Blue Hydrangea

Out of respect for beauty, Scout & Angus have not trampled these flowers in our backyard.  Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote Blaue Hortensia, a beautiful poem about them in 1906 that has been translated by many others over the years. 

translation by Bernhard Frank 

Like in old cans of paint the last green hue,
these leaves are sere and rough and dull-complected
behind the blossom clusters in which blue
is not so much displayed as it's reflected; 
They do reflect it imprecise and teary,
as though they'd rather have it go away,
and just like faded, once blue stationery,
they're tinged with yellow, violet and gray;
As in an often laundered children's smock,
cast off, its usefulness now all but over,
one senses running down a small life's clock.
Yet suddenly the blue revives, it seems,
and in among these clusters one discovers
a tender blue rejoicing in the green.

My daughter, Jess had blue hydrangeas at her wedding.  (Extras) Every time I look at them, I think of her and her husband, Mark and that happy day.