Detail of the goddess Flora from Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera (also known as Allegory for Spring), circa 1482. The painting is said to depict over 500 identified plant species, with about 190 different flowers.
Awakening Spring
Spring walks in on fog-bound feet,
Down country lane and busy street,
Touching trees and earth-bound bloom,
Dispelling snow and winter’s gloom.
She wakes the crocus from their sleep,
And hears the cherry gently weep;
Her hands caress my garden’s face,
And turns it now to flowered grace.
(March 20, 2004)
* * *
Virginia with her grandchildren, Erica and Mikey. Photo by her son Michael.
Virginia Gambardella lives in New York, only three miles from where she grew up. Her dad was a naval engineer and adventurer, and her mom, who sometimes called her “lamb’s lettuce” was a dressmaker for Bergdorf Goodman. Virginia has one son and three grandchildren and enjoys: people, holidays, antiques, nature, gardening, fishing, decorating, fashion, sharing knowledge, cooking and baking. She’s a cancer survivor, a pancreatitis survivor, a widow, and the re-inventor of her life, “as necessary.”
florasforum 
:>)