Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

These photos are of the ground floor of a 1899 Brownstone. The room pictured is the former ground floor kitchen. The beams holding up the place have been replaced. The second photo is of the old beams. Notice one is completely rotted through, and others are close behind! (What fun...) First Floor Back--New beams First Floor Back--Old Beams Brooklyn Brownstone --Old Pipes Relocated.

Through little fault of it's own, El Innocente, an otherwise law-abiding tree, is seriously illegally parked.  El Innocente is not only within a few feet of a Fire Hydrant, but it is also in a clearly marked No Parking Zone.  Thank Goodness our Bystander arrived in time! Several parking tickets had already been attached by the Authorities in the Department, but El Innocente was unable to pay them.  As our hero arrived on the scene, an Official was already attaching the Tow!  We all know what the Department does with Towed Trees --  well, I don't even want to talk about it. Thankfully, Bystander was allowed to pay the outstanding tickets and to establish the El Innocente Ticket Paying Trust in Perpetuum Fidite. We are all  exceedingly grateful. Tree parked illegally on Park Avenue and 94h Street

Hippity happily hoppity cheese Tra la la tra la lo pickles and peas Eenie and meenie and olives and ham He loves me he doesn’t I don’t give a damn. This is a riddle of dubious merit, There isn’t a stick and there isn’t a carrot, What is the question and what is the clue? It’s a new kind of riddle, a total break through! We’re deep and we’re smart so there must be a lesson I’ve got it! We’re stocking a delicatessen! Sandwiches, condiments, peanuts and brew, Ice cream and cookies and Katmandu—  Katmandu? No, I mean Cordon Bleu! Whew…. Delicatessen in Sag Harbor

Clutching after reality I make my way in the setting sun (Seeking out the unlit door, Paper bag rumpled in the corner, Old man hunching up the dirty steps.) I walk through the iron-studded door into the mythic sanctuary (Walls covered with metaphors, Banks of unlit penny candles, Stained glass.) I light the wooden stick from a nearby flickering prayer (Smell the old dust and new wax, Kneel on the seasoned wood, Listen for the echoes in the cubbyholes.) One for you, one for me, one for the middle ground

I crave those times I refused to notice, when I lived behind the separator, catching reflections in the transparent screen: red snowsuits glancing by in January, spring-green boots. August—limp, dry, sticky with sap. Camping in the lodgepole pines, quiet needle carpets crunching, hiking, breathing, always such a long way to go. Why am I always, always last? I am weighted down with last year’s dinners. I see a paint drip frozen dry on the yellow wall. Why notice it now, when the time to fix is over? Staring out the dusty window, Rain throwing spatters down my face. From Light to Dark on Madison Avenue

Desire rubs itself into your palms like rusty gravel, into your face like those wrenching wringing drying clothes hanging by the grace of god.  But then, See the image of that flower root, sucking sunlight into the earth. Hear the image of a torn root mending, hidden there under the sidewalk rain. I have a garden with a marigold, a yellow pansy in the window box, a tree living a shepherdless life.