WATERS OF MARCH/ Águas de Março

 Águas de Março/ Waters of March

AS IT STANDS

 

 

 

 

 

 

As it stands

I do not wish to have a nation in me

no more.

 

As it stands,

 

I do not wish to have a city,

(urban legends to soothe me)

no more.

 

Brick on brick I wish for open ended walls

to meet the breeze on swaying grasses,

 

in open fields,

the sweat and speed of common labor,

the piercing thought of thought in common,

the common bond,

the common beat of human heart.

 

And given that I will then create

a nation of one with my surroundings,

a family of many youngsters with the rocks,

a place with birds among the spoil of cats,

a place of gentle stay in hurricane.

 

A clear place of sotto voice and not a muttering,

a place of a capella,

 

a paradise and hell in one.

Beauty?

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.

Reason says, Nonsense. 
I have walked and measured the walls here.
There are no places like that.


Love says, There are.

(?)

-Rumi, from Secret Places

IMAGINARY MEADOWS

CLICK TO SEE

IMAGINARY MEADOWS

Love says

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.

Reason says, Nonsense. 
I have walked and measured the walls here.
There are no places like that.

Love says, There are.

-Rumi, from Secret Places

This world is not yet in flames

This world of slow question mark, single blue jay, early monarch in milkweed, blue azure damselflies and elusive blue indigo birds in May - is not yet in flames.

Hummingbirds are coming

A visit to a privately owned "public garden", for a fee.

Hummingbirds are coming. They build their tiny nests from fine materials, like the fuzz from emerging native Cinnamon ferns. 

Spring beauties, on a meditative ephemeral moss garden where, we are told, master moss keepers maintain the balance. 

Royal ferns keep you in check. 

Oak blossoms remind you of Spring folktales I forgot, the fiddle heads in Christmas stockings. 

For last, the remembering of roots, some of the old colony masters. Our dream friends.

Happy, or not, Easter Day! 

4/18/19

Transactions with beauty

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.

Reason says, Nonsense. I have walked and measured the walls here. There are no places like that.

Love says, There are.

-Rumi, from Secret Places

Water

Saturday morning

Autumn/Spring Equinox

May your autumn be seed full and your spring filled with sprout. 

May you be friendly with the creatures that visit you.

Waiting for Grace and sometimes forgetting to post here… 

UNKNOWN joy!

The beauty of not knowing.

Scary place

the cat with little strings attached


Hobbes and I

THE BOAT GARDENS

 Serendipity at work in art.

Jay Brooks is a great artist from New York, here for the Easton Pleinair art festival. My neighbor Anne introduced us and told me he was interested in painting the old boats in the garden. And so, for three or more days, he did.

To my delight, amusement and amazement his art transformed and redeemed the beauty of old memories, decaying structures, rust and rut. To capture a slight of green vine in morning light, poison ivy, budding new willow oak, glint of steel. 

Morningside abandoned by dichroic bead artist Scott Turnbull, son of Gordon and stepson of mine. “Erica, Dad, I found a perfect boat, abandoned! Can I bring it over?”

Sailing down the Little Choptank, help from grounding, grudgingly but, in matter of course given by old master fishermen going to work, so early in the morning. Territories that I now navigate by vehicle, searching for butterflies. 

Allegra Mestiza with her ability to sail fast in shallow waters…

Then Dauntless, bought fairly in trade for an original Rockwell, friend of father’s. Great stories revisited. 

Jay’s work impresses me for his ability to concentrate, then concentrate some more. Beatle music helps, he says. He has a vision and the awesome gift to present it gracefully to the outside world. 

For more information about Jay Brooks:

https://www.jaybrooksartist.com/

Sempre presente

do meditar no hoje...

A TRIP TO THE BEACH TO SEE WILD HORSES

A trip to the beach to see the ocean, wild Assateague horses and maybe, some butterflies.

My first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean this year was filled with people with heavy bodies and heavy beach gear, instant nature cameras and plenty of aerosol bug spray.

The marshes were quieter.

Diamondback terrapins, first time ever seen...

Enormous gulls

Seaside dragonlets

A tiny community of twenty or so Wood Nymphs gracing the marsh boardwalk, at the west end,  surprising steps down to the beach inlet   

More Seaside Dragonlets interested in Virginia creeper in bloom. 

The wild horses, absent for most of my morning trek, offered a horse and pony show at the exit road, creating a traffic jam and empowering car window tourism that has gained such applause, in a world of too many humans, so immersed in fear.

IN SEARCH OF A MONARCH

A morning, from early seven to noon.

Alone in the field, searching for monarchs, 

and finding instead, early tiny skipper butterflies that measure at least half an inch. 

Waiting quietly for a blue dragonfly to perch again, on the same blade of light green native grass, (on any blade of grass, for clear view)

for a pileated woodpecker to feed a baby, once again, way up on a barren tree. 

Waiting for a young deer to finish grazing the roadside before moving on, and even then, stopping by his side, for a photo of no fear. 

A loud noise and a jump in the forest.

Enchanted with an apparition, reflection of pink red-purple above a common pond.

In spite of Cartesian ID fevers, 
endless competitions in naming games,
mosquitoes, flies
& doubt, 

At the end of the road, a monarch, in a barren land of salty trail stone.

Nothing much in this world is better than the solitude of this morning.