can't complain

...racing the moon
(as it hangs over my right shoulder)

pond

late August:

we have fun

A more lively variation on my current "longing for the sea" theme:

A fun question for the first day of school ... off to count the reasons.

discover

In a strange limbo today.  I've done as much preparation and planning I'm going to do. There's not enough time left to play.  Just enough for some waiting -- with a bit to spare for a quick detour.

Pictures above are some local examples of park structures completed under Roosevelt's New Deal (with a splash of sky for good measure).  I've been admiring the CCC work in the national parks and was recently informed that we had some masonry structures nearby in a place I'd almost forgotten about.  The park itself sits on top of a uniquely high and steep hill.  Winding my way up the sharp curving roads and finding the stone shelters at the top made me feel like I was someplace altogether different.


Franklin Roosevelt at CCC camp, Shenandoah National Park, 1933

From Harpers Ferry, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection

with light in my head

And I know I will be loosened

from the bonds that hold me fast

and the chains all around me

will fall away at last

familiar

Firchau, Heaven, 2012

The picture must be... a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need. 
--Mark Rothko

Thanks Rob.

high summer

This high summer we love will pour its light

the fields grown rich and ragged in one strong moment

then before we're ready will crash into autumn

with a violence we can't accept

a bounty we can't forgive

Night frost will strike when the noons are warm

the pumpkins wildly growing         the green tomatoes

straining huge on the vines

queen anne and blackeyed susan will straggle rusty

as milkweed stakes her claim

she who will stand at last         dark sticks barely rising

up through the snow             her testament of continuation

We'll dream of a longer summer

but this is the one we have:

I lay my sunburnt hand

on your table: this is the time we have

--Adrienne Rich