ForeverMissed
Large image
Tributes
November 5, 2023
November 5, 2023
HOMO SAPIENS: CREATING THEMSELVES
Formed in the black-light center of a star-circling
galaxy; formed in whirlpool images of froth
and flume and fulcrum; in the center image of herring
circling like pieces of silver swirling fast, a shoaling
circle of deception; in the whirlpool perfume of sex
in the deepest curve of a lily’s soft corolla. Created
within the images of the creator’s creation.

Born with the same grimacing wrench of a tree-covered
cliff split wide suddenly by lightning and opened
to thundering clouds of hail and rain.

Cured in the summer sun as if in a potter’s oven,
polished like a stone rolled by a river, emboldened
by the image of the expanse beyond earth’s horizon,
inside and outside a circumference in the image
of freedom.

Given the image of starlight clusters steadily silent
above a hillside-silence of fallen snow… let there be sleep.

II.

Inheriting from the earth’s scrambling minions,
images of thorn and bur, fang and claw, stealth,
deceit, poison, camouflage, blade, and blood…
let there be suffering, let there be survival.

Shaped by the image of the onset and unstoppable
devouring eclipse of the sun, the tempestuous, ecliptic
eating of the moon, the volcanic explosions of burning
rocks and fiery hail of ashes to death… let there be
terror and tears. Let there be pity.

Created in the image of fear inside a crawfish
skittering backward through a freshwater stream
with all eight appendages in perfect coordination,
both pincers held high, backing into safety beneath
a fallen leaf refuge… let there be home.

III.

Made in the image of the moon, where else
would the name of ivory rock craters shine
except in our eyes… let there be language.

Displayed in the image of the rotting seed
on the same stem with the swelling blossom…
let there be hope.

Homo sapiens creating themselves after the manner
and image of the creator’s ongoing creation — slowly,
eventual, alert and imagined, composing, dissembling,
until the right chord sounds from one brave strum
of the right strings reverberating, fading away
like evening… let there be pathos, let there be
compassion, forbearance, forgiveness. Let there be
weightless beauty.

Of earth and sky, Homo sapiens creating themselves,
following the mode and model of the creator’s creation,
particle by particle, quest by quest, witness by witness,
even though the unknown far away and the unknown
nearby be seen and not seen… let there be goodwill
and accounting, let there be praise resounding.

~Pattiann Rogers
November 5, 2023
November 5, 2023
Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.

When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,
When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down
No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.
When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky

Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus
And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,
Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing
When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.

~Mark Strand
November 4, 2023
November 4, 2023
The very act of understanding is a celebration
of joining, merging, even if on a modest scale,
with the magnificence of the cosmos.
When we recognize our place
in an immensity of light-years
and in the passage of ages,
when we grasp the intricacy,
beauty, and subtlety of life,
then that soaring feeling,
that sense of elation
and humility combined,
is surely spiritual.

~ Carl Sagan
November 3, 2023
November 3, 2023
When the power of love
overcomes the love of power
the world will know peace.
~Jimi Hendrix

Peace cannot be kept by force.
It can only be achieved by understanding.
~Albert Einstein
October 31, 2023
October 31, 2023
Every hour of every day is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
~Walt Whitman
October 31, 2023
October 31, 2023
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.
~George Eliot

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
~ Albert Camus

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

As long as autumn lasts,
I shall not have hands,
canvas and colors enough
to paint the beautiful things I see.
~Vincent Van Gogh
October 31, 2023
October 31, 2023
Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.
~ Marcel Proust
October 29, 2023
October 29, 2023
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

~ John Lennon
October 26, 2023
October 26, 2023
“And into the forest I go,
to lose my mind
and find my soul”

~ John Muir
October 23, 2023
October 23, 2023
“Teach the children.
We don't matter so much, but the children do.
Show them daisies and the pale hepatica.
Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen.
The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers.
And the frisky ones – inkberry, lamb's-quarters, blueberries.
And the aromatic ones – rosemary, oregano.
Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school.
Give them the fields and the woods
and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit.
Stand them in the stream, head them upstream,
rejoice as they learn to love this space they live in,
its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.
Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
~Mary Oliver
October 23, 2023
October 23, 2023
If we had better hearing,
and could discern the descants of sea birds,
the rhythmic tympani of schools of mollusks,
or even the distant harmonics of midges
hanging over meadows in the sun,
the combined sound might lift us off our feet.
~Lewis Thomas
October 21, 2023
October 21, 2023
Colors are the smiles of nature.
~Leigh Hunt

