Today's Flowers: In the Berries

It's possible, on sunny autumn days, to have too much sun on a subject. That happens on the day you know you have nothing to complain about. Such was my day a few weeks back when I stopped at Topsmead in Litchfield to have a walk around. The berries on this tree said "come hither or else." So I went thither. Red is starting to speak to me.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Migration

I am jealous of geese

Because they feel everything

With intelligence

And without,

I think,

Thinking anything at all.

The press of dried grass into their bodies

The thickening of the cold water

The fall of the leaves

The lessening of the light

And that thing we all have

That makes us do what our mothers did

Before us and before them

And so on

To tap into that wisdom

Without thought or shame

To reach for the air

With perfect faith

That it can be caught

And to go

Sure that return is possible

So long as you keep feeling

Everything

Without thought or shame.

I am jealous of geese.

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: Hangers On

Skywatch Friday

Blog Your Blessings: Beautiful Kids at Work

This week the kids at school loaded a school bus with the 4,000+ cans they collected this month for the local food pantry.

I stood back and watched the kids on student council lug the stuff out on whatever wheeled thing they could find on a very cold, damp morning. They worked diligently. They helped each other out. They were so good.

I posted this little video to the school blog, but I think these kids are great and I wanted to share it here, too.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Blog Your Blessings

Wordless Wednesday: Uncut, Uninterrupted

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Enduring Distortions

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Yesterday's Illusion

Here are some summertime flowers reflected in the dull and dirty mirrored glass of the arcade at Ocean Beach Park. I like this photo, though it's far from good. It reminds me things are not always what they appear and it's better to look on from afar, to play gently with what you see rather than be played by it.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Creative

I think of my favorite
Contemporary poets
Their gift for control
Just the right word
Minus a little

How I value
The understatement,

The not quite saying

I swim naked in the possibilities
Soaking them up, making them me

I step from that deep water

To run through
The tall grass of pure feeling
Deeper and deeper
Lost in the

Moist dark of a wilderness

(The trained meadow is gone now)

(There is no going back)

Every wild sound becomes my voice
Every graceful sway of every branch and leaf

Is me

Moving without thought or care
Deeper into the dark

I feel everything
I become nothing

In the space between
This breath and this breath
And this

There are no words
There is no need.

Nobel winner Nadine Gordimer of South Africa once said, "People make the mistake of regarding commitment as something solely political. A writer is committed to trying to make sense of life. It's a search. So there is that commitment first of all: the commitment to the honesty and determination to go as deeply into things as possible, and to dredge up what little bit of truth you with your talent can then express."

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: Water to Wine Somewhere Down the Line

Skywatch Friday