Echinacea on the Mississippi

I have a whole lot to write about, but am still focused mostly just on my thesis (which is officially due on July 10, so wish me all the luck in the world because I'm going to need it). 

My big kids were so helpful with Phoebe today and I got a ton of revisions done, but still have a long ways to go. Fortunately, I succeeded in convincing my advisor that we could simply revise my research question rather than scrapping the entire chapter that I wrote over the last few weeks. So that was good. 

Anyway, today I share some beautiful pictures of echinacea that I took after the Sunset on the Mississippi show in Nauvoo. I've yet to be disappointed by a Nauvoo sunset (in all the, you know, maybe five (?) evenings I've spent in Nauvoo). 

I've been having some big feelings lately, as I've witnessed people I love hurt so deeply (whether they've hurt themselves, whether they've been hurt by others, whether they just plain hurt). And so I wrote a little poem about standing up, anyway, even when you're slogging through mud. I...don't know what to call it...but here it is:

When gravity pulls

        the sinking ship
    of my heart

                down, 

when my soul feels
        shackled
             to my bed,

                     the floor,

 the ground, 

I marvel at 

                defiant 
       blossoms 

                who seek
the chance to fly,

        anchored to dust,
                tethered by roots

that remind them

                 this
                    muck

is reality, but 

       who still strive 

     to dance
in the evening 
                breeze, 

          and I

am glad 

there will be flowers
        and sunsets 

until the very end.