Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

Shimmering in the wind, the dry reeds rattle Rattle, swish Time clatters away with a thud. Drowning in yellow leaves, fall sneaks in through the cracks Torn by the wind.   Harlem Meer after the Storm

Yellow tree is bearing up leaves still stuck along the limbs, how did they get so big? Yellow’s just a little thing compared to Yellow & Green. I had a white-light come to me once but I didn’t know at the time, so here I am earthbound and running chasing after second chances. I knew a man who found a sheep that lived three years in a Scotland cave. It could barely walk and talk and graze with so much unsheared wool. I am like a quiet morning, slowly filling the backyards up without a sound, fresh with pitted peaches canned for winter I have nothing to say to the dead anymore with their put-down trumped-up charges. Just let them be, I said once more and I let colors talk to me. East 94th Street one of two New York Kentucky Coffee Trees

I see a tingle, over there along the graveyard gravel, inching through the spirit spaces, envy raging. Waking up a day ahead and a day before. A clay dream, cast in rolling hissing mud-stained patched up      cross-hatched yesterdays; trapped in the remnants of a horseshoe crab. Or do I wake up dreaming on a shore with lemon grass? Shining in the satin shallows Thriving in the seaweed Chasing marlin in blue waters Love cross-stitched across the morning Closing up the hallowed edges. Untermyer Fountain, French Conservancy Garden The sculpture came to Central Park in 1947 after the death of Samuel Untermyer. It is a cast of the original. Just how Untermyer acquired the sculpture from the Berlin original or had the cast made remains a mystery. ( The Official Website of Central Park )

There is a cold sting in the air, A fall day, maybe this one.  You and I are caught in circumstances,  Caught without a choice about the matter.  laughing without a reason Falling end over end  Torn away together.  The net is set.   The drawstring waits. 

Sunflower life cycle Sunflower being born

I discovered a friend I forgot somehow, did that ever happen to you? It was long ago and far away, in a different social milieu. I found a letter way down in a box with leftover pieces and tatters I was busy I guess, with work and success, I didn’t have time for such matters. The ink is still black, the penmanship clear, the paper still pristine and white. (I imagine I kept it for all these years, since I really intended to write.) You were back this way from London that day, fell in love on the way, we had missed our connections for lunch that day. I had come into town for a job interview, I know since I read it in page two from you... I guess I passed by a lot in those times, with their dancing, loving, whiskies and wines. In the Community Garden at Lexington Avenue in the 100s

Finally, Stalagmite meets stalactite but is it worth those endless boring drips? What now? There is no turning back drip, drip, drip. That day the bird flew out the window. I walked along the mica path, and there it was! Just sitting on a limb not knowing yet it was lost. Are these the holy incidents that coalesce the days into a life, with apple leaves and juniper? I saw time come to a boil the other day. They said it wouldn’t, but it did.

I became uninvolved in advance today, As odd as that may seem. It seemed like the best I could do, you see To retain my self-esteem I’ve decided it wouldn’t work out, work out There is no point in checking it out, it out I shall murder those feelings I cannot endure, I’ll trample the seedlings before they mature! There are plenty of fish in the sea so they say Uninvolved, unwary, unwed and un-gay. So why do I feel such remorse and regret When nothing has happened as yet, as yet? Just Off the East Reservoir Path, Central Park

Magic Tree Two is shimmering with so much May magic, we were almost unable to take a photograph! Look carefully where you step today, for now is the time to capture  a spark of magic  set free and playing in the wind Park Dwellers Unaware They are in the Presence of Magic

Robino is back!  The migration was a  success.  Robino has returned from a journey of hundreds of miles, using only the onboard mind for a pilot and a six-ounce body with feathered wings for a plane.  It's spring and well into nest building season; Robino has found a perfect patch of sun with lots of dead grass. This time of year, modeling just isn't a priority! Robin in Mid-Central Park

The last winter leaves are letting go and falling softly away.  Take a happy look at these that remain to brighten the final days before spring explodes upon us.

One night among the stars I saw you coming, But Asteroid arrived and pulled you from me. Of course I cannot follow, I have an orbit of my own.

What responsibilities fall upon these sturdy limbs Nourishing the fragile, hibernating twigs Buoying up a traveling winter squirrel. Hard trunks: rough, bent, creased and full of rings, with spring hanging in the balance.

Going quietly among silent, reflecting things... New York City Mountain Laurel

Cold blue-white skies Straw stalks bitten down in the harvested field. The horse barely whinnies in the low sun. I snuggle down within the frozen roots and watch the teeth chomping, Milk-soft lips, hoofs stepping one by one, pressing in the earth; I'm quick; I move out of range and continue my surveillance. Warm brown eyes and a forelock of course. A low toss of a mane, Moist breath white as smoke in the cold,  A soft rumbling on the exhale. No flies now, no swishing tails.  Chomp, pull, grind, chomp, chomp pull.. I smell wet melting frost on the yellow ground. I almost hear the cottonwoods along the partly frozen creek, and the rusted iron wheel used to set the sluice gate. White snow patches on the blue mountains,  The evening star at last. Southern Colorado

I have no plans!   I need my plans! I cannot budge about without a trace! Have I no leave-town muscles and pack-up bones?   Why do I lie stitched to the floor, Praying to a stained, cat-haired carpet, Old, frayed, taped to the edges of life? Where is the lancing boiling aching love,  What happened to that tried and true, That weather torn, that muddled scraggly lock of life? What will I leave behind me?  A dull stain on a desiccated stone, Dead with dry leaves, veined and laced by hardened winter. Where are you morning psychedelic dew?  Where are you green striped, bronzed and swollen sun?  Who is left to paint the swirling aching swaying starlight ? I saw the moon once through a backyard telescope. No bits, no bytes, no megapixels. Moonlight cleaned the stars away that night. September 10, 2011 (New York) (A poem a little more on the sharp-edged side of things. We're in transition mode again!)

Summer sliding dumbly toward a muted fall, With faded greens, a yellow here and there and me, Heartsick for no apparent reason, stuck like gum to a sidewalk square. No place to go and no way out except by public transportation. Scraping up my soul I head for home, imagination searching for the way it might have been

What if there was one sunset left? I know, it’s a cliché of a question, but What it there was one sunset left? Would I have the courage to see the beauty, To watch the final sun move inch by relentless inch, Darkening, sinking, disappearing into an immovable horizon? Could I bear to love that simple act of kindness, That I’d seen ten thousand times before? What if I knew for certain?

Why can’t I move in a new direction? What agonizing hatreds hold me back?  What whirring mental drill pins me into yesterday? Stealing time, I gather up those dead sheaves of might-have-beens. It’s not too late to burn those tired yesterdays.  Throw out the broken novel, and the tired loves, Cast off the scuffed up ribbons in your mind, Slink away from sad, horrific possibilities.  Worm back into the lattice work of life; Lose track of the exit signs! The world is new with a limitless sky. It’s time for a piece of a different pie.   N is for New

Have you ever wanted to be inside out?  I have. I’d like to be a free lady of the wind and seasons.  I’d like to be a woman of the late night places  where passion breathing stars spit out virtue,  red and dwarfed. I’d like to hear the naked beauty of desire fed into the wheat fields. I’d like to chip into a mortared brick and wait out the morning.  I’d like to be born with a sweet flame and a silken web. No more ancient, aging, ailing outer-facing rind,  wasting with hope. Scrape away the tired shadow mask at last. Escape the weeping cellar full of old bones pushing through the riven boards let’s have one more sacred candied day, a final ritzy season. Frosted with that inside story I kept so quietly mine.