July Flowers (July)

A flower’s fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile,
available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar.
Its smell reminds us in vestigial ways of fertility, vigor, life-force,
all the optimism, expectancy, and passionate bloom of youth.
We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages,
we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.
Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, 1990, p. 13

To pick a flower is so much more satisfying than just observing it,
or photographing it … So in later years, I have grown in my
garden as many flowers as possible for children to pick.
Anne Scott-James

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

flower arrangement:
just two yellow daffodils,
the first to bloom
L.A. Davidson, The Shape of the Tree

The last of Summer is Delight –
Deterred by Retrospect.
‘Tis Ecstasy’s revealed Review –
Enchantment’s Syndicate.

To meet it — nameless as it is –
Without celestial Mail –
Audacious as without a Knock
To walk within the Veil.
Emily Dickinson, The Last of Summer is Delight

Now summer is in flower and natures hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never done
Wi’ glittering dance and reeling in the sun
And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee
Are never weary of their melody
Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine
Large bindweed bells wild hop and streakd woodbine
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers
Agape for dew falls and for honey showers
These round each bush in sweet disorder run
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun.
John Clare, June

That beautiful season the Summer!
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light;
and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Summer makes me drowsy,
Autumn makes me sing,
Winter’s pretty lousy,
but I hate Spring.
Dorothy Parker

Summer makes a silence after spring.
Vita Sackville-West