the front porch

We finally,

just the other day, 

after almost two years,

found the planters for our front porch.

There is a nursery down the street called the

Secret Garden.

I noticed these two every time I passed by.

"Those would be perfect,"

I said to myself.

They match the white-washed brick.

I planted pale pink vinca and the alisym

which will soon 

cascade over the edges.

Beauty!

I am reading

A Soldier of the Great War

by Mark Helprin.

The way he describes things of beauty,

simple things,

 like the moon rising over the city of Rome.

take my breath away.

"For Alessandro Guiliani,

the son of a prosperous Roman lawyer,

trees shimmer in the sun beneath a sky of perfect blue,

and at night the moon is amber as Rome seethes with light.

He races horses across the country to the sea,

climbs in the Alps,

is a student of painting and aesthetics,

and he falls in love, deeply and eternally.

Then the Great War intervenes......"

The author's brilliant words,

the way he describes ordinary, commonplace things 

as objects of immense beauty....

I will be greatly enjoying these 850 pages for sure.

I think God gives us a desire to seek out beauty,

simple things in His creation that are amazingly beautiful.....

an apple,

a rainbow spread across the sky,

an ocean full of diamonds,

 flowers glistening after the rain,

a tree full of new, 

green leaves,

the moon rising over the ocean,

animals, yes.

 even the deer I often see just before the sun sets,

a person's eyes,

which hold all of the love from their heart.

Thank you God 

for creating so much beauty for us to enjoy.