Clouds in the slough

"The birds have vanished down the sky,
and now the last cloud drains away."

from Zazen on Jingting Mountain
by Li Bai

"But its real strength lies in the quiet tension of isolation   

And living patiently, without atonement or regret,

In the eternity of the plain moments, the nest of care   

—Until suddenly, all alone, the mind is lifted upward into   

Light and air and the nothingness of the sky,   

Held there in that vacant, circumstantial blue until,

In the vehemence of a landscape where all the colors disappear,   

The quiet absolution of the spirit quickens into fact, "

from There Late Wisconsin Spring

by John Goethe

Garden pond at the farm.

"2 A.M. moonlight. The train has stopped

out in a field. Far off sparks of light from a town,

flickering coldly on the horizon.

As when a man goes so deep into his dream"

from Track

by Tomas Transformer

"When you wake to the dream of now

from night and its other dream,

you carry day out of the dark

like a flame."

                      from The Dream of Now

                             by William Stafford

Still no current photos so I found some from a
Sept. walk to the pond in the Research Park. 
Leaves on water, a theme I have loved since I
received Eliot Porter's book In Wildness is the
Preservation of the World.

There have been evenings when the light

has turning everything silver, and like you

I have stopped at a corner and suddenly

staggered with the grace if it all.

                        from Waiting in Line

                           by William Stafford

And every walk, a happy dog.

"The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.

They are at their windows
in every section of the tangerine of earth-
the Chinese poets looking up at the moon,
the American poets gazing out
at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise."

                                         Monday

                                            Billy Collins

" The world in its great mystery

Was hidden by my dream.

Today I made no claim:

I dream of what is here, the tree

Beside the falling stream,

The stone, the light upon the stone;

And day and dream are one."

     A Timbered Choir 1989 VIII

Wendell Berry

In 1975 my brother gave me a copy of

"In Wildness is the Preservation of the World"

A Sierra Club Book with photos by Eliot Porter

who also selected quotes from Thoreau to

accompany the text. I still have the book.

The cover had a photo of leaves

floating on water amid reflections. So this

fall I have been inspired to look for that

combination when out for a walk.

"The West of which I speak is but another name

for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to

 say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the

world. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search

of the Wild. The cities import it at any price.

Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and

wilderness come the tonics and barks which

brace mankind."

                       Walking

                         Henry David Thoreau

In visting my favorite blogs today I was reminded of

these lines from one of my favorite poems, that is one of the

joys of blogs. While I may no longer be green and carefree,

I hope to remain open to the beauty of these words.

"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
     About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
       The night above the dingle starry,
         Time let me hail and climb
       Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
     And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
     And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
         Trail with daisies and barley
       Down the rivers of the windfall light.

     And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
     About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
       In the sun that is young once only,
         Time let me play and be
       Golden in the mercy of his means,
     And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
     Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
         And the sabbath rang slowly
       In the pebbles of the holy streams."

                                   Fern Hill

                                                    Dylan Thomas

More from Saturday

"The wind has such a rainy sound
   Moaning through the town,
The sea has such a windy sound,—
   Will the ships go down?"

                        The wind has such a rainy sound     

                                             Christina Rossetti   

                               

           

  

       

Work on the pond went nowhere but the rocks look nice.

Another rainy Saturday meant I had the birdbaths

alll to myself. There were no bossy robins for a change

"Rain falls for centuries
Soaking the loose rocks in space
Sweet rain, the fire's out
The black snag glistens in the rain
& the last wisp of smoke floats up"

Gary Snyder

No Nature; New and Selected Poems

"Did I believe I had a clear mind?

It was like the water of a river

flowing shallow over the ice."

                              Breaking

                                              Wendell Berry