this little light of mine

an old gospel tune reimagined in performance by mavis staples . . . . 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFAPS1jQClY

after the night rains . . .

it seems a shame

it seems a shame to rake away this beauty but then, when i do, more beauty will follow in its place ...

rising . . . .

among the not so small joys . . . in the back garden side-by-side, wondering at the new growth making its way out of the soil . . . plants ready to flower that had been planted last autumn . . . i'd forgotten i'd planted them, let alone their names . . .

the one light

sitting by the river, waiting for the sun to make its way through the cloud bank . . . .

buds . . . .

she always returns in such abundance!

assemblage

abundance unfurling

yard duty

along the fence line . . .

a lovely evening

my thursday night dinner date - my daughter lexie . . .

work in progress

little flowers are arriving

little flowers are arriving on the western wall of our home . . . 

i kneeled down to see this little sweetheart up close and i remembered these words . . . . 

"I know someone who kisses the way a flower opens" . . . 

mary oliver

mid spring reflections

a quiet ride in along the eastern shore of the river . . .

this little bunny

i see this little sweetheart quite often on my walks and my rides.

the return of the turkey vultures

every year around this time, the turkey vultures return to this street for two or three weeks.
they camp out in a spruce grove just west of my home.  they are massive birds with wingspans of five to six feet!!

snowdrops!

on my ride in, i saw these little beauties trembling in a chilly wind .....

a little thank you card

swan

windy winds and rainy rains 

brought this coil of birch bark 

and this little puddle 

together on our driveway . . . .

walks

"Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious." Mary Oliver

unperturbed

drinking snowmelt . . .

good morning!

sunshine! birds!

little chunks of ice falling from the trees! 

good morning!

wet grasses on stone

like hair on a pillow . . .

little arrivals . . .

close to the ground -
looking for the little green arrivals . . .

the weathered trunk . . .

making bracelets

walking home in the rain from a metal stamping workshop . . . .

entanglement

watching the reflections of clouds passing across the skin of a small woodland pool . . . .

Entanglement

A librarian in Calcutta and an entomologist in Prague

sign their moon-faced illicit emails,

“ton entanglée.”

No one can explain it.

The strange charm between border collie and sheep,

leaf and wind, the two distant electrons.

There is, too, the matter of a horse race.

Each person shouts for his own horse louder,

confident in the rising din

past whip, past mud,

the horse will hear his own name in his own quickened ear.

Desire is different:

desire is the moment before the race is run.

Has an electron never refused

the invitation to change direction,

sent in no knowable envelope, with no knowable ring?

A story told often: after the lecture, the widow

insisting the universe rests on the back of a turtle.

And what, the physicist

asks, does the turtle rest on?

Very clever, young man, she replies, very clever,

but it’s turtles all the way down.

And so a woman in Beijing buys for her love,

who practices turtle geometry in Boston, a metal trinket

from a night-market street stall.

On the back of a turtle, at rest on its shell,

a turtle.

Inside that green-painted shell, another, still smaller.

This continues for many turtles,

until finally, too small to see

or to lift up by its curious, preacherly head

a single un-green electron

waits the width of a world for some weightless message

sent into the din of existence for it alone.

Murmur of all that is claspable, clabberable, clamberable,

against all that is not:

You are there. I am here. I remember.

Jane Hirshfield, 1953

bark

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees, 

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

 but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

Mary Oliver

scrambling through the undergrowth

among the small joys: a beautiful early spring afternoon spent scrambling through the undergrowth on the east side of the otonabee river . . . .

the trailing fingers of winter . . .

spring snow . . .

riding in through a wet, white world . . .