Foxglove is the name of my property, five acres overlooking the Lewis River Valley that was covered with the wildflower when I first moved here in 1996.
I praise the fall it is the human season now
No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth
Enforce the green and thaw the frozen soil to birth
Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough.
Archibald MacLeish
"Immortal Autumn"
[First posted: November 1, 2015]
Working out on my hillside
putting away wood for the winter
when he comes circling overhead,
checking me out,
Circling...circling...circling,
Majestic, unhurried,
observant without being intrusive.
Eagle surveillance,
Preferable any day to the NSA.
[First posted: October 24, 2015]
The valley takes on a different character with each season.
Spring throbs to its new-life beat;
summer simmers and shimmers in the heat;
winter everywhere slows;
but autumn...autumn glows.
Autumn is my season.
[First posted: October 5, 2015]
Yesterday, Kris emailed: Are the leaves changing on your hillside?
I looked out my window.
No, they aren't, I said.
Today I emailed her: Yes, they are. All of them!
What a difference a day makes.
[First posted: September 15, 2015]
With temperatures in the high 90s this past week, it was clearly too hot
for the squirrels to do much scampering about.
Listless, lethargic, flattened by the heat, they appeared to melt on the trees.
Fur coats, no matter how fashionable, are not really high summer wear.
[First posted: July 20, 2015]
Amidst our day to day prose existence
come moments of poetry breaking through,
always taking us by surprise.
Once again.
[First posted: July 7, 2015]
Viewing this morning's photo--
First thought:
Too bad.
Out of focus.
Second thought:
Magnificent!
[First posted: July 1, 2015]
Sitting out on the hillside at sunset, watching the valley change colors in the transiting light, I read poetry aloud to the gathered squirrels and jays.
No chipmunks tonight. They prefer novels.
For these evening readings, I put out peanuts. On these occasions, I am the food person, bearing feed, seed, peanuts and poems.
(I suspect the squirrels come for the peanuts, only feigning interest in poetry.)
Tonight we're reading W.S. Merwin, a favorite poet of mine,
here on a hillside not far from Lake Merwin.
No relation that I know of, but still it's kind of cool.
I prefer his later poems,
about life captured in singular moments,
about living in sync with nature,
about that point where the natural and the spiritual intersect.
My critter neighbors know instinctually, maybe intuitively,
what I am forever trying to understand intellectually.
For them there is nothing to understand. Life just is,
and they are forever present to it
--like the best poets in their best moments.
[First posted: June 22, 2015]
I tend to rise early. By the time the sun first touches the treetops, the day seems half over. (My oldest nephew responded to one of my early morning emails: “4:00 am? I didn’t even know there was a 4:00 am.”)
It's my listening time, when the world is at its most quiet,
when signals from the spirit are the strongest, and reception clearest.
It's when I am most likely to find Peace, Balance, Perspective...
For soon the Ego will be up
bustling about with its To-Do Lists,
talking obsessively to itself,
checking emails, the Washington Post, and NPR
to catch up on all the world's madness and mayhem.
And my To-Do Life begins another day.
[First posted: June 1, 2015]
Getting up my hill requires a 4-wheel drive vehicle.
(That was intentional. I prefer solitude.)
Not many chance it, but those who do--and survive--
find a road lined with rhododendrons.
This time of year it's worth the risk.
[First posted: May 28, 2015]
