Happy Easter & another poem

It's a beautiful Easter morning, a perfect spring day on which the world does indeed seem reborn. I'm feeling nostalgic for Easters past, for the annual fluffy pastel dresses and new patent leather shoes, baskets full of candy and eggs we colored the day before.

We didn't buy an Easter lily--they're beautiful but when I've tried to transplant them into the garden, they couldn't take the heat that will soon arrive--but we do have cactus flowers.  The red ones bloomed last year but this is the first time for the one with the purple blossom below, and there's another bud on it yet to come.

 I didn't think this coreopsis would ever amount to anything. I'd moved it into the herb bed from another bed where I wanted to put something else and it sat for a year as a tiny clump of green leaves, healthy enough but it didn't look like it would ever grow, let alone bloom. However, it wasn't taking up much space so I left it alone, and a couple of weeks ago it suddenly began to take off. This is its first blossom with several more buds about to pop out. Once again I'm reminded of the virtue of patience (and perhaps of benign neglect).

 And here's another nasturtium, this on one of the few plants that survived the February frosts. We've been enjoying them in the garden and in our salads; I love the sweet, peppery zing they add.

Last night I took this shot of the jasmine by the front door; it climbs on wires painted to match the wall so they're fairly invisible, and especially at night, the fragrance is positively intoxicating. I love to bury my face in the blossoms and inhale deeply. If only I could truly breathe it in and carry it away with me to draw on for the rest of the day! But alas! such pleasures are truly only of the moment.

And this is Cosmo (again), the furry muse who keeps us company for our morning writing. He is a

lovely golden blossom who blooms all year long.

And now for the poem I promised in the title. As I said at the beginning, it's a morning for nostalgia, so I was thinking way back to when I was a kid and my mom bought Barbra Streisand's first album, and yes, it really is her birthday today:

Today is Barbra Streisand’s birthday

and I sincerely wish her well.

She sang a little song, “Sweet Zoo,” 
on her first album, recorded 
a long long time ago, about dreaming 
of being a series of animals--

fairly evenly divided between

carnivores and herbivores—

I would have said omnivores,

but the polar bear is most definitely

a carnivore. The song ends,
"I enjoy being an oyster."
I love that song and still sing it

with my grandsons. and every time

a child in our family turns five,

we all sing the “I’m Five” song,

which belongs to that child for that year.

And so, dear Barbra,

you have enriched my life

And the lives of those I love,

not so much with your love songs,

although they're very nice,

but with small inspired bits of gentle silliness.

I’m so glad you recorded them.

I’m so glad you were born.