Celestial tears

As the heart-piercing pupil of the eye,
So sensitive each tear-drop seems to be ;
Like the unwinking pupil of the eye,
Charming my soul, the bright drops look at me.
excerpt from The Virgin Tears, Leo Alishan

Growing in my mom's garden is a plant that I love, the Alchemilla Vulgaris. The fine hairs on the leaves hold on to water that was once used in alchemy and known as celestial water or celestial tears. Like most things that have a celestial connection the Alchemilla Vulgaris' scalloped leaves give the plant it's common name Lady's Mantle. In Medieval known as Our Lady's Mantle it is named for the Virgin Mary and is used in herbal remedies. While I was looking into the plant I came across Mary Gardens. While I am not religious in any way or form I found the idea of gardens dedicated to the Virgin Mary that have plants growing in them that have some connection to her quite moving.

Gardens Give Mary Glory

These are the loveliest of her litanies,
These are gardens where the glad abounding earth
Still gush the Holy Spirit's primal mirth
In endlessly renewed diversities.

These from the faithful and fecund soil
Are generations that have called her blest,
They magnify her always without rest
While man's sad cyclic ages still uncoil.

They beat the perfumed air with noiseless sound,
They ring out her renown, freshly repeat
Her names taught them by men whose pulses beat
With God's great rhythm of the Seasons' round.

Each garden gives her glory, chants her praise
Even in harsh and hostile places where
Men have forgotten gentleness and prayer,
And what still canticles waft through their days.

Who plants a garden builds a carillon
To peal her praises with the pulse of time,
And laud her with the earth's loveliest, lasting chime
In bright, unalterable antiphon.

- Liam Brophy