https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVEMs3kXBzE

oh this, so tender

Reset

Returning to this blog after being away for years. Here's to moving forward.

Is it Work?

Push

Lake Road

Once upon a time, huffing and slowly pushing my bike up a beautiful hill, I was given some good encouragement,  always give this. 

O-Bean, O-Bear...Happy Birthday

Many Thanks

Many thanks to Nashi for doing all the heavy creative lifting throughout the summer. 

October

 Season’s end

Haul in the boats

The mussel crusted docks

Haul in the buoys

Nashi

September

Also Sunday strolling harborside

A dragonfly on my sandal

 

Nashi

August

then

barefoot happy in creeks

now

I need oceans to take me away

 

Nashi

July

July’s steam heat

Sage among the roses

Thyme between the paving stones

Nashi

Song for Richard Collopy

Years ago I started listening to the band Sun Kill Moon, fell in love with a few songs from their early cds. Couldn't help but think how much Mark Kozelek reminded me of Scott Appel. While going through some of the cassettes from Scott I found one labeled, Mark Kozelek. Here's a song from Among the Leaves.

Going to the Beach on Tuesday

The tide at night, murmur of bare feet on the sand.

The tide, at dawn, opens the eyelids of the day.

The tide breathes in the deep night and, sleeping, speaks in dreams.

The tide that licks the corpses that the coast throws at it.

The tide rises, races, howls, knocks down the door, breaks the furniture, and
then, on the shore, softly weeps.

The tide, madwoman writing indecipherable signs on the rocks, signs of death.

The sand guards the secrets of the tide.

Who is the tide talking to, all night long?

—Octavio Paz, from “Target Practice” in issue 201, Summer 2012: http://tpr.ly/16StZKq. Art Credit Richard Diebenkorn.

Some Movies

"We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men." Some movies just get better and better with age. The English Patient gets better and better, so beautifully rendered.

Europe Summer Summer

Tour de France, Wimbledon, Running of the Bulls, 
Bastille Day, nice sequence.

St Patrick's Day Blessing

Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

John O’Donohue

Cosmic Void

At first glance, it looks like this could be a microscopic image of tree bark or seashell; or it might be a cluster of blood cells in the body. But this evocative image depicts the grandest scales of all — streams of matter delineating the network of cosmic voids, each tens of millions of light years across.

Matter accumulates where the voids meet, forming a cosmic web
of walls, filaments, and clusters of galaxies. This illustration was awarded first place in the informational graphics category in the 2011 Science/NSF International Science & Engineering
Visualization Challenge.

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes

this brown paper bag of peaches

we bought from the boy

at the bend in the road where we turned toward

signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,

from sweet fellowship in the bins,

comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin, but the shade,

not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into

the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background; from joy

to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to

impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee

Solitary

"You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

Franz Kafka

Bon Iver - Blindsided

Dinner

When we arrived at the house, the table was set for dinner.

Beautiful Panorama

I miss this view.

Just Back from Vacation

Spent days watching butterflies,hummingbirds, waves, stars and clouds.

Surfer Girl

My sister Patty McNally has taken up surfing. I have to find the quote about finding balance in the moment like it is infinity - that's what ducks and surfers do.

Just Back

Just Back from Florida. A visit with my mother and sisters, my mother is 87. This was her favorite painting at the exhibition we attended in Palm Beach.

Reading Mary Oliver

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain.I dip my cupped hands.

I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire.It falls cold into my body, waking the bones.

I hear them deep inside me,whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?

Mary Oliver

The Lost Correspondent

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”

Pericles

Underwater Sculpture by Jason Taylor - The Lost Correspondent

Lace Shovels

This artist creates lace wheelbarrows too - love her work, just forgot her name...to be continued.

The Peonies

During the long week before Christmas and the slow week after Christmas the peonies wrote their own silent poem.

Sinterklaas

Spent my birthday in Rhinebeck, New York where we stumbled upon something magical called the Sinterklaas Festival. Here is a link to a video I made from my photos.

Judging the Holiday Windows

Walking through town before Christmas looking at each and every window. We are the worst judges - we like everything.

Time

Time to return to my poor neglected blog. It's the beginning of a new year.

Fall Waterfall

Beautiful autumn walk through the woods in pennsylvania. A video of the photos.

