Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

Among the grates and the heat and cement, despite all the washing and cleaning intent, in just the right light and on just the right street, a puddle of petals may water your feet. Amazing Building FirePlug showers smoldering sidewalk with Cherry Petals

Let the sap of summer nourish me, like a small bough, with a leaf stuck for life to its limb. Let the autumn wind care for my soul. So what if winter crawls over my roots!

I was skidding through another concrete day Shoes hitting hard against the sidewalk grey Sharp shards snapping at the stopped up drain White sun spitting at a window pane Background rattle of a subway train. Then I turned the corner and astonishingly I see the floating remnants of a cherry tree.

Jiggity, Jaggity Jergety,  hoo! I’m bringing a pizza to you, to you. There’s ice, there’s snow No safe place to go I’m lost in the fog I’m stuck with this job I’m trapped out at night I’m getting frost-bite I’m ready to sob I’m too old for this job!! The pizza is cold. You’ll have to be told  You’ll have nothing to eat I can’t find your street! I just want to go back to Peru, Peru I want to go back to Peru!

Bursting with hope of a new life to come paltry  under-nourished  single-blossom twiggy  green  stick of a plant staked out a plot in the center of things. Catching fire in that messy dirt Growing into the waiting days Sticking to it. Small flowers stick to it

Wow! Uncovring the bowns of a brownstone is quite a dig! Traces of 1901 architeture mix with the afternoon sun. Top Floor Monroe Street brownstone Renovation

I didn’t know about the mended life I did not expect the quiet I did not anticipate the candle life     Soft surrounding flame     Holding onto an orange-hot tip     Black wick I did not expect a rainbow life     Colors melting towards each other     Spring rain passing     New wet leaves Still I know that raging, jealous, microsecond fire     Brassy, logo-driven, neon     Staked to the charred past     Mind igniting Rescued again by the river of time Tossed back into the candle-dappled day I sink into the moment like a stone.

Young Photographer, who thinks she is photographing a friend, is actually completing a color-coordinated summer pagent. Sometimes it takes our Master Painter many hours and even days in preparation for such a display. Reflections in Red

All of a sudden, it is summer! Early Rose on Monroe Street, Brooklyn

Peaceful, snow-capped sentries watch over the entrance to Pace University Pace University Entrance, New York On the way to formerly idyllic Pace University the next day Lexington Avenue, the day after

Accidental Pedestrians discussing one thing and another Almost night

On attempting to discover the steps on the way outside Front Steps On Attaining Footing on the Sidewalk Sidewalk and Tree Bed On Achieving a Restaurant that is Opened Complete Strangers Dining in a Turkish Restaurant

Sneaking out the beauty in the stumbling places Seeing bright red brick under the tarnished  episodes Knowing for once the people underneath the rubble Unearthing the best in show. Just below Park Avenue & 97th Street

Buried in disappointment I set out to trace those wanton steps, their outlines white on white, no tea leaves left in a cup.. Crisscrossed traces staining, weaving patterns, losing track. Winter staggering, weighted with hopes,  insides icing over. But it was only yesterday! My honeyed heart! Dripping and sunny! Pulling summer apples from the nourished air, soaking up love from life like a wick. How could I misplace that happy glue that spackled up my soul? Where is the relentless sap that limbers up these stiffened winter limbs? My mind can see a thousand years, why can’t I see around that corner? On East 90th Street, looking West

Well I did want to talk about love, But there’s so little that I wish to know about it. Crinkling like tinfoil in bright sun, Folding over, captured in the new moon air, Creeping over the window sills, Climbing through the pumpkin patches. Sinking into the inner rooms, leaving copies of itself along the way Peaches covered in thick fresh cream Brown sugar cane and dark molasses, A grassy path in a secret wood Reflections on Second Avenue

These days I skim along the surface floating and swimming in the upper inches no snorkel and of course no weights and tanks. No clever bottom views for me, no sneaky stinging jellyfish no broken veins and vessels just below the surface of the matter. Floating along beneath the heady balmy moist warm sun I hear splashing out beyond the breakers. Do not drill down through soft torn pieces. Don't you touch that swollen, stick-like thing, tucked in the muddy bottom feeding maw; I said don’t stir it up! Silty billowy mud-swarms up like acrid dirty arson smoke, Spewing fires at the ragged edge of town, Freight train blowing, parallaxing paraphrasing paralyzing Hush! Soft waves lapping like they said they did. Skimming Along Lexington Avenue

Attention All Bystanders! Attention ! Attention !! We had an early report of a Flower Breakout on the Upper East Side, and the rumors have been confirmed! Several dozen small daisy-like blossoms, including stems, have managed to escape confinement and are loose and at large. Several have been captured, but many are still out there! Although these particular inmates are not known to be dangerous, they have been under house arrest for many months and may have acquired questionable behavior characteristics. Even worse, these blossoms may be in danger themselves, from unattentive walkers and unfriendly dogs! If you spot any suspicious flowers and stems of any kind, please notify The Authorities instantly. You may save a life. Escaping flowers caught in the glare of a searching headlight

Ah What a wonderful feeling to be back online!! Remember:  Do not be Missiled! Neither shall ye be Misled! An iPad IS NOT A COMPUTER!   Blue Chicago Chicago Local Tour Guide Lara C. Hazy Blue Chicago with Visitor at the Lake Michegan Shore

The night dies and a day is born, when do we turn on the timing? Is it the lights and the dramas, or the harvests and the noon time bells? Go ahead and take the stars, for I have no more use for them. Take the sun away and let me cope as best I can, pale blacks and white greys will cover the differentiations. Madison Avenue and 106th (dawn/dusk) Your Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pause midway between, say, this and that; or between, say, here and hereafter, where and why, or whichever and whichnever. Take a pause only long enough to see the commonality of things, and then--back to splitting seconds!

Right and left, pedestrians passed by this amazing scene, never suspecting the incredible nature of the occurrence. On the surface this is a typical street scene:  a woman in black standing in a corner under an indecipherable sign, speaking on a red phone. The incredible truth is that our relentlessly observant photographer has captured a photo of the last working  United States Secret Service Women of the original five.  Note the hat (quickly interchangeable); the hand holding an object (typically the new 357 PhaserStun); the  two-way video uplinking dark glasses; the miniature molecular computer watch.  Shhhhhh United States Secret Service Woman in an Undisclosed Location