Letchworth State Park in upstate New York

Letchworth State Park in upstate New York is a special place for me. In the magical time of life when imagination and reality blend, as identity and values form, it’s beauty and agelessness impressed. Historical perspective, both human and geological, was absorbed. An outlook on reality, the who, what, when and where we each need to know took root.

In passing through a human life is short,
Enough time to wonder why,
But not enough to know.

Magnificent the Genesee Valley farms and hills and meadows and woods and vales, on and on seemingly from forever into the present, at one’s feet the present falls away on and on into the past. Layer by layer of age exposed, exposed by time. Forever ago vast ocean deposits where uplifted to form giant mountains of time, knocked down grain by grain to form vast level layers before me now, exposed by time and relentless water flowing, ever flowing ever removing grain by grain the ocean floor that once was a mountain top that was an ocean floor. Repeated not forever but cycled only few, for time is short yet time is long. Now I stand and see almost eternity where thick rivers of ice at times ran free. Not once, not twice but many times, making the valley of Genesee.

Passing through a human life is short.

More than once ice rivers, heavy and deep, flowed south, as the Genesee River now flows north, scouring clean the living earth, gouging deep and rending sterile the rock beneath. So small seems the living, so large loomed the ice. Again and again, it scoured, again and again, life retreated, again and again, the ice fell back and life advanced, reclaiming the barren land. However, each advance changed the landscape and before us now the result of life and ice in conflict so very long ago.







Further and further from ago highway hum makes numb.

Taking vast vistas at a glance frees the spirit, frees thought from earthly constraints.

Eternity almost becomes tenable. Into far distant eras, the mind easily slips, but projections into a future time remain remiss. Ahead is seen as only the recent past projected, seen as the result of what happened, not of what will be. Brief our sojourn, brief our history. Thinking back but only three or four generations is a monumental leap of imagination, for reality begins at our birth, all else is hearsay.
Someone living today could have spoken to someone who talked to a Founder, almost certainly someone who lived the Civil War. How brief the modern era, how changed the world in so few lifetimes.

Brief life’s light does shine,
Each a moment’s flash divine.



Many a year ago, a man named At and a woman named Sophie began a family. On the first of June this year, for the first time in more than a hundred years, no child of theirs breathes upon this earth.

The earth is now less. Blessed have I been to have known and loved and lived among their offspring and now blessed am I to carry onward in their stead.

Another Passing:
The sign’s askance, hanging, hanging sideways by only a single nail, looking sad as does the garden and drive. Invasive plants and time overtake. Few splashes of colorful blossoms defy the trend. It is sad to see, sad to feel, sad so much effort wasted.

Life is a struggle and relentless nature wins. Take advantage of your strengths for soon they will become your weakness.



Inspiration Point






Old age is difficult to fathom. Decline depresses. Youth’s strength, enthusiasm succumbs to eventuality. Change is constant, life is brief, life is change, and then life is over, a one-way ride to eternity. If each genetic being, the union of two other genetically unique beings yields a forever entity, why the pain and anguish of an earthly existence? Life is good, life is short, life is incomprehensible!! Endless seems the river flowing from source to sea, it is but delusion. Ebbs and flows beyond one’s years one’s only sense of eternity.







Ominous the cold, gray clouds, dripping heavy silence, stillness reigns, death in spring’s prime. The first of June, twilight, a life passed, one last breath and all is still.


Now At and Sophie’s kids are no more, and the world is less!!





Brief life’s light does shine
Each moment’s flash divine.

Rainbow at Middle Falls