Poet Laureate

The Edges of Time



It is at the edges
that time thins.
Time which had been
dense and viscous
as amber suspending
intentions like bees
unseizes them. A
humming begins,
apparently coming
from stacks of
put-off things or
just in back. A
racket of claims now,
as time flattens. A
glittering fan of things
competing to happen,
brilliant and urgent
as fish when seas
retreat.

Kay Ryan

Photos from the Summer Vacation

Jackie on her balcony with Ryan and Owen, below the reef where they learned to snorkel.

The Track at Twilight

With my iPod on random shuffle and the playlist perfected in heaven, I get to walk to it, into a sunset, a pick up game with soccer players centerfield, mothers and children walking alongside me on the track and the marching band practicing just a few yards away- beautiful. Late last night an amazing dream of a house far away in the south.

Fall Ball and Birthday at Osteria Philadelphia

There was an egg on the Lombardo pizza when Ryan turned 21 in Philadelphia. Not long after that another trip to watch the boys play " fall ball" in a tournament. Nice to see my two favorite players out on the field.

Back to School for R and O

Late Summer Wedding

perfect day on the peninsula at Osgood Pond just north of Saranac - surrounded by blue.

Even Ornaments of Speech are Forms of Deceit

It's 1667. Reason is everywhere, saving
for the future, ordering a small glass of wine.
Cause, arm in arm with Effect, strolls by
in sturdy shoes.

Of course, there are those who venture
out under cover of darkness to buy a bag
of metaphors or even personification
from Italy, primo and uncut.

But for the most part, poets like Roderigo
stroll the boulevards in their normal hats.
When he thinks of his beloved, he opens
his notebook with a flourish.

"Your lips," he writes, "are like lips."

Ron Koertge

Why do i enjoy this poem so much?

August

Summer is flying by - Melanie's beautiful photo of Alden's last voyage

platine blue egg on grilled asparagus

Details to follow

Reading Jane Kenyon Tonight

Happiness 165

There's just no accounting for happiness,
Or the way it turns up like a prodigal
Who comes back to the dust at your feet
Having squandered a fortune far away.

empty school

Learned how to use Animoto today

A Long Lacrosse Season

This has been a season for the record books. Owen's team has won every game but one so far and Ryan had his big chance at the Gettysburg Game and had such a great game it was mentioned in a national lacrosse magazine. We've had 2 weeks of sports perfection - rare indeed.

April

Ellen Buselli's Opening at Salmagundi

Ellen Buselli's paintings are gathered in a gallery overlooking 47- fifth avenue. The perfect place for these exquiste visual jewels.

Rainy Foggy

So like spring, milder weather but still foggy and moody like winter.

Spring

Spring arrived early, preceded by snowstorms and what could only be called a tempest. Runners, walkers, bikers, are everywhere, like inmates who have broken out the asylum.

First College Lacrosse Game

In the pouring rain this afternoon I watched Ryan's first College lacrosse game -hats off to you Ryan, for perserverance and skill.

Last Hockey Game

Last game tonight. Last Hockey Game. Owen's team lost tonight in the State Championship quarterfinals. The team played great. They should all be proud of their season. Owen was sad to think of the season ending. Very hard to imagine not beginning a new hockey season next fall...so it goes.

Another Beautiful Destination

Rock and Hawk

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.

Robinson Jeffer

the place on earth

Mapquest

Very grateful for mapquest tonight as I print out directions for two school visits tomorrow.

Crow House

"Brigadoon is a beloved musical about an imaginary village time has forgotten... or so everyone assumes. In fact, Brigadoon is a real place, an artists' colony near the Hudson River where Alan Jay Lerner composed Brigadoon's lyrics and libretto. Miraculously, a fragment of that hamlet has survived completely intact. Less than an hour north of Manhattan, in a serene woodland setting, Crow House is the home and studio of Henry Varnum Poor (1887-1970), whom The New Yorker magazine, in 1931, lauded as one of America's finest painters. A ceramist, muralist, craftsman, architect and polemicist as well, Poor went on to co-found the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and today his pottery and paintings can be found in the collections of major American art museums."

Oh, Canada

Hats off to the Canadian team - it was a great game. The USA team came back from a 2 goal lead and tied it up with only seconds left, lost it in sudden death overtime with a goal from Crosby - so it goes.

