Quotes from Jeanette Lynes

The wolves howl bluer than Billie Holliday, but they don't spoil my song.

it was not whim or wildness which made me go, but a sudden clear realization that tho you were the first man of importance to me, you could not be the last. — Gwendolyn MacEwen to Milton Acorn, 1963 (age 21)

Love is terribly sincere and great. I suppose that is why so many people are afraid of it, and so few can live up to it. — Bliss Carman to Gladys Baldwin, 1915 (age 52)

This skin cripples me. It always has. — Kai Cheng Thom to -----, 2013 (age 22)

Mrs. Fitch's Compassionate Tea---contains plant essences only. Listed below, the ingredients: Matricaria recutita, rosehips, passion flower, fennel, and more. Especially beneficial for ladies' ailments. Add harp song when in season.

My lips and eyes and heart were stinging when you kissed me in the dark. — Jack Garton to Jennifer Hammer, 2008 (age 24)

Your mother was a different flavor of cake, Lavie. Lovely, but a little fey, if I may say.

Lavender's thoughts returned to the poetry, and Robert reading it, canting, rich-toned, about hands, kisses. It shall be you. Having no smelling salts nearby, Lavender moved matters to a more pragmatic realm. "I must warm the tea," she told Robert. For the pot had sat, untouched, for some time, and had surely cooled. (In the kitchen, she loosened her collar, to alleviate her overheated state, to avoid becoming a sweaty brook.)

She drank the rest of the tea, still reeling from Whitman's words. Then the harp began to play---lustily, with stirring effect, seeming to fancy itself an entire symphony---"Ode to Joy.

Lavender, at one snuff party, said she dreamed of growing flowers that soared to the sky, titan delphiniums, for if her mother was "up there," in the place called heaven, those tall blue blooming spires might form a ladder, allowing her mother to step down for a visit to earth.

To my garden I thee hie--- For soon all summer's beauties die; For lasting gems, for future frock Seek not the soaring bee--- Look down!----the rock.

March winds blew benevolent, and nearing the day of shamrock observance, with all its anxiousness and pomp due to the Orange menace, the snowdrops bloomed, and shoots of tulip bulbs angled towards the sky. And rain. The Village Crier had cried correctly---the Farmer's Almanac too---early spring!

In addition to the rose stems, she'd stashed some stalks of yarrow---Fitch's yarrow, harp-song yarrow, as local people called it. They bought it for protection, healing or, often, a love charm. Lavender knew yarrow's other, more shadowy names: werewolf's tail, witch's weed, bad man's plaything.

Tall, with an erect, stately, equestrian bearing, the lady possessed an esoteric beauty. If botanic, she'd be a night-blooming cereus. She was peerless as a lady in a sonnet. Or a willowy figure who'd leapt to life and stepped forth from the pages of Godey's Lady's Book. If Allegra Trout hadn't been a medium, she'd have been a fashion plate, or priestess.

Garden season deepened. The lantern flies winked and blinked. Poppies flaunted their scarlet robes. Ants feasted in the peonies, and protected them from invaders. The pear tree blossomed. Lavender sensed her mother's presence, just past the first layer of fragrant air. In the parlor, the harp stood, silent, as before. But its silence didn't grieve Lavender. Its magic had wintered her through part of the journey that brought her to where she was now.