Surprise!

"Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck."

Guy de Maupassant, wondrous writer, born this day in the summer of 1850. The lilies were in bloom.

So, I was startled, a bit, day before yesterday, by the sight of green stems topped with a froth of pink trumpets. Clutches of wands, lilies conjured from their tips, sprung up sometime in the night here lately, along fence rows, amongst the peonies. They come up every year about this time, letting you know that summer's on the downhill, that the season's gonna end. So these late summer lilies hadn't oughtn't to surprise anybody, but so they do. Nothing one day but crisp, hot grass, everything green looking a little tired - could I be projecting? - then one morning - lilies!