If one truly loves nature
one finds beauty everywhere.
~Vincent Van Gogh

In all things of nature
there is something of the marvelous.
~Aristotle

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy,
if a blade of grass springing up in the fields
has power to move you,
if the simple things of nature have a message
that you understand,
rejoice, for your soul is alive.
~Eleanora Duse

I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful--
an endless prospect of magic and wonder.
~Ansel Adams

In nature we never see anything isolated,
but everything in connection with something else
which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It seems to me that the natural world
is the greatest source of excitement;
the greatest source of visual beauty;
the greatest source of intellectual interest.
It is the greatest source of so much in life
that makes life worth living.
~David Attenborough

If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity,
to the small things hardly noticeable,
those things can unexpectedly become
great and immeasurable.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

To the attentive eye,
each moment of the year has its own beauty,
and in the same fields, it beholds, every hour,
a picture which was never seen before,
and which shall never be seen again.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson



October 12, 2023
October 12, 2023
“I once asked a bird,
how is it that you fly
in this gravity of darkness?
The bird responded, 'Love lifts me.”
~ Hāfez
October 9, 2023
October 9, 2023
To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides,
to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh,
to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down
the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years,
to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea,
is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal
as any earthly life can be.

~Rachel Carson
October 5, 2023
October 5, 2023
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
― Walt Whitman
October 1, 2023
October 1, 2023
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead:
his eyes are closed.
---------------------------
Do not grow old, no matter how long you live.
Never cease to stand like curious children
before the Great Mystery into which we were born.

~ Albert Einstein
October 1, 2023
October 1, 2023
Two things fill the mind
with ever new and increasing
wonder and awe —
the starry heavens above me
and the moral law within me.
~Immanuel Kant
September 30, 2023
September 30, 2023
If you hit a wrong note,
it’s the next note that you play
that determines if it’s good or bad.
~Miles Davis
September 30, 2023
September 30, 2023
Life After Death IV

The things I know:
how the living go on living
and how the dead go on living with them

So that in a forest
even a dead tree casts a shadow
and the leaves fall one by one
and the branches break in the wind
and the bark peels off slowly
and the trunk cracks
and the rain seeps in through the cracks
and the trunk falls to the ground
and the moss covers it

and in the spring the rabbits find it
and build their nest inside
and have their young
and their young will live safely
inside the dead tree

So that nothing is wasted in nature
or in love.

~Laura Crafton Gilpin
September 29, 2023
September 29, 2023
So, think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire across the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.
So speak as if the world entire were but a single ear intent on hearing what you say. And so, in truth, it is.
Do as if your every deed were to recoil upon your heads. And, so in truth it does.
So wish as if you were the wish. And so, in truth, you are...
_____

Of two men looking at a green field, one estimates its yield in bushels and calculates the price of the bushels in silver and in gold. The other drinks the greenness of the field with his eye, and kisses every blade with his thought, and fraternizes in his soul with every rootlet and pebble, and every clod of earth.

~Mikhail Naimy 1889--1988
A Lebanese poet, novelist, and philosopher, famous for his spiritual writings. He is widely recognized as one of the most important figures in modern Arabic literature and one of the most important spiritual writers of the 20th century.
September 29, 2023
September 29, 2023
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fail. Think of it — always.

If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.

Mutual courtesy and respect is the foundation of culture.

~Mahatma Gandhi
September 25, 2023
September 25, 2023
Wisdom begins in wonder.
~Socrates
September 24, 2023
September 24, 2023
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

~Gary Snyder
September 22, 2023
September 22, 2023
“When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.”
― Thomas Merton
September 17, 2023
September 17, 2023
i thank You Godde for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth) ...

~ e e cummings

note: for my beloved bro's birthday...
note: I added the de to God... :)
(I think Forbes would have appreciated that :)
September 16, 2023
September 16, 2023
What is Success?

