepladder, which was necessary for the wide shots. The sunflowers are taller than you expect, over six feet high.
They are an amazing sight – photographs don’t do justice. There was a constant clot of cars that stopped along the Interstate to gawk at the flowers and stop and grab photos. I’ve got some more, I’ll post them in a few days.
(click for larger version on flickr)
(click to enlarge)
“…suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle…?”
“The puddle would freeze?” I guessed.
“And all the muck around the puddle?”
“It would freeze?”
“And all the puddles in the frozen muck?”
“They would freeze?”
“And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?”
“They would freeze?”
“You bet they would !” He cried. “And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!”
—-Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
(click to enlarge)
Just like the Inuits of the North have thirty-four names for snow, so do the denizens of Arkansas have seventeen names for misery.
—-Xander Redwood
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“The breath of wind that moved them was still chilly on this day in May; the flowers gently resisted, curling up with a kind of trembling grace and turning their pale stamens towards the ground. The sun shone through them, revealing a pattern of interlacing, delicate blue veins, visible through the opaque petals; this added something alive to the flower’s fragility, to it’s ethereal quality, something almost human ,in the way that human can mean frailty and endurance both at the same time. The wind could ruffle these ravishing creations but it couldn’t destroy them, or even crush them; they swayed there, dreamily; they seemed ready to fall but held fast to their slim strong branches-…”
― Irène Némirovsky
Dallas Blooms, Dallas Arboretum
“The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.”
― Dan Simmons, Drood
“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Dallas Blooms, Dallas Arboretum
“A flower blossoms for its own joy.”
― Oscar Wilde
“There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate.
The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”
And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”
The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”
And the lily whispers, “I wait.”She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.”
― Alfred Tennyson
Bill Chance 