Lily Season

Lily Season

Most lilies bloom here in July.

Our native lilies bloom in June.

Our Easter lily’s forced to die

post bloom indoors to then be strewn

upon our compost heaps in spring.

September’s lily: Lycoris,

an amaryllis that may bring

pink fragrant blooms of tender bliss

in fall, just might not bloom at all

for five long years once planted in

your fertile, well-drained soil in fall.

But, once these lilies do begin

perfuming air in autumn sun,

then lilies may accompany you

from Easter ‘til the autumn’s done.

So, do as lily lovers do –

plant different types of lilies in

your garden where there’s lots of sun.

Blooms finish, then new blooms begin,

so lily season’s never done.

If you watched some of the videos that I included with this post, you will have noticed that the Lily I wrote about was not a flower. I’ve mentioned having written Silas Stories (and many of these stories have been featured in previous blog posts). Lily and other women with flower names are featured in many of the Silas Stories that I’ve written.

These flower-named women will have their own book at some point, with “Lily season” being an important part of it. I still haven’t published any books (and won’t for some time). I am still revising.

For any of you Canadians who are interested in growing your own lily garden, I have included some names of great lilies below.

Many of you lily lovers have an Easter Lily in your home right now. It will fill your home with its amazing perfume, and then hit the compost heap.

If you are lucky, you live near a wild space in Canada where Lilium canadense will be blooming in June. Lilium regale also blooms in June.

Lilium lancifolium (Tiger Lily) blooms in July.

Lilium martagon (Turk’s cap); Lilium pumilum; Lilium henryi; Lilium pardalium; and Lilium superbum bloom in August.

Lycoris squamigera blooms in September (if you’re lucky).

James and I will be offering a free guided poetry hike in Waterton Lakes National Park in June (to see the Lilies and other flowers in bloom along Wishbone trail). Check out our Poetry in the Park schedule to find out about more of our free guided hikes.

James and I will be offering free Poetry in the Park hikes in Lethbridge. These will start in April. We will tour people through different poetry forms in different areas of Lethbridge every Sunday morning in April and much of May. See the Poetry in the Park schedule for more information.

If you enjoyed my Lily poems that were featured in this post, I plan on reading a few more at the Owl Acoustic Lounge tonight – March 27, 2024. Owl Poetry starts at 7 PM. I hope to see you there. If not, have a happy Easter!

My Little Falls

I sing my song, My Little Falls, in a video attached below. It is a sonnet song (so it is only a minute long).

If you can’t be where you love; love the place where you are at.

I am not a fan of Lethbridge, Alberta. I prefer cold to heat. I prefer wet to dry. Somehow I ended up living in a hot and dry place for over twenty years now.

The proximity to Waterton Park has made living here worthwhile until the pandemic began. We didn’t want to be travelling outside of the city in 2020 so we hiked the “wildlands” of Lethbridge every day instead. It turned out to be one of the best summers of my life.

I started learning how to identify more native plants in 2020. I borrowed a couple books from the public library, disinfected the covers, and let them sit for a week before bringing them in from the porch, and got some serious reading done.

This year I have been writing songs to sing to many of the native plants that I see every day. Sometimes my songs are not about the native plants. Sometimes they are about native birds or other things.

I have seen more wildlife and gotten to know many birds and plants on a more personal level in the past two years than I had in the decades that preceded 2020. I am so thankful for this pandemic for this. It would be nice if the pandemic(s) would end soon, though.

James and I were planning a huge tour of Canada’s parks and then his car started having troubles. Each time we have brought it into a mechanic, it comes back in worse shape than when we brought the car in. We have it booked for tomorrow and are hoping for the best.

Fortunately, I have a bunch of blog posts (with poetry attached – mostly songs) which are ready to go. I have written well over three hundred sonnets on this “Sonnet Summer” so far. It’s been a good run.

The sonnet/song that I performed in the attached video was performed on my birthday, which went alright. The day before was miserable, but my birthday was nice. Hot and dry, but nice.

Update: James’ car seems to be fixed now!

That means more poetry and songs from a variety of beautiful Canadian parks in the near future. Hooray! I am so thankful that we took the car back in to Dodge. They gave us a freebie today. James hadn’t told me that they’d given us a freebie while we were there or I would have thanked them there. I am not paid by Dodge (in fact our first bill the other day was around $750) but I am so thankful that I am willing to thank them on-line (although I don’t know if they will ever read this blog post).

Lethbridge Dodge: Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for fixing my transportation to nature, beauty, and hiking, which inspires my poetry and song creation (which inspires my will to continue to live).

Update #2: It’s still not working right. Boo!

If we run it without using any lights, air, radio, then the warning lights aren’t flashing and making the car act like it will stall. This is so frustrating. This is why I sung a few songs to my garden recently rather than going further afield.