This morning, as I made my way through the yard to the Story Shack, I spotted this lone gladiolus. I don't know how it got there, a solitary bulb somehow finding a home in the middle of the mondo grass, but there it was. I've loved these flowers—which we always called glads—since my mother used to grow them in a flower bed by the front porch at Grandme's house. When I told one of my gardening friends I planned to carry them in my bridal bouquet, he said, "Those are FUNERAL flowers!" I assured him that I would not be carrying a spray and that there would be no ribbon with "Gone But Not Forgotten" emblazoned across it. But I did have some glads in my bouquet. I love the colors and the ruffly blooms some of them have—and the way you can put just one in a vase and feel like you've brought your garden inside. When I saw this one, that old Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" popped into my head (which reminds me how long it has been since I've listened to Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring):
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.
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