Posts

Apple Harvest Time Along the Reservoir

Image
I was stuck on a limb on the upper east side, I haven't a clue how I got there! I was hungry and cold and I needed a nap, I was lonely and full of despair. I was inching along in the best way I could, but I haven't got feet, and I slipped on the wood! I am fortunate, though, I fell onto this hole! So, I ate and I ate, and I'm gaining some weight, I am warm, I feel great, all I need is a mate! I am ready nourish my soul! Along the East Side of the Reservoir, Central Park

A Wrinkle in Time

Image
I looked along the wrinkles in my couch, looking for a random blink of karma. A tiny warp in the woof of time. Oh yes, here's one, and it’s a beauty.I'm weaving away at a plain wool blanket, horse outside, warm piles left to show the way for the summer grass. Oh that’s too far off. I had a saddle though, it was western style, squeaky and smelling of old leather. Aspens along the ridge. Oh that leather smell! Pines in the background, sounds of the horses chomping up the yellow grass, rough mane, rough hair, rough feel of western Levis. Old boots with dusty creases, red fire in the wildflowers. White, white clouds along the ridge. Sun somewhere shining. Now there’s a wrinkle for you.

The Rainbow Fountain, Conservancy Garden, Central Park

Image
Our graceful Rainbow plays for a moment in the Italian Garden Fountain. As you can see, Rainbow is already vanishing back into its transparent spirit home. Fortunately, our brave photographer arrived just in time! A fall afternoon in the Italian Garden

A Fall Evening

Image
That was the day I lost my glasses, A fall evening Sparrows everywhere heydaying away in the apple trees. I still wonder if they‘re stuck up there Hanging on a limb somewhere I never thought to look among the branches.   , I hated my glasses anyway with their scratchy earpieces and their flesh-colored frames. Yet mostly I remember sparrows Squabbling away with the interloping squirrels. Apple Trees Along the Jogging Path, Central Park <\br>

The Secret Garden: Saga of the Sparrow Bowl

Image
It may seem as though the secret garden is an idyllic spot for calm and serenity, but even in paradise there is strife. Our brave photographer was sitting quietly among the berries and the fall lilies, watching Ounce an lots of friends playing in the Sparrow Bowl, when all at once, Red Cardinal came swooping down, scattering sparrows right and left!   Perhaps this swooping was innocent enough, but our brave photographer was so stunned by the chaos that Ounce was entirely forgotten!  Ounce  was furious, and a furious, wet sparrow is a dangerous thing.  Ounce dive-bombed a couple of times and practically drown trying to save the sanctity of the sparrow bowl.  Amazingly, as stunned as our brave photographer was, the footage was still in the cloud! Conservancy Garden, October 2016, from daylight into evening Central Park

Feathered Red Herring Relaxes in the Secret Garden

Catbird and Cardinal play in the red autumn water.  Ounce couldn't help joining in.   Hey! I know it's blurry, but it's a start!

Hope The Guard Dog

Image
We can all relax!  Hope is in charge! Hope, my Niece's guard dog

The Legend of the Sleeping Green Dinosaur

Image
Once upon a time, back in the day, when the wild Green Dinosaurs roamed the West, a small green spotted egg accidentally rolled out of its nest. Down it tumbled into the deepest and darkest of the Western Canyons. There, as time would have it, Egg with Green Spots was covered with cold, moist silt. Eons past, and the moist earth rose and fell with the waves of time, tossing Egg about like a ball, and finally dropping Egg far away in the high, dry, Colorado Desert. And there Egg with Green Spots sat. Egg thought about hatching, but why? What good would it do to roam the empty Earth, without a family or a purpose? “Where is my Dharma now!” cried Egg. “It has come and gone with the desert tides, and I will stay here until I molder”. So Egg with Green Spots settled in, waiting for the dreary end of things. But one day, there came a sort of rattle!  “Oh Dear!” Egg uttered with a squeak. “Is this the dreaded Egg-with-Green-Spots-Eating snake I heard about in my nest? “ And

The Power of a Silhouette

Image
Feel your toes grip the wet sand Inhale the Ocean listen! The gulls are playing. Mission for the Day 1. In today's travels, isolate a small silhouette .  (it should be a ways away, or we can be grabbed by the   nearest 'Q' . ) 2. Pause awhile, and let a blessed, unused memory flood your senses.   3. Breathe deeply. 4. Smile.