Patty's Coconut Cake

I keep hearing about the amazing Coconut cake that Patty made from scratch. In my imagination it looks like this - the perfect complement to our weather.

February 2010

snow and more snow

Valentine's Day

Casablanca on TCM - African Queen, next.

January

Overturned urns
Along an ice grim roadside
Swelled geese
Sleek and gourd-taut

Nashi

Morning Snow on Knox Hill

So Proud of My Sister

Some 200 guests attended the highly-acclaimed "Front Lines of Hope" Discussion Series at Scripps Florida in Jupiter on January 21, featuring Dr. Claes Wahlestedt, Professor and Director of Neuroscience Discoveries at Scripps Florida and Patty Doherty who founded with her family The Unforgettable Fund. Dr. Wahlestedt and Mrs. Doherty discussed the devastating effects of Alzheimer's and the hopes for combating it in the future at this invitation-only event sponsored by the Scripps Florida Council.
Patty McNally Doherty is one of seven children whose father, Richard McNally, died from Alzheimer's in 2006. She spoke to the audience about her families personal experience embroiled in her father's 11 year battle with Alzheimer's. Mrs. Doherty and her family founded The Unforgettable Fund, to honor their father's memory and raise money for Alzheimer's research. The Fund's three-pronged mission is to raise money dedicated exclusively for Alzheimer's research, to be a voice for the Alzheimer's community, and to serve as a collective memory bank for families affected by the disease. To date, The Unforgettable Fund – www.unforgettablefund.com - has raised $50,000 to aid in the work being done in the Scripps Florida research laboratories to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease.

Unmistaken Child

Watched a great movie this weekend. “Unmistaken Child” documents the four-year search of Tenzin Zopa, a gentle, baby-faced 28-year-old Nepalese monk, for the reincarnation of his Tibetan master, Geshe Lama Konchog, who died in 2001. The young monk’s journey, on foot, by mule and by helicopter, begun at the request of the Dalai Lama, takes him through some of the world’s most spectacular high country, as he travels from village to village, seeking a very young child, 1 to 1 ½, who shows signs of being his reincarnated teacher.The film, written and directed by Nati Baratz, is a real-life examination of the same rituals and traditions observed in Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun.” Like Mr. Scorsese’s movie, it stands in awe of its subject. The beauty of the landscape and the monk’s sweetness, humility and good humor evoke a plane of existence, at once elevated and austere, that is humbling to contemplate."

Context

The imprisoned
Given charcoal and paper
Draw the bars of their cage

KC

Fernando Pessoa

(Portugal, 1888 - 1935)It is sometimes said that the four greatest Portuguese poets of modern times are Fernando Pessoa. The statement is possible since Pessoa, whose name means ‘person’ in Portuguese, had three alter egos who wrote in styles completely different from his own. In fact Pessoa wrote under dozens of names, but Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos were – their creator claimed – full-fledged individuals who wrote things that he himself would never or could never write. He dubbed them ‘heteronyms’ rather than pseudonyms, since they were not false names but “other names”, belonging to distinct literary personalities. Not only were their styles different; they thought differently, they had different religious and political views, different aesthetic sensibilities, different social temperaments. And each produced a large body of poetry. Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis also signed dozens of pages of prose.

The gods by their example
Help only those
Who seek to be nowhere
But in the river of things

* * *
I have no ambitions nor desires.
To be a poet is not my ambition,
It's simply my way of being alone.

* * *
I am nothing.
I will never be anything.
I cannot wish to be anything.
Bar that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.


Fernando Pessoa

Twenty Ten

Thinking about the spring and gathering books to read...ordered Better, In Praise of Shadows, Committed and Drive.

Issa Snow

1822
.大雪のどこがどこ迄ろくな春
ôyuki no do[ko] ga doko made rokuna haru

how far across
this deep snow
until spring?

Kobayashi Issa

December Snow

The woods
Snowfall silent
Resonate with cryings
Of a peregrine

Nashi

Owls

Waking to the sound of owls these past few nights. Last night, before dawn, cries like naaah..... followed by who..who..who.....who-who? Over and over and over, again.

December

Moonrise
The sun not set
White Cheeked Geisha
Behind a Juniper fan

Nashi

November

In a cotton field
Of blown thistles:
Primrose, aster, goldenrod

Nashi