SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS: AGING

AGING

.

.

Circles of the earth and moon
Seems movement not at all.
But the movement of modernity
At times seems nothing but a blur.

Seeing change at nature’s pace
Seems quick enough for me.
But the movement of modernity
At times seems nothing but a blur.

……………………………..RDS

Thoughtless Thoughts:

.

With effortless ease thoughtless thoughts drift in and out,

A life’s worth of life floats through the course of a day,

Distant youth wistfully beckons,

Yesterday’s nothings carelessly occupy more space than worth,

Tomorrow’s sorrow and tomorrow’s joy is yet to be.

Another day, another series of thoughtless thoughts

Effortlessly eases one through the day.

Returning to old attitudes, seeing with old eyes,

How fresh the world seems after a long absence.

Details eat up a life and details are the very fabric of life,

So pick and choose your details wisely.

Live long enough to outlive your mistakes.

ONE SINGLE IMPRESSION #56 EQUALS

SETTING SUNLIGHT


SETTING SUN LIGHT GLOWING ON THE SEED ARM OF A GOLDEN ROD
WITH A STRAY MILKWEED SEED CAUGHT WHILE DRIFTING BY. DIAGONAL RAYS ARE FROM LENS "NOISE" FROM THE SUN RAYS TRAVELING THROUGH. RDS











"EQUALS"

VERNAL EQUINOX

Winter past is present still
When day first equals night.
Long trapped in winter’s chill,
Springs earth with growing light.

Spring time, no thoughts stray
To fall harvest, September distant,
Roles exchanged, night outraces day
And lazy summer remains persistent.

Life’s assertive best always occurs
When days and nights are sequels,
Each soul truth and beauty stirs,
One and eternity meld as equals.

...................................................RDS

BLUE SKY

BLUE SKY



Blue sky is mystery,
Nothing’s really there,
Only a vast darkness
And blueness everywhere.

Thus stare, stare
At the blueness,
reality aware.
.............................RDS



.

Mysterious is mystery,
Magic is but trickery.
.
.
.
.

Walked in silence, not alone
Brought life along, on loan.
Loan, interest not demanded,
Given, paid, but not to own.
.
.
.

Silent screams are never heard,
Doesn’t mean they don’t disturb
But echo again, to chagrin
The agitated soul within.

Scream, at the top of your lungs,
Silently.

If others hear they will mistake
The silent screams their own,
Condemning silent screams as fake.
Silent screams best not known.
............................................RDS

WATERY WEDNESDAY # 27 TAUGHANNOCK CREEK

TAUGHANNOCK CREEK


Ancient bedrock patterns,
Shallow flowing streams,
Restless summer ripples,
The patterns of reflected sun.


Sparkling golden highlights,
Darkened surface lows,
Are endlessly changing,
Yet surprisingly constant.






The dry summer, without any heavy rain storms, left the creek beds with a colorful coating of algae on normally gray rock. Together with the low sun light the creek bed had better fall color than the tree foliage.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.
.

Today I’m different than yesterday

And tomorrow more the same!

.

.

Winter hides in shady hollow,

Woodland ponds, deep or shallow,

Where ever gray ice forms,

So dense and fallow.

.

Spring plays on sunny slopes,

Filled with life and full of hopes.

...............................................RDS

.

.

Death in fall,

Spring reveals it all

Depresses the sign of joy.

Hope can be a false god,

Deceives to onward force

A journey without meaning.

Death in fall,

Spring starts the path

Resurrection to realize,
Death in fall is not real.

Spring will soon give lie

Of the death in fall.

...................................RDS

.

.

.

A terrible thing this morning, the value of the written thought was determined, not by scratchings on a paper, but by bytes and pieces on a monitor. The bright screen with darkened letters seemed more real than hardcopy, transposed by flesh and blood, imperfect lettering quickly written, can be seen, quickly byteing cannot.

This Luddite, dragged kicking and screaming, fighting tooth and nail, not giving up without a fight, is losing the battle with modernity. I never seem to plan ahead, so I run out of spa

ce at the end.

P.S. Even yellow lettering on a blue screen has become too real. ... RDS

OSI: FAREWELLS

GREETINGS SPRING

Sun is warming, water is flowing,
Birds are singing, kine are lowing,
Buds are swelling, greenness growing,
Greetings spring, farewell snowing.

The list seems endless, as do farewells,
Farewells to winter and snow’s repeat.
Often spring encore is followed by more,
More farewells to winter and snow’s repeat.

As tempo quickens and life gets sweet,
Spring’s advances outreach retreat.
Relentless progress ensures defeat.
Farewell to winter and snow’s repeat.

.................................................RDS

AN OLD STOMPING GROUND

SAUNTERING AN OLD STOMPING GROUND.


RETURN

Living on the edge pursuing
The truths of life worth doing
Endless way into the distance,
Well-trodden sauntering path,
Leading to a known unknown.

Have been here before,
Have never seen here now.
We two have changed,
Myself the more.

Today I’m different than yesterday,
While tomorrow more the same.

I wish to see with experience
What I saw so clearly without.

...................REMINDERS OF FALL, POTENTIAL FOR SPRING.



...........WITCHHAZEL-- IMMATURE SEED PODS

HAIR CAP MOSSES ENJOYING LAST AND FIRST RAYS OF SUNSHINE FOR THE DAY.

LAST RAYS OF SUN WHILE WALKING HOME.





.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.






.
.
.
.
BUDS OF SOME NUT TREES

BLACK WALNUT

JUGLANS NIGRA

.

.
SHAGBARK HICKORY

CARYA LANCINIOSA

.

.

BUTTERNUT

JUGLANS CINEREA

MARCH SPRING

EARLY MARCH SPRING

Today, light snow, deep freeze.
If November’s first snow
It would be pretty,
But it belongs to March,
That’s such a pity.
.