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Note: Forbes often saved quotes from RWE. Not sure if he saved this one which I believe quite fairly summarizes his life. (Emerson should have added to the first line: "To laugh often and much; and to incite laughter in others." Forbes's birthday is today, 17 September-- he would be 82, forever missed...
September 9, 2023
September 9, 2023
Zen pretty much comes down to three things --
everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.

                                     - Jane Hirshfield -
September 8, 2023
September 8, 2023
IF I WANTED A BOAT

I would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn't know starboard from port
and wouldn't learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn't keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn't steer.
                     ~ Mary Oliver
August 28, 2023
August 28, 2023
Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
                    ~Mary Oliver
August 15, 2023
August 15, 2023
Praxilla of Sicyon
Loveliest of what I leave behind is the sunlight,
and loveliest after that the shining stars, and the moon's face,
but also cucumbers that are ripe, and pears, and apples.

Praxilla of Sicyon was a Greek lyric poet of the 5th century BC, from Sicyon on the Gulf of Corinth. Three lines of Praxilla's hexameter hymn to Adonis are quoted by Zenobius. In them, Adonis is asked in the underworld what he will most miss from the mortal world. He replies that he will miss the sun, stars, and moon, cucumbers, apples, and pears.
August 15, 2023
August 15, 2023
Just came across this email from Forbes...

June 2, 2020
Hi folks,
Taking a page from Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces which develops a theme that a myth under girds the most primitive cultures to the developed nations and that asks four important questions;
Who are we? Identity
What are we? Reality
What would we like to be? Intention
What should we be? Morality
These questions are crucial and must be asked in this time of uncertainty, where we live seemingly only in the anxious present but offers us direction.
stay well,
Forbes 
July 19, 2023
July 19, 2023
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
Or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the
    ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

~ Walt Whitman 1819 –1892
June 23, 2023
June 23, 2023
I like to live in the sound of water,
in the feel of mountain air. A sharp
reminder hits me: this world still is alive;
it stretches out there shivering toward its own
creation, and I’m part of it. Even my breathing
enters into the elaborate give-and-take,
this bowing to sun and moon, day or night,
winter, summer, storm, still—this tranquil
chaos that seems to be going somewhere.
This wilderness with a great peacefulness in it.
This motionless turmoil, this everything dance.
~ William Stafford
June 7, 2023
June 7, 2023
"While drawing grasses
I learn nothing "about" grass,
but wake up to the wonder
that there is grass at all.
~Frederick Franck

The moment one gives close attention to anything,
even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious,
awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
~ Henry Miller

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
~ Walt Whitman

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
~William Blake

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.”
~William Wordsworth

Note: I recently read Henry Miller's quote in my Zen calendar and thought so many references are made to a blade of grass (or similarly, a grain of sand...). The way Forbes saw this world...
June 6, 2023
June 6, 2023
So sad to hear of Forbes’s passing. He was a larger-than-life (literally!) figure of my childhood, and a wonderful cousin. My deepest condolences.
April 23, 2023
April 23, 2023
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

~ William Wordsworth ~

Brilliant yellow daffodils have been dancing
about my sanctuary since Easter, bringing
such joy that I had to acknowledge them...
I know that Forbes would be taking great
pleasure in them as well... dancing with &
within each one...
April 22, 2023
April 22, 2023
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.'

~Emily Dickinson ~
April 19, 2023
April 19, 2023
Forever-- is composed of Nows--
     ~ Emily Dickinson ~
April 12, 2023
April 12, 2023
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

The night has a thousand eyes,
  And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
  With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
  And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
  When love is done.

~Francis William Bourdillon 1852-1921

Thank you William for posting the first stanza of Bourdillon’s poem. Not familiar with this (though now realize it is quite well known), I looked it up and find that the second/last stanza gives greater meaning to the first and, I think, Forbes would heartily agree.
April 10, 2023
April 10, 2023
" The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun."
                               F.W. Bourdillon
April 10, 2023
April 10, 2023
Looking at our world today, would appreciate the chance to discuss our challenges with Forbes. We have a big job and little time. Perhaps he will lend us his guiding hand and share a bit of his wisdom. I hope so. He always knew more than I ever did.
April 10, 2023
April 10, 2023
The Earth would die
If the sun stopped kissing her.
~Hafez
April 6, 2023
April 6, 2023
This spoke to me.
I imagine it would
to my brother as well...

