Sunday, August 2, 2009


Flowers and Words 


The hydrangeas love this rain-sun-rain-sun-rainy weather; they're so lush and vigorous this year, astounding in their enormous blue clusters, with 'heads' about seven inches across and composed of scores of individual blossoms.  Stunning.
When I'm writing, layering word upon word, sentence upon sentence, I hope that I'm telling an interesting tale and being faithful to the characters and that the end result will be something of beauty, but I don't think the end result could ever be as stunning and intricate as the flowers above, which come into being with so much grace and so little effort.
What I prefer in hydrangeas--that they appear so pure and simple in their beauty, but on close examination offer up such intricacy--is what I also prefer in writing: prose or poetry that is pure and simple, eschewing flash, with an intricate, sound foundation.

3 comments:

  1. This post is just as filled with grace and delicacy as those exquisite hydrangeas. And so are your novels. There is that simple beauty that is apparent to the eye the moment you behold it. But then there are the details, which when studied, reveal the work to be a complex miracle of construction.

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  2. I love hydrangeas and your writing.

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  3. Thank you, thank you, brattcat and Kimberly.

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