Southern Colorado

Image
Time swept you away, and I am left with beauty. Somewhere near South Park, Southern Colorado

Southern Colorado

Image
Time swept you away, and I am left with beauty. Somewhere near South Park, Southern Colorado

Promises Wait for Another New Day

Image
The midnight sky is stuffed with moonlight, but you wouldn’t know it from the afternoon, filled with grey rain along the edges. Two figures walk along the empty road, foreground vivid with the here and now, while the vanishing point draws relentless close. What destinies wait behind that grey horizon, waiting for the early sun to polish up those dreams we left for dead the night before. .

On Shakespeare and flora

Image
Would a Rose of Sharon smell as sweet  If it were named a hollyhock? From the new Garden at Cooper Hewitt Museum, Smithsonian Design Museum

The Gold of Life

Image
What will happen to my soul when you are gone? Will I tack it to a wall in a makeshift frame? Reservoir, late evening in July

Ounce Takes A Bath

Image
Ounce has developed a Characteristic that is not altogether happy.  Ounce does not like to share. We know already how much Ounce Loves water.  But look how the entire bathbowl is, in the opinion of Ounce, reserved for sole occupancy.  Of course Ounce finaly gives up and flees! Our amazing photo-journalist has captured this revealing video.  Click the play arrow, and then click the squarish thing on the bottom right of the video for Full Screen!  Don't forget to come back.... \ If all else fails, click on the link below https://youtu.be/Oe6jyvQ_Dlc

The Pigeon Chronicles

Image
The Pidgeon Chronicles, Missive IV Perhaps you missed missives I-III, I know I did [See Footnote]. Nevertheless, I am here to report I have suffered enough! As an Urban Volunteer, I embarked on my annual Tree Bed planting obligation, and I completed my task 11 days ago: Plant shade-adoring impatiens: Done! Plant with a growing moon: Done! Plant in loose soil: Done! Water and fertilize well: Done! Plant 6 inches apart: Done! By now there should be happy buds and a few new blooms. But No! I have simply watched the existing blossoms wane away with the waxing moon. Well!Later that same afternoon I discovered  Pigeon sitting on one impatiens and nibbling on another . Stricken, I yelled and shooed. Pigeon moved a few inches. I flapped and waved, and that Very Pigeon hopped to my next tree bed over! I ran indoors to notify the Pigeon Police, but by the time they arrived with the net, that Very Pigeon was gone. Well, this happened three times in a row, and now the

A bubblegum World

Image
Time shattered that day, when I saw through a crack, another teaming, seething, crystal world, (I was stuck on my usual side) It was a   bubblegum world, with grassy places, trees awake with new leaves, old limbs fading with the death of winter, Look, There’s a beauty!   Boughs swinging in the windy sun, searching for a new spring nest.   

A Puddle full of Petals

Image
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.

The Joyful and Delicate Dance of Spring !

Image

5th Avenue Draped in Spring Mist

Image
The day before rain

A blossom covered day

Image
TWEET!!  Is that the same dull winter sparrow bursting with life like a happy bud? Is that me, with clumps of spirit blossoms resting in my hand? Me, with a new leaf painted in my soul? Reservoir April 2016

On Making Deliveries in Snow

Image
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!

Jane Cecil ~ A profile in pictures & poetry

Image
  />            

Discovering a Different Fall

Image
I wander through the apple shadows, stepping into the secret garden Fall chrysanthemums are stiff with color Grasses are drying their stalks for winter Is that an orangy goldfish there or a patched up dappled catfish? Either way, I let it sink amid the leaves and lilies. I close my eyes and feel a quiet melting in my frozen solar plexus I may have dozed, I'm never sure A puddle full of splashing sparrows wakes me up. There's something familiar about that tweet! “Ounce?” "Ounce!" “You’re wet and cold! you’ll catch a chill!" Come here!“ I don’t know what made me scold that way It’s just I miss Ounce so and didn’t even know it. Embarrassed by my burst, I try to slink away, when I feel a small wet weight upon my shoulder -- “Ouch! You bit me!" Before I can move a retaliatory inch Ounce settles down for a soggy shoulder nap, and There isn’t anything else to do Except to take a leafy walk in the golden speckled afternoon.

