Tulips

This marvelous bouquet of tulips, even more intensely colored because of their tangerine paper wrappers, is a gift from our very thoughtful neighbor and friend M who came around within the hour that I got back from surgery.

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"...Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?"


-- William Butler Yeats