Tag Archives: contrail

Say It With (Prairie) Flowers

 When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. — Georgia O’Keeffe—

Mass killings. Zika virus. Politics. Refugee camps.

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So much grim news in the world.

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Meanwhile…the prairie concentrates on putting out flowers.

Spikes of blooms in softest vanilla…

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Spidery ones, slung with silk…

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Fringed, sassy flowers. Pucker up! They seem to say.

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In just a week or two, the purple prairie clover will slip on her ballerina tutu and dance with the dragonflies.

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For now, there are flowers that hum with activity…

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And blooms that seem to promise that the world will continue, even as it seems full of senseless hate, violence, and bigotry.

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There is solace among the flowers. Peace to be found in an afternoon on the tallgrass.

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Sometimes, we need to spend some time with flowers to remind us what’s right with the world. This is one of those times.

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Share the prairie with a friend this week.

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Give someone a world of flowers.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): clouds over the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; contrail and half moon over the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild white indigo or false indigo (Baptisa alba), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  sunflower with a spider (Heliopsis helianthoides) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; daisy fleabane (Erigeron strigosus) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) with a 12-spotted skimmer, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;    purple coneflower with  bee, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; common milkweed  (Asclepias syriaca) with a bee, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; pale beardtongue, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; exploring the Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pale purple coneflowers (Echinacea pallida), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL. 

The introductory quote is by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986),  an American painter best known for her images of larger-than-life flowers.