Ruffled Blooms and Candy Clouds

For Texture Tuesday this week, the theme is "celebration". In April, I am always celebrating spring. All the gorgeous trees are blooming and there are pink blossoms everywhere. What a transformation! I captured these images while visiting my favorite little town of Occoquan over the weekend. For the final image below, I used Kim's "Anna" texture at Soft Light/35%...a subtle and lovely effect, which her textures always provide.

Thank you for stopping by, and I'm sharing a spring poem I wrote this past week. And I can't complete this post without expressing my heartfelt thoughts about Boston...I'm sending prayers of healing and strength to this beautiful city and all those affected by the marathon explosions yesterday.

APRIL

Crushed petals
Ruffled blooms
Candy clouds so
Tenderly sweet
My moon-gray
Shade sessions
Surrender to
Beetle-green leaves
I am flower-lulled
Into hopeful things
Dogwood, tulips,
Forsythia and
A delicate iris
Leaning just so
Against the earth
Yearning to be kissed
By twilight's
Lavender secrets

Butterflies like
Fluttering flowers
Spiders spinning and
Feathered wings
That fly and sing
I sweep my blues
Into careworn piles
With a relieved smile
As their winter edges
Brown and curl
Carried away
By the marching ants
Taken underground
Soothed to slumber
By the sounds of
April showers and
The iridescent whir
Of bumble bee wings.

© Sherri Brannon