The Dragonfly Incident
by Bill Sherwonit
Apr 06, 2023

I suppose this could be considered a “wildlife encounter” story of sorts, though it presents some unusual twists. For one thing, the animal at the heart of this tale is a subarctic insect (and yet has nothing to do with the region’s legendary mosquitoes). For another, odd things happen that aren’t easily explained by either reason or chance. There are other curious turns, as well ...
The story begins with a man sitting on the front steps of a lakeside cabin, feeling contented and thankful to be part of such a beautiful, softly shimmering summer day. He’d brought a mug of coffee out to the porch, plus binoculars and a journal in which he planned to record some dreams. In between sips of his morning coffee, he noticed splashing on the otherwise calm lake surface, not far offshore. Actually it wasn’t so much a splashing as a trembling, those shudders creating tiny ripples that spread outward a short distance, until disappearing into the stillness of the water.
The source of the ripples barely moved, which suggested that a small creature of some kind was struggling. Picking up his nearby binoculars to take a closer look, the man saw a dragonfly, rapidly—and, it seemed, desperately—flapping its wings, or trying to.
The splashing stopped, then started again a few moments later. It went on like this for a couple of minutes, the tremble of wings on water gradually diminishing, as if the insect were losing its strength, its vitality, which of course it must have been.
The man wondered how the dragonfly ended up on the water. Had it somehow miscalculated while pursuing another insect, and crashed into the lake? That seemed unlikely, given dragonflies’ legendary flying abilities. But accidents happen, right?
Or maybe it had been chased by a bird and driven into the water. Or, its wings weakened and worn by age, perhaps the dragonfly had simply, finally, lost the power of flight.
In the midst of all those thoughts, another entered the man’s mind: why not try to rescue the dragonfly? For as long as he could recall, he’d been fascinated by dragonflies and their smaller, more delicate cousins, the damselflies. It might not be too great a stretch to say that occasionally he’d felt a sort of connection to them, the way some people feel linked to a particular animal, or plant, or landscape. He’d felt similar bonds to other wild creatures. The connection, if that’s what it was, had always been fleeting. But it seemed real, even if it wasn’t something he felt comfortable talking about, except with close, trusted friends. Even then, he sometimes felt a little silly and self-conscious, as if others would consider him odd for having such experiences. In truth he did sometimes feel odd. But also blessed.
Besides that, in recent years the man had stretched his sense of ethics and “right behavior” to include his relationship with insects. That was still a work in progress, though he’d even experimented with seeing how far he could go into summer without killing a mosquito.
But back to the dragonfly. The man went into the cabin and grabbed a broom, then walked down to the lakeshore. Alas, the dragonfly was too far out to reach, even with the broom. Oh well, the man sighed to himself. I tried.
Yet as he stood there watching the dragonfly, the insect beat its wings furiously for several seconds, then stopped, as if resting. Or exhausted. For a while after, the wings continued to shiver ever so slightly, sending out miniscule ripples. Then even they stopped.
More thoughts came to the man. Just how far am I willing to go, to save this dragonfly? How determined, how committed am I? The dragonfly appeared close enough to reach, if he waded out a ways. Okay, he decided. I can do that.
The man took off his hiking boots and socks and rolled up his pants, then gingerly stepped into the water, cold but not painfully so. (He wasn’t one to splash around in lakes or streams or oceans, even in warmer temperatures.) With the water nearly to his knees, he stretched his right arm and lifted the dragonfly out of the water on the broom’s bristled end. Smiling, he waded back to shore, the dragonfly weakly fluttering its wings.
Back on land, the man gently pried the dragonfly from the broom, careful not to harm the insect, whose dark, barbed legs kept a firm grip on the bristles.
His next decision: where to put the dragonfly? After considering various options, he chose to place it upon a picnic table, which offered a dry, spacious, sunlit surface. The dragonfly again fluttered its wings, as if trying to fly, but didn’t budge. It might be too waterlogged to survive its dunking, the man thought. But I’ve done what I can.
He returned to the porch steps, took a sip of coffee, and then picked up his journal. But instead of writing about his dream the night before, he jotted some notes about his interaction with the dragonfly.
Have I mentioned the man had a dog? Probably not, because the dog, though curious that his companion was behaving in such an unusual way, didn’t show much interest in the dragonfly. But the dog was another reason the man chose the tabletop, to keep the dragonfly away from her easy reach. Now settled back on the steps, he called the dog to him and they sat side by side a while, until some sound in the bushes pulled the dog away.
