For I have Smelled the Night-Blooming Cereus

Read this stanza of a sweet flower poem I found in an old cookbook.

God has been good to me, for I have smelled 

Night-blooming cereus on starlit hedges-

And waxen-white gardenias, which swelled

With fragrance, blossoming on window-ledges.

 

From:

God Has Been Good to Me

By Frances Parkinson Keyes

I have smelled a pink rose and cut one for my kitchen windowsill. And I have watched butterflies on bright zinnias. And I have eaten at tables where fresh cut blooms were ensconced in vases. And I have driven down a road where thousands of wildflowers nodded in the summer breezes.

I have watched violets bloom. And I have seen the redbud blush. I have smelled the waxen magnolia on the wind. And I have seen daffodils dancing in the sunlight of a cold spring morning. And I have walked through carpets of fragrant clover. And I have watched raindrops drip off orange lilies. I have gathered woodland trilliums and carried them in huge bouquets.

God has been good to me. He has given me flowers and never charged me a penny for any one of them.

© Elece Hollis 2019