The Myth of the stranded wheel

Image
It was one of those delicious days when the sun lit up the soul. I was skipping along on my favorite path, when I chanced upon a something in the road before me. So of course I stopped to make sure it wasn’t an endangered species. Well! One poke  told me I should be wary. I heard a sharp squeaky growl and felt a nip on my toe. I knew then it had to be an omen; you do not get stopped with a nip on the road for no reason at all. Growl wobbled over to the edge of the path, and of course I had to follow. We were at a clearing in the underbrush guarded by a low pile of nature-hewn rocks. I reached down to carry Growl, who gave me a parting nip on the finger and disappeared in a tiny whoosh. Nevertheless, I picked my way over the rocky pile and fell into a divided world. I wanted to go right with all my might, where the colors were tipped and burnished with life, yet there I was inexorably heading towards the left-most shadow lands. Deeper and deeper I journeyed, and there in

A Fountain Full of Fractals

Image
Fractals! They’re those never-ending patterns that “display self-similarity…in all scales”. In mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself.* Is there no rest for the self-centered? Do you want to know how to be a fractal? Just do the same stupid thing over and over! And this rainbow we are talking about. There is the very same self-similar rainbow in each tiny droplet and packet of drops and fountain of drops! And there you have the essence of it; the soul of it if you will. The rainbow, in fact,  is immortal. Do you remember how to discover a rainbow? First locate body of water (a dew drop will do). Position yourself between the drop and the sun, and sooner or later there it will be. Of course it’s been there all along. A soul waiting for the right circumstances. Fractal Fountain in the Italian Garden of the Conservancy; Central Park *Somewhere on the web…

The Secret Mourning Dove

Image
Mourning Dove rests at evening in the Secret Garden sparrow pool Mourning Dove in Secret Garden

A Popsickle Day

Image
Once upon a time, long before now, When the grass was as green as a lollypop~ Off we went down the sidewalk edge, looking for a piece of eternity. It was a popsicle day, With trees saturated in summer~ Sidewalks so hot you needed shoes, You could fry an egg if you wanted, they said. We were warned of course, about crossing the street, We were threatened, coerced and cautioned~ Of course we crossed it anyway, As we scattered away that diamond day.

Fall Day

Image
Off to school with sharpened promises. Seeking a simple space reserved for me. Oh how I wished and waited, loved and prayed. May I have a pleasant dream, a morning full of breezes? Now and then a glance my way, shooting light through a hidden shard. How I wanted to pursue you-- Where was that spark inside my soul, Whispering through the painted leaves-- “I love you” “You can count on me”

Cafe Sabarsky in the Neue Museum, New York City

Image
Happy Slightly Blurry August morning at Sabarskies.

Kidnapped!

Image
Screeching back into the moment I spot a leaf against my window pane, an ivy sprig caught behind the window box, stained glass catching sunbeams, (Well, it isn't really glass but it captures colors just the same) View from Living Room...

The Mending Way

Image
Wake up! The day comes up anyway the same old cracked-up dawn. Same concrete against the stumpy flowers dry as summer. What happened to all the maybes, All those forks to choose from? Fork one fork two; one-a-fork two-a-fork The trouble is, we resonate with beauty, Seeking the mending way I have a certain feeling in the bone. It came on cell by cell, raising me up a half an inch at a time. United Nations ~ November 2014

The Poetry Of Life

Image
Let the plant wither if it must, the seed fell days ago; Stuck in a pod, half blind, trapped in a cold puddle, Like some muddied, pock-marked, leftover snowball. Too dismal to throw. I have nothing to do but hibernate. What am I some kind of iced-over, frost bitten hedgehog? I’m shrinking!   How can this be with all these trickles? I’m down to a husk of a thing, rattling around like some blind-sided snail. I’m dying out here! Or  maybe drying; at least things are improving, I mean how can I do anything about it? OUCH! I’ve been crunched by a rabid runner and stuffed into a furrow! I think I’ll cry...yes... Wait a minute, what is that streaming stuff? Is it dirt?   Is it Sun?   Is it Rain? I’m growing!  Help! I’m being resurrected! ckr.com/496/19465894059_7431b11602_c.jpg" width="530" height="800" alt="20150709-DSC_6974">