A Royal Blessing

Okay, so you can't have church. How about this gaggle for a choir?

Here's Ms. Dickinson's take:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –

In some places in Sioux County, Iowa, such behavior borders on blasphemy; but elegant irises--they're called Siberian, but who would believe that?--seem far too precious for a region where most of us learn to live with wind but no one likes it. Robed in royalty, their fragile beauty seems far too delicate to stand up in the severity here, monstrous cold and wilting heat.

But they do live, and, right now, they're in glorious full bloom, a blessing, a delight, an inspiration. So pardon me if I get a little carried away. 

Remember, we're all "corn and soybeans" here. Only someone divine could have imagined into life something this drop-dead gorgeous in a backyard.

Way back when, one of the very first writing assignments I gave as a first-year teacher at Blackhawk High School, South Wayne, Wisconsin, was to make students comment on a line from poem by Edgar Allen Poe, ". . .our flowers are only flowers." Makes me giggle today when I remember. I was 22 years old, they were 17. What on earth did any of us know about life and death?

Siberian Irises are a case in point, aren't they? They're too fine, too shimmering. They shouldn't be here, but they are, and right now--this week maybe and not a whole lot longer--they'll be flowering in a show that's astonishing. 

Our Siberian irises are, in fact, only flowers.

All the more reason to love 'em, I say. 

As B. J. Haan used to say in passing, "See you in church."