Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

It was a perfect day for butterflies: sunny but not too hot, crisp and clear with fall touching the secret garden.  I took Butterflies to the garden by bus, and the moment their wings felt the sun they opened at rest for the first time in their lives.  I wanted to take a photo of their leaving the safety of the netting, but when I opened the top they fluttered out. When I turned to look back they were gone.  The third one sat a moment on the edge and vanished away.  Split Wing, the last butterfly, was last to think of leaving.  Finally, it too fluttered away as gracefully as any and went away in a peaceful flutter. Their photos here are when they are still resting on the bottom in their netting home.  Each took a last nourishment for its journey, a final sip from the orange slices and blossoms filled with sugar water. 

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 )

Find me. I am lost within a fleeting instant I wasn’t going in, I swear I wasn’t Not until I found you just a foot away swimming with laughter Find me. I am lost without a compass no roots holding me along the bottom no way to find the hanging strap I am lost without a mossy crevice Look for me again along the empty places I wasn’t going in, I swear I wasn’t I didn’t mean to get so far and never find a rudder or a raft   I didn’t mean to go so far without my safety line I wasn’t going in, but now I swear I would

Here are our Chrysalises in their new home!  They have been successfully transported from California to New York, to my back room.  They stayed on a shelf in a plastic jar for several days, growing, climbing the walls of the jar, attaching themselves to the lid, and melting into their cocoons.  Chrysalides in their New Home Closeup:  Four Chrysalides

I am re-doing my apartment, and my piano is very big.   It’s an old Sohmer upright from I believe 1918.    So I decided to donate it to Housing Works, a charity for AIDS-related things.  Housing Works takes pianos in good condition, but they only move them down two steps, not four, and my stoop is four steps high.   I have a contractor who is fixing up my apartment, who agreed to get a couple of guys to move the piano down to the sidewalk.   In my defense, I told them it was a Big Piano.     I cried over it for a little while, and then the three guys showed up to move it.   My job was to guard the truck parked in front of a fire hydrant down the street and to drive it around the block if needed.   I was watching the action through the rear view mirror.   I saw the piano emerge from the building and hover over the steps; it looked shaky; it was verging on a 45 degree angle; I decided not to watch.    In a few minutes I looked back and it was on its way across the sidewalk.   I did

This Video Camera Graphic is a fine example of crowd-sourced design.  Notice how the two thin things lead nowhere, implying, well, implying something significant.  Perhaps this camera, not being grounded, can fly. Perhaps somebody stole the wall it used to be connected with. \