Irises on a Spring Day

Hot morning sun bathes me as I walk quietly around a wide grassy garden. Oh, my feet are sinking in the mown grass. I am stepping carefully; mud threatens them; rain has come and gone in the past week. Today the air is alive as if the passing coolness of early morning were being jostled aside by life itself. The storm is gone, and all the countryside is Ireland green.

Irises are everywhere, and I am filled with thoughts of van Gogh who saw the high stone walls of his asylum enclosing long rows of lavender, poppies and twisted pear branches. Iris leaves and buds rose in insistent, urgent clusters along paths and walks where he painted. He saw the radiant surges of color every spring and painted them over and over again. How could he not? I feel inept as I try to focus on their delicacy and subtlety. Mostly, I just stand and gaze at them.

Sparrows and red-winged blackbirds dart from tree to bush to fence post, their ebony eyes sparkling. The irises dance  when the breeze comes by, their flirting tongues lying on soft veined lips. These irises are named:  Boudoir, Scarlet Fever, Midnight Moon. I am seduced by their colors and curling shapes, ladies on stems, turned out in alluring finery.

I step closer and lean in. The hot midday sun is caressing that one's soft cheek, this one's gentle tenderness. Oh, they are lovely and fine. My camera cannot possibly do them justice. I touch their cool softness, fear the slightest touch will bruise them, but I cannot resist. Are they edible? I dare not.

Everything in an iris evokes mystery and sensual pleasure; each blossom is exquisite.

I am not thinking about their short lives, the ravenous insects that will gnaw at their leaves, or any other squalid thing that may befall these impossibly perfect creatures. They exist simply to be beautiful. It is Spring. That is enough excuse. Heaven does exist, say the ladies as they bob and sway, vividly, gloriously. Behold, it does exist.