From a window, afternoon light filters through shifting, still-clinging autumn leaves onto a laundry room wall. Dazzling, real-time projection. Viewed but unrecorded by anything other than my memory. Home movies.
Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
Home movies
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged autumn colour, memory on November 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Wish you were here
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged autumn, autumn colour, on grief, twilight on October 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Can you see through my eyes?
Fall leaves gold into green
Sun after clouds
Limitless blur of blue sky
Seasons slipping by me
A raucous jay, dimming light
Backlit gold into red
Rise and fall in the breathing wind
Years getting by me
I have seen too much
Nightfall
How I wish you were here
On its way
Posted in Nature, The Garden, tagged monarch butterflies, monarch caterpillars, monarch migration on September 24, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Checking the tomato patch this morning, the darkened Monarch chrysalis was unchanged.
By noon, the same report.
By late afternoon, only an empty husk of a once bejeweled green chrysalis remained.
In the garden, astride a Verbena bonariensis, was a brilliant Monarch butterfly slowly fanning its wings.
By early evening, it was gone.
Of Autumn
Posted in Nature, The Garden, tagged monarch butterflies, monarch caterpillars, monarch migration on September 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Nights are cool, leaves are changing, autumn arrives this evening.
After a hard spring, it was a good summer. With a focus on soil health, the garden thrilled as never before.
Flowers blossomed, vegetables and children grew. As a Monarch butterfly Waystation, our garden enjoyed the summer-long company of Monarchs and a bumper crop of their caterpillars.
Still gathering tomatoes, I unloaded another basket in my kitchen just now. To my surprise, I found a darkening Monarch chrysalis attached to the side of a fully ripe tomato. I carefully replaced the tomato in the garden. Along the siding of the house, I spotted another chrysalis. With luck, both butterflies will emerge soon to begin their southward migration.
Years ago, a late-blooming Monarch butterfly named Longshot was unable to take to the skies by the time it emerged. Here is hoping these two make it.
Flowers, butterflies and humans – they all have a better chance of emergence when the conditions are right.
I will keep you posted.
Live Wire
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged On death on June 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Life burns.
Consumes, invigorates. Paradox.
Death is cold, empty.
My father passed away suddenly two weeks before the Keeper. Hard spring.
The day before my father’s service, I stood at his gravesite. Plywood pieces rough over a clean rectangular hole.
A glance into the grave. The earth — deep, alive and waiting.
Next day, nearing the open casket of my father, I felt the nothingness. Waxen facade drove home the vivid perversity of preservation.
At the cemetery, staging, 21-gun salute, veterans who knew how to deliver death to the bereaved.
My father died at the end. My friend died in the middle.
Life is a fist-sized beating heart. When it is done, so are we.
Live wire, get it while its hot.
The Keeper
Posted in Nature, Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday, tagged On death on June 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »
In the span of a lifetime perhaps we are lucky enough to know a handful who count. Not to say that all others are without meaning, but simply, real keepers are few.
To the Keepers we entrust soul and story, sadness and sweet wisdom. In turn, they hold, know, witness and Keep.
Keepers can be old or new, but oftentimes they appear at the beginning, willing and able to share the elusive and changeable quality of Time.
Like the venerable Oak, they offer shade, support, silence and deep conversation decade after decade. Because they Are, we can Be.
A brilliant Keeper in my life passed away suddenly just a week ago today. Mortality is a deep flaw of the Keeper.
With him went the better part of me, which he had been slowly returning to me after long years in a poorly made marriage. For I knew him long before.
I do not believe I kept his life as he kept mine. I have not that depth, and his support of me was not exclusive. The Keeper loved and mentored many.
The Keeper was a truly great man, one much needed. He is gone too soon.
Yet he is not. The Keeper is out there, in the wind, moon and stars of the Big World. For that is very much his Nature.
For he was, and forever will be, a keeper.
Birds and broken bones
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged birds, broken bones on May 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Four Baltimore Orioles, one Flicker, one Blue-Jay, one Goldfinch, two squirrels. One Cardinal, three Robins, two Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, a wild variety of richly colored sparrows, a Downy Woodpecker – one Cowbird.
The view out the picture window at the office of the physical therapist. Inflexibility may have its seasons, but distraction has its day. Grateful for that.
The Ides
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged Ides of March on March 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Many years ago, the midpoint of March gave me pause. A riotous time, no less for the energies that stir after winter, as for the fate of one Julius Caesar.
Imbolg, the vernal equinox, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, they all have their feet in the experience of emergence. Nature, human or not, cannot be contained.
Back then, it seemed smart to open the doors and windows and let those energies pass through. Now I am more likely to join in the dance myself, one hand and all.
The crows do not fly for you. Unless you be despot, fear not the Ides of March. Marvel at the moon, run in the rain…but try not to fall down.
Spring wind
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged spring, wind on March 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Spring wind is quixotic, my favorite kind. Coltishly tossing dry leaves off the ground or moving like a tide through bare trees, it has a curiosity and willingness I admire.
Tuned through objects fixed and transient, spring wind makes its thoughts audible. A song of springtime.
Full moon upcoming, vernal equinox next week. Onward.
In the distance
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged When things change on February 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »
On Walkabout, unplowed snow made the journey difficult, each step deliberate. Life, at certain points, is like that.
Halfway out, a resonant tone sounded from far away and I stopped short. The drone of snowplows and road traffic was the only reply.
But I heard. There is change in the distance.
Shouldn't...but Do 