Now and then, the man would look up from his journal toward the picnic table. The first couple of times he did so, the dragonfly remained in place, still drying in the sun. But the third time he checked, the dragonfly had disappeared. This surprised him. He hadn’t really expected it to recover. Could it have somehow flopped off the table? Walking over, he thoroughly checked the ground but couldn’t find the insect. He supposed a bird could have swooped in and snatched the dragonfly off the table, but that seemed unlikely.
With no certain evidence, the man decided the dragonfly had mended enough to fly away. This possibility pleased him. Returning to the porch, he sensed himself grinning. Back on the steps, the man took another sip of coffee and then opened his journal, added a few more observations. When he got back to Anchorage, he’d dig out his Dragonflies of Alaska guide and try to determine which species he’d pulled from the lake.
Several minutes later, while looking up from his journal, he noticed a dragonfly land on the large, exposed root of a nearby birch tree, no more than eight feet from where he sat.
Here is where the story takes something of a surreal twist. While he watched, the dragonfly left the tree, circled a couple of times, and then zigzagged toward the man. And it landed softly on the back of his right hand.
Until that very moment, the man had never considered the possibility that such a thing might happen. Though startled, he didn’t flinch, but rather sat perfectly still, as if a spell had been cast upon him.
For a few moments (he later recalled), his brain seemed empty of thoughts, his entire being attentive to the strange yet marvelous creature that was grasping his hand. With something close to fondness, he took in the dragonfly’s bulbous head and enormous gleaming eyes; the fantastically intricate wings with their complex veining, those wings too glistening in the sunlight; and the blue-and-brown banded, tail-like abdomen. Yet more than any bodily detail he, what captivated him most was the dragonfly’s calm yet vibrant presence on his skin and a sense of shared awareness.
If the man had been caught in some sort of spell, the magic didn’t last long, soon replaced by curiosity and desire. The man wondered how the dragonfly would respond if he lifted it closer to his face. Would it stay on his hand? Or surprise him in some other way?
Well, it flew away. And didn’t return.
Only then did the man’s mind explode in a silent Wow! And once again his brain became busy with thoughts and questions. So many questions. For starters, what about the dragonfly’s struggle had aroused his desire to help it? What if he’d been unable to reach the dragonfly even after wading into the lake up to his knees; would he have given up or kept trying? And why did trying seem so important? And what in the world had prompted a dragonfly to land on him the very morning he’d rescued one? In some inexplicable way, could the insect that he’d saved been drawn back to him?
Behind all these questions were two others. Was he being ridiculous for taking this “dragonfly incident” (as he’d begun to think of it) too seriously? Or, conversely, was it possible that his preconceptions of dragonflies—and “lower” forms of life, generally—had blocked him from some deeper, more meaningful experience?
He just didn’t know what to make of this, this . . . what? Encounter? Meeting? Connection? But he was pretty darn certain that in all his 66 years, a dragonfly had never before landed on his hand—or any other part of his body, that he could recall—though he’d spent plenty of time in their company at swamps and lakes and other bodies of water.
Ah, you think too much, he muttered to himself, brow wrinkled and lips set tightly in a wry sort of smile. Seated on that sun-drenched porch, the journal still open on his lap, he gazed back toward the still water. Maybe that was part of the problem: he spent too much time rolling thoughts around his head, not enough time listening to his gut. Or simply experiencing the present moment without analyzing it. Simply being.
While his rational side argued that what happened was nothing more than a pretty amazing coincidence, some deeper, intuitive part of him wasn’t convinced of that. He sensed that he stood at a gateway into some different realm, a deeper way of connecting with wild nature, the more-than-human world that he loved so much. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt this way. Sometimes he wished he could be more open to the possibilities . . .
There you go again, he playfully chided himself. Too much musing.
If nothing else, he needed to learn more about the nature of dragonflies and what other, more mystical folks have to say about their symbolism, their significance.
Continued here: 
https://www.dailygood.org/story/3069/the-dragonfly-incident-bill-sherwonit/
April 1, 2023
April 1, 2023
Say ‘Wow!’ by Chelan Harkin

...Feed yourself fire.
Scoop up the day entire
like a planet-sized bouquet of marvel
sent by the Universe directly into your arms
and say “Wow!”

