birds and butterflies

I've started pressing flowers as a summer project.

The yard is singing this morning with blue jays and robins and morning doves, quail and finches and the occasional squirrel. There are cotton-tailed rabbits everywhere and the golden and black butterflies that take over the flowers all summer long are here in abundance. Apparently it has decided to be spring again in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It's practically a greeting card out there, or perhaps the set of Bambi.

I've been reading some W.H. Auden, who I have neglected in my quest for poetry over the past school year. I've decided to love his poetry with a fierce loyalty. This poem from my reading this morning keeps catching my mind with its soft rhythm and thoughtful phrases. Plus it's a bit spring-y and therefor ties into the first paragraph of this post, as it discusses both children and beauty.

Lay your sleeping head, my love

Lay your sleeping head, my love
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral;
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie:
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

-W.H. Auden