Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

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

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

Peace be with people who carry the songs For those who wish only to listen. It’s a holistic view of the old or the new On this or that planar concoction. Concoction, well, oops! Perhaps the wrong word, “Connection” may better suffice. Or “Conception” now that is a fabulous word! It’s best to elide and then try to decide.... With a slice and a splice and a juxtaposition, We have a conceptoconnected transition! the MoMA, December 2012

Here's the ceiling of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, created by the architect Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (25 June 1852–10 June 1926).  Construction of La Sagrada Familia began in 1882.  Gaudi spent 40 years working on the Cathedral  Still under construction, it is scheduled to be completed in 2041 http://www.aviewoncities.com/barcelona/sagradafamilia.htm .  Ceiling, Sagrada Familia (Gaudi) Below we see the incredible transparency sculpted in light and created by  Gaudi. This is the right wall of windows of the Sagrada Familia seen at an angle as we enter.  Side wall of windows, Sagrada Familia (Gaudi) This photo is an identical window straight-on, but on other side of the cathedral: flat, usual, almost ordinary. Side Wall of Windows straight on, Sagrada Familia (Gaudi) A small Barcelona cafe in late afternoon A Barcelona Cafe in Late Afternoon

Many celebrated artists have difficulty fitting into the Museum of Modern Art or the Metropolitan Museum.  One of our local rather famous artist requires a very large palette  and a very expansive venue--much too much for either museum.     However, our  Artist has often been convinced to splash beauty on the more liberal outside walls.  This temporal display was witnessed by many lucky New Yorkers as they passed by the South Wall of the Winter Metropolitan of a late afternoon..

Fall Reflections Bicyclist in Central Park, East Drive

Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 2011

Don't tread on me reflecting puddle

So many times I heard those cautionary words, Don’t wait.  Don’t wake up at 50! Hurry!  Wait, were those not Roses? Haste makes waste! Write it down!  Fifty times! Each day! Every Day! Each hour!  Rich? Famous? Singer? Sculptor? Actor! Each second, waking and sleeping, Write it down, write it Down! Dow!n, do!wn d!own, D ~O ~W ~N ~! 50 Came.  Then 50 Went,  And with a small alteration of the pen,  50 came Again! I did find out a thing or two, amid those endless 50s, About the makeup of a made-up Dream. The Dreamer may become the dream, but it Starts the other way around.   I sit among my 50s shredding journals. Life was interesting enough at the time. “What now?”  I ask, and just for fun, “Where now?” “Here,” Now answers. “Waiting for my due.”   A Moment of Reflections

I was walking along on the railroad track When I stumbled upon what looked like a pack With a sack full of simples and samples and tack. I went next to a shop, and there on the rack was a similar pack With a sack full of simples and samples and tack! Now how did the sack get up from the track and make its way back To the shop with the rack? I studied the matter both forward and back, And I came to believe there’s a bit of a crack In the fabric of time that provides for some slack When a shop with a rack in the back Has a serious need for a pack with a sack Full of simples and samples and tack! Lily Pond, Conservancy Garden (Central Park-2011)

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?

Church of the Heavenly Rest Reflected in puddle across from Fifth Avenue & 90th

Reservoir of Water Fowl and Ice Crossings  Central Park Reservoir in February with Ice, Birds and Grasses 

I love the foreverness of mudpuddles, and I certainly cannot resist an entire fuzzy set of them! Why is our set of forever mudpuddles fuzzy?  Why is it not a crisp set? Well! First of all, because I am a fuzzy-set sort of person.  In a fuzzy set, one doesn't know whether an element (mudpuddle) is a member of the set or not,  because we have incomplete or missing information.  We do not know for certain, for example, whether or not Every One of our Mudpuddles is Entirely Immortal.   But, we are willing to take a chance.. In a crisp (or classical) set, an element either belongs, or does not belong, to the set.  Personally, I like a little room for doubt~~a wee wiggle of ambiguity, if I may.  Fuzzy Set of Mudpuddles

My dreams are illusive things, perhaps, but Is it possible that I have spelt it wrong? Could it really be elusive? You see, I can’t survive all hope abandoned, That fair and pretty dream of souls connecting Illuded by the faded warp woof of missed perceptions. No, I’ll have ‘elusive’, if you please. Give me that elusive just-around-the-corner love affair. Give me Plato’s shadowed cave of outside possibilities. Hell, yes! I’ll taste that fall leaf throwing its reflection. Harlem Meer, West Side, November

Very often the world is difficult for a blossom, who must remain safe and connected to its branch until budding is secure, and it becomes the proper time to depart.  Each of these foxy blossoms has made a duplicate for backup and saved it in a nearby puddle.

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. 

There I was again, out in the cold afternoon looking for the perfect puddle. I might have been Sherlock with a magnifying glass, when I took a slight misstep... crunch. crunch? Yes! Sightly soggy sounding, but definitely and none the less a crunch. There it was! The perfect sounding puddle right beneath my toe. Can you hear it?

What is a wide, closed space?  Do people use commas anymore?  Grammar! I'm a "take it for granted" sort of person.   Just this afternoon I took for granted that I might look out the window of my Brother's home in Crestone and watch the sun go down.  It was going down very well, and so I took a picture while I still had enought light.   Nothing that anti-granted happened, and here's what I saw: but here's what my camera saw:

Water Wind, Sky and Starry metal