It’s just one of those days of summer,
when blooms
Flowering leek
and beings
Bee with leek
and beasties
entwine with sun and sky,
to weave a cloth
Finely clothed
so light and fine
Light and fine
that you wish you could wear it forever,
close,
like the sweet touch of earth to skin.
Day of Summer
Close as Earth to Skin
© silkannthreades
Monday, 6th January, was the celebration of Epiphany for those people, churches, cultures, countries that follow the Gregorian calendar for feast days.
The sky was heavenly blue
Heavenly blue sky for Epiphany
and, nearer to me, the flowers were blue-hued too.
And, every which way I turned, I saw more manifestations of blue,
until I felt as though I were swathed in the most precious of precious-blue fabrics, in much the same way as Mary, the Madonna, is often depicted, cloaked in a mantle of Mary-blue,
Federico Barocci, The Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph and the Infant Baptist (‘La Madonna del Gatto’), probably about 1575 © The National Gallery, London
or ultramarine , as it is more properly called.
And it felt good; it felt blissful to be luxuriating in an aura of ‘divine’ blue-ness, as I went about my small tasks and errands, dressed, in reality, not like an artistically rendered Madonna but like this…
Glad Rags /Ordinaries
Epiphany Dressing
in very ordinary, cotton garments that are showing their age, and mine. Yet, oddly, they are garments that might be considered, by some, as slightly more glamorous than what Mary was actually wearing in Bethlehem, and thereafter 🙂 . I wonder about that. I wonder what Mary thought about her clothes; or if she thought about them at all. I wonder, if on the day the Magi came with their gifts, Mary felt as if she were wearing the plainest robes, or as if she were wrapped in the ‘richest’ cloth her world had to offer? And I wonder if she would be surprised at how we have dressed her through the centuries; would she say, ‘But you are dreaming..”, or would she say, ” Yes, it was so; exactly so. I was beautiful.”
To be continued….possibly
© silkannthreades
One of my most abiding memories comes from my young days as a Girl Guide. At the end of our gathering, sometimes close to sunset, we would sing Taps. As best as I can recall we only sang one verse ;” Day is done, gone the sun, from the sea, from the earth, from the sky, All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.” The original verse says lakes, rather than sea, but, on our small tropical island, lakes would have made little sense to most of us. Oceans and lagoons and sea water were our world. And, whether we sang earth, rather than hills, I can’t say for sure, but it is earth that always come readily to my lips whenever Taps tripples through my mind. I love Taps. I did then and I do now, perhaps even more now than then. In my childhood, Taps, for me, had no association with the sadness of funerals; it was a simple and gentle calling to end the day’s activities and rest, which is fairly true to its original purpose. And, although, as an adult , I know slightly more about Taps and the context in which it is used, I continue to associate it with warmth and peacefulness, and sunsets.That is why I will more often sing Taps on a long summer evening than in the chill of winter. I was singing Taps as I took these photos, the other evening. It was my first attempt to use my camera outside at twilight. Watch my song as it descends in to the night ………………………… Day is Done,
Gone the sun, from the sea, from the earth, from the sky …… and yet the sky, even after sunset, remains so blue ….
All is well ……do you see what I see in the photo below?…. the tiny star that gems the sky.
Safely rest,
God is nigh.
© silkannthreades