Break yourself down
into the basic components of primitive awe
and let the crescendo of each moment
carbonate every capillary
and say, “Wow!”...
March 24, 2023
March 24, 2023
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
February 19, 2023
February 19, 2023
When I am among the Trees
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
February 9, 2023
February 9, 2023
Instructions to Painters & Poets
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I asked a hundred painters and a hundred poets
how to paint sunlight
on the face of life
Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous
as if they were all guarding trade secrets
Whereas it seems to me
all you have to do
is conceive of the whole world
and all humanity
as a kind of art work
a site-specific art work
an art project of the god of light
the whole earth and all that’s in it
to be painted with light

And the first thing you have to do
is paint out postmodern painting
And the next thing is to paint yourself
in your true colors
in primary colors
as you see them
(without whitewash)
paint yourself as you see yourself
without make-up
without masks
Then paint your favorite people and animals
with your brush loaded with light
And be sure you get the perspective right
and don’t fake it
because one false line leads to another

And then paint the high hills
when the sun first strikes them
on an autumn morning
with your palette knife
lay it on
the cadmium yellow leaves
the ochre leaves
the vermillion leaves
of the New England autumn
and paint the ghost light of summer nights
and the light of the midnight sun
which is moon light
And don’t paint out the shadows made by light

for without chiaroscuro you’ll have shallow pictures
So paint all the dark corners too
everywhere in the world
all the hidden places and minds and hearts
which light never reaches
all the caves of ignorance and fear
the pits of despair
the sloughs of despond
and write plain upon them
“Abandon all despair, ye who enter here”

And don’t forget to paint
all those who lived their lives
as bearers of light
Paint their eyes
and the eyes of every animal
[...]
and the eyes of men and women
known only for the light of their minds
Paint the light of their eyes
the light of sunlit laughter
the song of eyes
the song of birds in flight.

And remember that the light is within
if it is anywhere
and you must paint from the inside
[...]
Turner painted sunlight
with egg tempera
(which proved unstable)
and Van Gogh did it with madness
and the blood of his ear
(also unstable)
and the Impressionists did it
by never using black
And the Abstract Expressionists did it
with white house paint
But you can do it with the pure pigment
(if you can figure out the formula)
of your own true light
But before you strike the first blow
on the virgin canvas
remember its fragility
life’s extreme fragility
and remember its innocence
its original innocence
before you strike the first blow

Or perhaps never strike it
And let the light come through
the inner light of the canvas
the inner light of the models posed
in the life study
the inner light of everyone
Let it all come through
like a pentimento
the light that’s been painted over
the life that’s been painted over
so many times
Let it surge to the surface
the painted-over image
of primal life on earth

And when you’ve finished your painting
stand back astonished
stand back and observe
the life on earth that you’ve created
the lighted life on earth
that you’ve created
a new brave world

From https://www.dailygood.org/

January 5, 2023
January 5, 2023
We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe.
We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation,
and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.
For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility
and reverence before the world
that our species will be able to remain in it.
~ Wendell Berry
December 15, 2022
December 15, 2022
"Shoveling Snow"

If day after day I was caught inside
this muffle and hush

I would notice how birches
move with a lovely hum of spirits,

how falling snow is a privacy
warm as the space for sleeping,

how radiant snow is a dream
like leaving behind the body

and rising into that luminous place
where sometimes you meet

the people you've lost. How
silver branches scrawl their names

in tangled script against the white.
How the curves and cheekbones

of all my loved ones appear
in the polished marble of drifts.

by Kirsten Dierking
October 3, 2022
October 3, 2022
Day in, day out
I swallow
the beauty of the world
this hungering beauty
My God
open windows within me
to let the world enter
calmly and peacefully
that more of the world
enter
the world I love
cry over
and love again and again

~Miriam Baruch Halfi
Page 2 of 4

Leave a Tribute

Light a Candle
Lay a Flower
Leave a Note