a poem for Monday morning

The Windhover

to Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

     

   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

            ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins


A glimpse of a beautiful bird in the early morning... 

the other day I was out watering the garden and saw a scrub jay perched in a branch just a few feet away.  I was surprised to see him so close; then I realized he was appreciating the water I was freely bestowing.  

I think I should get a birdbath.  

 

A poem for today...

       ~ o ~

I dwell in Possibility—
A fairer House than Prose—
More numerous of Windows—
Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—
Impregnable of Eye—
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—
For Occupation—This—
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise— 

~ Emily Dickinson

 
It's an overcast Sunday morning.  The air is mostly quiet; I can see the leaves just stirring, outside the French doors.

I can feel that I am losing my voice.  (this happens periodically...)

I was pondering what I want to do with this blog, and I have decided to post poetry.  

Poetry makes me happy.  Actually I think it's one of the best things ever.  So we're going to have poetry.  And mermaids.  And other things I'll think of as I come to it.  
  
My lovely black kitty just uttered a tiny "miaou?" to ask for her breakfast, so I will fetch it for her.  

Adieu.  A la prochaine.
 

In the snow...

I am at my parents' house for a couple of weeks, and I have been going through the photo albums to scan a lot of the pictures. 

When I was nearly sixteen we moved to Munich, Germany.  We lived there two years.  We got to go to a lot of neat places in Europe.

We traveled everywhere in the big green van--like to the youth ski retreats.  I'm in the front passenger seat of the van.

 Here I am with my dad on a wintry day.

 

This is my mom.

 

Here is the van driving away into the snowy forest.  I love the tall pine trees all covered with snow...  

The garden again...

This was the garden path yesterday afternoon.  The tomatoes are growing, and I have a couple of volunteer plants that now have their own little hill!  One of them seems to be a cherry tomato, and the other doesn't .  So it will be interesting to see what we get!

The volunteer plants are closest to the viewer, just to the left of the path. 

Here's a view of my little gnomie man, through the pinky-purple statice.

This is the "Heirloom Black plum" tomato plant, side by side with the Orange Russian.  And a few marigolds for color and spice.   

You can see that there are a few ripening.

Tomatoes in the Yard....

My neighbor Mary got me into this.

 She was going to plant tomatoes along our shared fence and said, why didn't I plant tomatoes too?

I haven't ventured with tomatoes for several years now, but I thought I would try it.

Of course, preparing the soil takes awhile, especially when it's compacted, and sandy, and there's a whole layer of green nylon mesh from when someone laid sod years ago.   

While I was at it, I decided to continue replacing the lawn with blue festuca, interspersed with a few other fun things.

 The tomatoes are looking really happy these days. 

(So are the irises and the statice...)

At the turn of the year...

On the last day of 2011 I went for a walk with my sisters.

Watching twilight come down in Kentucky...


My sister borrowed my phone and took this beautiful pic through the tree branches.


Then I was inspired and took this one.


The first day of the year we went to my brother's little church near Owensboro. We drove home with twilight coming down...

The sun through the winter trees...

..and flashing over the hill...

Spike...

Here I am with Spike the iguana.

Isn't he awesome?


I want an iguana!