For Jean and Sharyn Augustson who liked nothing more than to go to their haven-heaven of a farm in Finger Lakes, NY and to give us of its bounty year after year.
Requiescant
Gerald Manley Hopkins, Anglican priest and poet, 1844-1889, British
A nun takes the veil
I have desired to go
Black Doorway 1 and details, 1966, oil on canvas with objects. Elizabeth Osborne, born 1936, American. On display 2016/2017, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Doors leading out of Old St. Mary’s, built in 1763, Philadelphia. The second Roman Catholic church to be built in the city and at a time when Roman Catholic churches were not permitted to be built where the British ruled
Where springs not fail
Quarry Garden, Winterthur, Delaware. Every summer the Japanese primrose are in bloom
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
Winterthur, Delaware, 2016
And a few lilies blow
Lily native to the eastern US. West Shokan, New York
Oriental hybrid lily, Longwood Conservatory, Pennsylvania, Spring 2017
And I have asked to be
A gift of April lilacs set with tulips from the late Jean and the late Sharyn Augustson, the most generous of neighbours, in front of a coloured glass window from a parochial school in Philadelphia, installed 1930s
Where no storms come,
Doorway, 1450-1500, Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, France. Philadelphia Art Museum
Where the green swells in the havens dumb
Garden, West Shokan, NY, before 2015
And out of the swing of the sea
A gentle, gracious and kind offering to two departed neighbours. You have suggested all the beauty and natural settings where they must now be – in memory and in evolving transformation. Thank you for sharing
Susannah
Beautiful tribute.