Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

I’ll go you one better! He said, and tossed in a day of his own. I saw why he raised me; the day was a snappy one, up early, hit the roaring playing fields, happy after dinner treats. I’ll call, said I, and threw in one of my best. A cool morning, sun barely up, afternoon with needles crunching in the dry mountains, evening honeysuckles I’ve two races won, sweet aftershave and a golden trophy ring, said He. I guess I’m losing this one then, I said. I’ve a room of my own with candle wax and soft shadows in the moonlight.  April, 2008

Come towards me faster!  Faster Now!  I can't stay inside this Greying winter frame another month. There is no waiting, don't you see?  My twigs already rage with sap My roots are swelling, growing How can I pull  the rich air into my hollow bones? I crave the smells I need the watered air  I yearn for green and apple pink! Come now come closer now I ache for spring I long to grow I need to grow into a new dimension  I am full with life and bursting! Where are my buds?  What shall I do with all this magic life? Magic Tree from the North Reservoir Path, Almost-Spring 2011  

 I went over to the other side to take a look  You know it was the same old quiet evening  Over and over structure, repetition, an urban stamped out subdivision.  I want that house, give me that petal, and let’s have a look at that grass blade-No! Not that one, for heaven’s sake, I mean that one over there. Yes, that is the one. Oh, to be selected.  So what if Milky Ways are one in twenty?  Who cares about the droplets and the grains?  Just once to be the one and only The one with homespun and yellow corn and himself there in love. Its Christmas now and streaky windows pick up stringy lights and smeared colors in the oily puddles and the waffled manhole covers     Jane's tree with Susie

See the softly colored circling leaves?  They're a telltale sign of a hollow. See how the trunk twists to move the hollow closer to the lovers on the path? There's a thought behind the turning. See the gnarly, shaggy trunk of bark, broken from the slow pirouetting eons? Yes, that's the final, crucial sign.  Mysterious is a Magic Tree, with caverned trunk and maple leaves and a hollow full of sorcery. Behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November

I echo the day that just passed this way, with a bounce and a sigh and a squeak. Thank goodness I say today wasted away, and we’re now at the end of the week. Be that as it may, it just doesn’t pay to be waiting around for a peek At the weekend to come when Friday’s not done, and the weather forecast is so bleak. This is not very deep but I must go to sleep; it’s time to roll up the day. I went here and there and every which where, and now I am hitting the hay!

This perfect young specimen is having it's first Central Park fall.  If I were a guessing sort I'd call it Horse Chesnut.  We will definitely know in the Spring.

Our magic tree has had a wonderful summer showering blessings over beings great and small, seen and unseen, who dare pass  through it's shadowy aura. Magic Tree on Reservoir Path near East 95th Street

Go back to the grassy fizzy place with a peach colored mist and flattened bubble gum. Go back to nights alight with honeysuckles, where ball games spin. Go back to awaken with a robin's nest and two blue eggs in the poplar trees. Go back to the grasshopper path with stickers and bare feet and horny toads and mud. Go back into a summer evening, with a cricket and an arching cigarette, flicked by a silent smoker on a porch. Come back with green and gold and clear red underpinnings. Come back with a small ball of open sky to play with. Come back to touch a finger tip. After all, why not?

I remember winter.  Those  bleak-lit days. Day after day; day in day out; crawling along their tedious way.   Snow flakes as big as pillows, ice like cedar. Green needles and melting water slipping through the spaces. Oh yes, and icey stars so clear you want to count them. Have you ever seen too much beauty? To many shimmers tugging, clutching on your soul? Uncut streams of life swirling and spinning? a tiny newborn mite nibbling on a newborn leaf? I found a four-leaf clover pressed and living  in a book  for almost 40 years.

Don't sit under the magnolia tree, with anyone else but me!

Can you resist a dappled path?  I know I can't.  Just to imagine the coolness of the path, with the warm sunny  places. The spring smell in the air, and a petal floating away from an old cherry tree. 

Here is our magic tree with its pet rock, returned after a storm - lashed voyage to ...somewhere

My favorite trees growing up were the 2 adjacent catalpas as we walked to school. We so often pulled off a seed pod for swords or staffs or wands or other rods our imaginations were requiring. Do you remember them? Now I have a huge catalpa tree in my front yard. Daddy and I planted it together when it was a spindly 7' tall and about 3" in diameter. I think of him every time I see my beloved tree. But mine is a female Western Catalpa, so it blooms a magnificent clump of delightfully sweet-smelling, pale orchid-like blossoms that shroud the tree for about 10 days. It is magnificent. Cut the blossoms and bring them inside and they barely last at all; they are meant to adorn the tree for the few short days in summer. About two summers ago there were 3 unknown children in my yard harvesting swords. They seemed a bit skittish. In memory (and defiance) of our childhood churlish neighborhood adult, I went outside and told them they were welcome to have as many as they liked, an

What I love about trees is that we all have one or two particular ones that belong to us. Yet this information often lies hidden near the soul. Our mission today is to find the nearest Likely Human Candidate.  Approach your Candidate with a pencil and a clipboard, although a notebook will do.  Holding the pencil at the ready, inquire: "Excuse me, I was wondering.  What was your favorite tree growing up?" (Now we need to wait for an answer.  This is the hard part, but do not skimp.) . One- one thousand, Two- one thousand  Carefully scribble down the answer, and thank your Likely Candidate.   You might need to offer a word of encouragement. Be prepared to improvise, since your Candidate may wish to carry on. Congratulations ,    we have just shared a precious splash of childhood.

Our magic tree is sleeping, since it's deep in winter. The new and nascent buds for spring have passed through the planning stage and are definitely under development. Personally I know that magic loves a hollow tree. Do you wonder where it comes from, once in a while? I do. Then s uddenly a flutter tumbles by and settles on a happy twig, and there occurs a tiny welcome sparkle. Can you feel it?

A side glance takes me to this field of weeds, clearly designed to reflect the small amber tree.

All trees are beautiful, but I admit I have my favorites. This planetree is the oldest tree in Central Park, and some say the largest. Here it is, lean and straight boned, wearing winter greys and blue sky.

Winter.  It always seem to be a snowy thought, yet here in December, although the trees are bare, the ground is uncovered cold.  Our Magic Tree is different now, with  sap safely stowed and damaged limbs mended in time for sleeping.

Sometimes I cannot believe my luck. I was walking down this messy and disheveled street, and there it was: a tantric figure dancing in the sunlight. Who planted it? How did it survive the upheavals? How gracious that so many must have worked around  this mythic dancer nourishing it  across the years.

There isn’t anything like a New England fall, even a small piece of it. Look at the colors. There’s something about taking a bus. Have you noticed? It’s hard to describe, but the key is not to take a bus in rush hour or when in a hurry. Just hop on when you are feeling giddy. Pretend you are on a tour, and simply hop off! Near here, there’s a dusty antique shop that opens on the owner’s whim. I hadn’t been in there for several years, since I purchased an old coal bucket. Today it had a collection of lamps made from plumbing pipes. Lots of joins, lots of elbows, lots of pipe! I got out without them, but barely.