No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.
~ Hal Borland
(Sundial of the Seasons)
woods in spring
Author: Barbara Rodgers
a sea-blue tale
There are no footprints on the sea
and no road-signs, not a single
guard-stone or post, and no
bends, only paths of light and dark
from which to choose, the choice is always
a difficult navigation
and the storm’s wingspan immeasurable
as the depths and the horizon, but
the sea holds you in its mighty hand
your life is a sea-blue tale
of love and death.
~ Åse-Marie Nesse
(At Sea)
clipped by the elbows
Is that a cormorant perched on the next stump-island? He snaps open his wings and leaves them outstretched, as if they were hung on the line, clipped by the elbows to dry in the dusk. When we get closer, he will pull in the laundry and lift his feet restlessly – one, then the other.
~ Kathleen Dean Moore
(Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature)
another stickwork sculpture
For the first weekend of spring we decided to fly down to North Carolina to see Katie and her parents. Old man winter sent us off in the middle of a storm, a wintry mix that required de-icing of the plane. But we made it safe and sound and spent a relaxing Saturday hanging around the house.
Katie was happy to see us, and I like to think she remembered us since she had just visited us the previous weekend. Her parents have lots of weddings to go to in Connecticut this year so we will be having Katie staying with us for quite a few weekends!
Saturday evening, a friend of Dima & Larisa introduced us to a cooperative game, Hanabi. It’s a new genre to us. Our family loves playing all kinds of games, but a game without competition is a delightful idea to me.
Cooperative games contain one simple concept… all players work together to attain a mutually desirable goal. Strategies, resources and decisions are shared. The challenge and enjoyment are in the teamwork and the story and setting of the game.
~ Suzanne Lyons
(cooperativegames.com)
Sunday we had a great brunch at Kipos Greek Taverna in Chapel Hill, and then we were off to a game store in Durham, Atomic Empire, to pick up our own set of Hanabi cards. While there we also found a cooperative board game which we are looking forward to trying out at home.
Later in the afternoon we went to North Carolina Botanical Garden to see Patrick Dougherty‘s stickwork sculpture, “Homegrown.” Some readers may remember that Janet and I visited one of his installations at the Florence Griswold Museum back in October 2011. This one was just as fascinating.
Another pleasant evening was spent playing Hanabi and then Monday morning Dima took us to drop Katie off at daycare and then dropped us off at the airport. It was in the 50s that morning. When we got back to Boston it was 22°F! Brrr… (But I still love you, New England…)
our well-being
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
We humans have experimented with various social systems; some have endured and others not. I believe, however, that our well-being is tied not so much to the structure of our society and the politics that determine it, as to our ability to maintain contact with nature, to feel that we are part of the natural order and that we are capable of making a living within it.
~ Bernd Heinrich
(The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology)
a sun rises
Daybreak; glowing, a sun rises
through the blue stem of the sea
shoots to the top, unfolds
And the sea’s petals tremble.
~ Stein Mehren
(Dawn Breeze)
mind the cows
Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There was no way to tell. It was better to stay on the steading and mind the cows and be content with such days as are left to one and cease to wonder about life everlasting.
~ Jane Smiley
(The Greenlanders)
every circle
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Circles)
here/now
The Drop, that wrestles in the Sea –
Forgets her own locality
As I, in Thee –
She knows herself an incense small –
Yet small, she sighs, if all, is all,
How larger – be?
The Ocean, smiles at her conceit –
But she, forgetting Amphitrite –
Pleads “Me”?
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #255)
I’m saying open up
And let the rain come pouring in
Wash out this tired notion
That the best is yet to come
But while you’re dancing on the ground
Don’t think of when you’re gone
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Pig) ♫