All Aglow

Dear Diary,

A very busy day of church and visiting cousins in NH.  When I returned home a single beam of sunlight illuminated this solitary day lily.  It was so striking for a short time that I just had to make it my image for the day.

The day lily blooms, as the name implies, for only a solitary but glorious day and then it dies.  The bud beside it is ready to burst forth today for its brief moment in the sun.  The flowers will lean toward the sun as if to draw as much light as possible into their short lives.

In a world that is so consumed with darkness it is well we remember the little day lily.  We, none of us, know how long our "day" will be.  It is best we keep our faces turned toward the light.  Others will come after us, that is certain, it is only left to us to bloom as best we can in the time we have.

The magnificent perianths
Of the Day Lilies with their six
Spreading bright orange arms (funnel-formed)
Fixed in their clustered colonies
Absent of any luring scent
Still attracts the bees
And the poets aesthetic eyes.
Oblique, penetrating sun rays
Shine through the high canopied trees
Directly onto their blossoms
Seemingly glowing like embers
In a campers dying campfire;
And not unlike the fire, remain
Briefly beautiful and then die.
-  Albert Ahearn