the sweet kind of sad

i have to say that i'm really not feeling so melancholy but there are some sad things that feel as full and good as happiness.

lost

if you follow every dream...

magnolia IV

There are extended periods of time during which I travel the same paths.  There is same and then there is change.  Everyday I am looking.  What is different about the same?  It's just like that.  

barefoot

In The Complete Walker, Colin Fletcher discusses, among many other fine points of walking, the virtues of leathery feet.  An unmentioned virtue is that there are times when looking for shoes takes time.  As in, the bay is pink, and the sun is setting, and I have to go.  Now.  

pond

fly

In this world you've a soul for a compass
And a heart for a pair of wings

poppies

van Gogh, Field of Poppies, 1890

I knew them from paintings, Monet, O'Keeffe, van Gogh, but I don't know if I ever saw a live poppy until I was in college during which time my mother moved in next door to a woman who cultivated a backyard full of them.  Prior to bloom it was impossible to anticipate that an unruly lot of "scrub" would explode into a shocking (backyard-sized) sea of red blooms that then faded into strikingly exotic pods.  It was a glimpse...

I was glad to be reminded of them and that coquelicots grow wild in France along roadsides and in fields.  The photos above were snapped last week by my friend in the Savoie -- just outside of a grocery store.  I have been meaning to share them for several days but it did not happen until today, and it was not until I was loading them that I made the connection.

In memory.

And with many thanks, MAel.

magnolia III

incandescent porcelain in morning light

reflection

Articulation: An Assay
A good argument, etymology instructs,
is many-jointed.
By this measure,
the most expressive of beings must be the giraffe.

Yet the speaking tongue is supple,
untroubled by bone.

What would it be
to take up no position,
to lie on this earth at rest, relieved of proof or change?

Scent of thyme or grass
amid the scent of many herbs and grasses.

Grief unresisted as granite darkened by rain.

Continuous praises most glad, placed against nothing.

But thought is hinge and swerve, is winch,
is folding.

“Reflection,”
we call the mountain in the lake,
whose existence resides in neither stone nor water.

--Jane Hirshfield

rise

Eos, rosy fingered goddess of the dawn...

speaks

I often try to write something in this gaping space and sometimes I do, and sometimes it's like trying to talk in a dream.  I can think of the words but when I try to say them no sound comes out.  I always have more faith in (or less fear of) the visual image.  It comes more easily.  I worry less.  It's just a picture, or not, but it's not up to me because it speaks for itself.

And before you judge, because it's true we do have lots of spider webs, I will always argue on behalf of the beauty created by the skilled and lovely spider-weavers.  My protection and support of their existence and art remains controversial but there are so many reasons to admire them.  I love especially when their webs snare the brilliance of sunrise, and I love when their single silk strands appear to me later in my pictures -- surprising me by showing up in places where I had not seen them before.

clear creek

i dream a highway

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and rest my soul
I dream a highway back to you

John he's kicking out the footlights
The Grand Ole Opry's got a brand new band
Lord, let me die with a hammer in my hand
I dream a highway back to you.

I think I'll move down into Memphis
And thank the hatchet man who forked my tongue
I lie and wait until the wagons come
And dream a highway back to you.

The getaway kicking up cinders
An empty wagon full of rattling bones
Moon in the mirror on a three-hour jones,
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vison come arrest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?
Now you be Emmylou and I'll be Gram
I send a letter, don't know who I am
I dream a highway back to you.

I'm an indisguisable shade of twilight
Any second now I'm gonna turn myself on
In the blue display of the cool cathode ray
I dream a highway back to you.

I wish you knew me, Jack of Diamonds
Fire-riding, wheeling when I lead em up
Drank whisky with my water, sugar in my tea
My sails in rags with the staggers and the jags
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come molest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Now give me some of what you're having
I'll take you as a viper into my head
A knife into my bed, arsenic when I'm fed
I dream a highway back to you.

Hang overhead from all directions
Radiation from the porcelain light
Blind and blistered by the morning white
I dream a highway back to you.

Sunday morning at the diner
Hollywood trembles on the verge of tears
I watched the waitress for a thousand years
Saw a wheel within a wheel, heard a call within a call
I dreamed a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come molest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Step into the light, poor Lazarus
Don't lie alone behind the window shade
Let me see the mark death made
I dream a highway back to you.
I dream a highway back to you.

What will sustain us through the winter?
Where did last years lessons go?
Walk me out into the rain and snow
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and bless my soul
I dream a highway back to you

I dream a highway back to you
Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and bless my sould
I dream a highway back to you.

porch

white blues

iris

Hiroshige, Iris Garden, 1857