Buffalo Gal

I DREAM OF Jeannie with the light brown hair…. soft as a vapor on the summer air” (Stephen Foster I think) We sang it when I was in elementary school along with other Stephen Foster songs that would now be so politically incorrect like “Old Black Joe”. I loved that song..it was about a very old man who was soon going to die and the words were so sweet. (“I’m coming…I’m coming, for my head is blending low….”)I never even thought about his being” black”) It was about an old man of faith who knew he was soon going to meet his Maker.
But I am not dreaming about old Stephen Foster songs sung in our classroom so long ago (65 years ago maybe?)
I am dreaming (with the help of seed catalogs and my summer copies of BIRDS AND BLOOMS) of lovely flowers nodding in the hot sun in June, July and August.
All I have to do is see the article in B and B about daisies of all kinds..black-eyed Susans, Gloriosas, Shasta big whites, coreopsis….and I can see them blooming in the big clumps on the west side of my house. It is a gold and white paradise when they all bloom together.
I can also see the tulips in the sun..a bit earlier ..but so beautiful. It is a promise of more flowers to come after the tulips are done. There will be the Asian lilies….there will be the sedum bush puffing up with its latent red fall blooms. There will be big buds on the white and pink hydrangeas.
It is so sweet to dream of flowers on this, a cold, cold below- zero morning. The sun is brilliant but the air is off-putting….I see new birds this morning…little red breasted finches about the size and shape of the winter-tan goldfinches who love to eat the finch seed I put out for them.
Seeing that flash of red made me think of flowers. The red finches have red on their breasts and some have a bright red striped cap in the middle of their heads. The chickadees and nuthatches and tan finches and nuthatches are not too colorful at this time of year. So red rosy finches are a welcome sight.
One only has to read a bit of daily news and get saddened by the features that emphasize death, murder, terrible accidents that leave people maimed and crippled…..the academic debacle at Dickinson State was enough to make me want to think about flowers and birds. The awarding of faux degrees and the self-inflicted death in a park close to he campus of one of the college officers is not a good way to start a sunny day in February.
But that kind of news gets readers, obviously. Not me, for long.
I must dwell on gold and white daisies and red tulips and pink and white hydrangeas.
The alternatives are way too disturbing.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they bloom. They toil not, neither do they spin, yet your Heavenly Father clothes them in colorful array”
It is in the gospel of Matthew but I cannot recall exactly where..hidden among the Beatitudes in chapters 5,6, 7.
Much better reading than a daily paper.