This blog is a place where I can explore all those things that inspire me to be creative in my writing and in my photography. Nature is a major inspiration, and so are the friends and family around me. They have helped me expand my appreciation of the world and of different types of creative expression. I’ve decided to give them space on my blog as a venue to share their words and images with you. I hope that you enjoy. The first post should be up by June 15th. Stay tuned!
Posted in Guest Contributor, Inspiration | Tagged guest photographers, guest writers | Leave a Comment »
What words are evoked for you by this image?
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes | Leave a Comment »
My love affair with Dover Little Books began with stickers. Over the years I have purchased 4-page booklets of butterflies, dragons, frogs, and even Victorian kittens. Eventually I branched out to buy art stickers and postcard booklets as a way of introducing myself and young friends to fine art from around the world. The cost: $1.50 each. My most recent $3 splurge:
If you can’t find Dover little books in your local bookstore or stationary shop, the Dover website is worth a visit, especially the Books Under $10 page.
http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-books-under–10.html
Posted in Books I Love, Inspiration | Leave a Comment »
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathe in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Posted in Inspiration | Leave a Comment »
Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.
— Mary Oliver, an excerpt from the poem “It Was Early”
Posted in Inspiration | Leave a Comment »
Near the Hudson River, I sit beneath a tree that has flowers like a dogwood, pale, soft lit by the sun, a creamy golden white. They waver in what can only be called a gentle breeze. Bird cries fill the air, harsh and pointed. It is spring. The birds search for mates and want to have babies. A biological imperative I suppose.
*
Time passes. I still sit beneath the tree, staring up into the branches weighed down by blossoms. The breeze reveals the sheer lengths of spiders’ webs weaving throughout the canopy. Of the spiders I can see nothing, only their work.
*
A woodchuck, of all creatures, bounds by with baby in tow. A light golden brown shading darker in places. It could be a beaver but the tail seems too wrong. Earlier I saw squirrels, quite fat, and birds in all sizes and colors. But of deer I have seen nothing though they were the creatures I had been told to watch for.
*
And so there it is. The deer. A female, white tailed. As it ambles by I am reminded to practice what I preach to a dear friend: Patience and all will be revealed.
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, On the Road | Leave a Comment »