In early spring the winter retreats and then returns. A melting flow nightly freezes, spring locked again in winter’s clutch. Soon returning sun warmth re-releases, reviving hope of season’s promise.
.
Not yet fully rushing, the early spring still retains fall reminders, sere and crinkly leaves, pale stalks devoid of life and cattails hiding muskrat lodges.
.
Green, a very scarce commodity in the earliest of spring, is treasured. Each location duly noted, a reason to stop, think and even listen as spring surrounds.

MUSKRAT LODGE IN CATTAILS
WHITE PINE SPRIG WITH PRINCESS PINE.....RDS
PHOTOS at SAPSUCKER WOODS CORNELL LAB of ORNITHOLOGY

WATERY WEDNESDAY #26

SPRING TIME RILLS AND RIFFLES

The quickening pace of spring melt busies every rill and riffle. Long locked in winter’s vice, rushing snow melt foretells the headlong rush to spring. Snow melt, courses through the spring’s veins, nourishing the life forces newly awakening in the warming, lengthening days. RDS

.

.

.

SWIMMING HOLE FALLS
ENFIELD CREEK
ROBERT TREMAN STATE PARK

The crowds are gone,
The stream flows free,
As late afternoon glow
Colors buttermilk algae.

The long dry summer
Reveals aged rock seams,
As another season was
Etched into the rocks.
................................RDS

CAMERA CRITTERS #48

MOSQUITO AND BUTTERFLY

MEETING ON QUEEN ANNE'S LACE

WITH THE SETTING SUN

EARLY OCTOBER A FEW YEARS BACK
.
.
.
.
.
A WHITE MOTH OR BUTTERFLY
TAKEN WITH A FLASH AT NIGHT

BRAINIAC CATTERPILLAR???

.

WHILE TAKING THE PICTURE HE ATE MOST OF THE LEAF SECTION THAT IS MISSING, FROM HEAD TO POINTY BUTT.

TODAY'S FLOWERS #30

...............................................MONKEY FLOWER
...............................................MIMULUS RINGENS



.............PRIMROSE PACIFIC GIANT HYBRID

CLIMBING RED ROSE HYBRID

...................................................MAGNOLIA X BETTY

OSI: FORK IN THE ROAD

FORK IN THE ROAD

Sauntering alone one fall day,
Came upon a spoon in a brook,
Although I had the time, No way
It was a stream to go afishing in.

Weathered stones, weathered spoon,
Much time together had been spent,
Some much alike they’ve come to be,
To separate would violate. So I went.
And I left them.

Sauntering home that fall day,
Came to a fork in the road,
It was new, so I took it, and that,

That never made any difference.

............................................RDS

MARCH, WINTER RETREAT AND WORDS

Mourning Cloak Butterfly resting on milkweed

Nymphalis antiopa
.
.
Butterflies with sooty wings
. ........Fledgling Poet




To whom it may concern,
That at a place far away
On this distant date, March 1, 1972

“The day dawned with a slight haze which gave the eastern horizon a fresh, rosy veil to clothe the awakening sun.”

I saw and confirm hereby,
That at a place nearby
And most recent,

IT DIDN’T!! RDS



Warmed by March sun, a tinge of spring arrives.

On non-storm winter days
When cold penetrates the body,
A silence penetrates the soul.
Painful is the lonely silence,
Seems no life is found.
The soul exposed is naked
As trees devoid of leaves.

Soon melt replaces silence.

The loosening winter grip frees
Thoughts as well as streams.
The winter melt is transient,
Come and go, give and take.
A front goes by, winter appears,
Approaching lows westward pass
And spring magically appears.
...........................................RDS



.......WORDS


Words
Said often enough
They soon give up their meaning
Words
Said often enough
They soon become no meaning
Words
Said often enough
they are just noise and scratchings
Wandering inside the brain
Lost, confused
Devoid of sense,
Between noise and knowing.

Words anger or console,
Connect sense to idea.
Imperfect means to spread the word
Masking as reality.
Even in disconnected words,
Beauty can be found.

What is sense? What is idea?
......................................RDS

CAMERA CRITTERS#47 & WATERY WEDNESDAY #25

LEOPARD FROG

Rana pipiens







BLUE DARNER
.










.
.
.




Waterfalls

I Remember Wondering,
While Standing at the Brink,
On the Edge of a High Cliff,
What if the Placid Water
Slowly Gathering Speed
Could Ever Realize the Wild,
Yet Unavoidable Journey,
It is About to Undertake.
Life is Like That as a Kid,
Lots of Wondering.
............................................RDS




.......WINTER WATER COLORS


Not pulsing green of life
That strange green color
Permeating stream water
Charting its ice free course.

A green born from the cold
Not begot by warming sun,
A green that chills not cheers
A winter weary soul.
...................................RDS










With the chill the blood rushes from the extremities to preserve the body at the expense of the brain!!






.
FORMING HABITS

After repeatedly repeating a task,
Shifting brain gears to automatic,
Freeing rational brain portions
To achieve a goal hard sought
By repeatedly repeating the task,
The extension of the brain
To the body to the task
Magnifies the effect of the affect desired.

Thus is born a comfortable habit!

Learning is a wonderfully painful process.
.............................................RDS


CLIFFS

Etched on crumbling cliffs,
Wondrous tales do unfold,
So clearly in these layers,
A fresh spring story is retold.

Etched on crumbling cliffs,
Each spring unlocks pages,
Reveled stories of long ago,
The wisdom from the ages.

Reduced to no significance,
Within this towering pastness,
Not etched on crumbling cliffs,
Our time in this great vastness.
............................................RDS