Gratitude Monday: love entwined in tendrils

I think I love every plant that starts as a bulb. Starting with crocus on the cusp of spring and working my way to iris in summer, I just can’t get enough of them. I’ve already posted about daffodils; this week I’m being grateful for #tulipmania.

One of my neighbors has them in his front garden, and I cannot walk by without stopping to admire and shoot them.

But for the past two Sundays I’ve schlepped into the District They Call Columbia to revel in the tulips at the Omni Shoreham hotel. I mean—just look:

En masse:

In the mid distance:

And close up:

(I've never seen these purple stars before:)

Even this one guy all by himself is spectacular:

In keeping with the floral theme, let’s have something from Robert Merrick for today’s National Poetry Month entry. The Elizabethan and Jacobean poets are so much more meaningful to me than their Romantic heirs. Herrick here compares his lover to flowers, running through the seasons and wrapping it all up with death.

If that’s not the essence of poetry, I do not know what is.

“A Meditation for his Mistress”

You are a tulip seen today,
But (dearest) of so short a stay
That where you grew scarce man can say. 

You are a lovely July-flower
Yet one rude wind or ruffling shower
Will force you hence, and in an hour. 

You are a sparkling rose i’th’bud,
Yet lost ere that chaste flesh and blood
Can show where you or grew or stood. 

You are a full-spread, fair-set vine,
And can with tendrils love entwine,
Yet dried ere you distil your wine. 

You are like balm enclosed (well)
In amber, or some crystal shell,
Yet lost ere you transfuse your smell. 

You are a dainty violet,
Yet wither’d ere you can be set
Within a virgin’s coronet. 

You are the queen all flowers among,
But die you must (fair maid) ere long,
As he, the maker of this song.