into blue they flew

September 11 and we mourn long
from the skyline the towers torn
from the air the fallen ones
violent to earth they come
flightless birds
our longing words
cannot bring them back
and still they attack
across blue heavens they fly
from below we cry
here is safe haven
yet on they pass
troubled and heavy laden
rising fast.

All a flutter

Happy is anthropomorphizing the animal kingdom but all the butterflies and insects seemed quite happy today. Perhaps attributing to the somewhat cooler, breezy weather. Or the feeding frenzy. With tic weeds being about the only flower in profusion to feed on, there were plenty of fritillaries, monarchs, zebras, swallowtails,skippers and buckeyes with a few sulphurs out today. In addition, plenty of wasps and moths to round out the frenzy.
Used exclusively the 18-200 with the film canister diffuser on the flash on the D3100.
It allows a full-frame but not at such a close range to spook the insects. Walked the three mile perimeter. Saw two snakes in addition, along with two mantis, one eating upon a monarch.

Reunion of 1973

When I think back to all the crap I learned in high school
and so the song goes
and so Kodachrome has gone in my lifetime.
My public education began here behind those
double doors in Sopchoppy, Florida
I spent my first and second grade years there.
I fell in love with my second grade teacher,
miss Townsend.
and so my loves have gone on unceasing,
leaving them sitting in their wooden desks
as I moved on.
the 3rd and 4th grade years were spent
in Monticello
I liked, did not love Debra, got caught
sending her a note in class by Mrs Floyd.
5th and 6th grades were spent in
Wilmore, Kentucky.
April was the love who did
receive my notes and did
respond with multiple hearts and yes,
yes,yes,yes's.
I left her in a girl scout suit on the corner.
7th through graduation
came at Williston High.
I will not mention the many girls,
as I am still too close to them, except April and Rebecca who
have gone on.
And so Saturday, 6PM at the Woman's Club we
will meet for our 40th reunion.
I will go and put my best foot forward, if there is one.
I look over these 40 years and in many ways, I have
not even begun, or am in no better shape than the day
I graduated.
I am just as poor, I have yet to find a career that really suits me,
I am still doing photography, the Facebook and Blogs being my yearbooks, I am still biking and canoeing and running just as I did in High School.
But I hide all the failure and tell how grand things are.
I am sure, excepting the few who came into or from money, we are all struggling
in our own ways.
Some of us just hide it better than others.

bumble bee duo

deliberately set the exposure to plus one with flash. two bumble bees came along, fighting over the same tic weed. one shot only. fortunately it was in reasonable focus.  more times than not the canon s100 misses the focus. today i constructed a flash diffuser for the camera out of a milky film cannister. i cut a little rectangle out of the cannister the size of the pop up flash. inserting this over the flash gives a less harsh light. I will install a little orange color on the back of the cannister so when i reverse it, it will give a warm tone.
little tricks to get the best out of the point and shoots.
holding the camera upside down so the flash is on the bottom.
adjusting the ISO to its lowest, under-exposing two full stops, using the flash as fill.
using manual focus.
playing around with the AP and SP modes.
taking the white balance off Auto.
taking everything off Auto.
much more to it than just pointing and shooting, which will not give the expected result.
i am still trying to make the darn thing come to focus quicker.
its all on utube i am sure.

in praise of bees

in praise of bees
who pollinate tirelessly
more than honey
our very survivability

just three to four frames tonight on the two mile walk. in a very intense, bad mood, having words with every vehicle passing. do not know why such anger persists in my being, the angst, the fretting.
i could blame it upon being out of work since March, of missing Nathaniel, the communication black out, the upcoming high school reunion, the lack of going anyplace with the photography, poetry and writing efforts.
just a mess i am.
three days running without reading the daily morning scriptures. i was just reading through them to get through with them, not gaining any holiness or repentance.
i mull upon what my friend Ron said to me, i am done with you, i see your true colors, when i did not respond to his Revelations on Revelation and such.
he had asked for money as well and i did not come through there either.
just a mess.
one day upon these walks i keep hoping some bolt of light will strike as it did Paul on the way to kill Christians and i will hear the word, and i will cease the fretful life.
just a mess.

into blue

evening swimming in the pool
nearing midnight
saw a shooting star
faintly
lately things are so
unconventional
out of sorts
normally this late
I'd be sitting in that light
on the left
dog sleeping groaning
beside me
there was the day
he would accompany me
leaping in behind me
he just lay next to the
pool
and waited for the old fool
to finish the midnight
swim
so I could take him in
and
do what is
conventional for him.

No place like Lily

It was a rough Friday
Almost rear-ended two love bugs
Had to fly the long way to Lily
Avoiding the drug Darners
Stopped for some nectar
with one of the fiery skipper brothers
Wouldn't you know
the Pelecinid wasps had a few
too many dips
causing the skipper brothers
to flit
I couldn't take it
I flew the button bushed
to make it home to my lily
just in time to catch the latest
episode of
bug dynasty.

Come to me

Oh Zebra come to me
must I chase thee
up and down the trail
just alight for a spell
I will not tell

The others see
and follow your lead
with the Fritillary
much weight you carry
and of me
they become wary

Have pity on me
I have no wings
only dreams
and lately it seems
not even those
so please repose
and come to me.

Its a well known fact I spend an inordinate amount of time in daydream and places lonely and apart. Could it be from a broken heart that Job's friends cannot mend? We are going into the seventh month of our torment and if it seems behaviors are amiss, well it is because they are.
We do things we normally would not do, like chase Zebra's in lonely places and climb up slides just to see if by perchance the little ones remain atop and when they will come down.
Bear with us.
and Come to me
little Zebra.

Storms of Thursday

A lightening barrage that was so intense last evening you could see no streaks just the light bursts upon each other overlapping. It was after midnight before they moved West and I took the camera out on tripod for ten second exposures. The problem with ten second exposures, the camera takes ten seconds or more to process the shot. It was during this interval that the lightening streaks would appear and I would miss them. Then they became further apart. It was dark and I was too lazy to time them. Of the many fantastic streaks, I was only able to capture one.
Next time I will take all three cameras and shoot them at intervals, that way at least increasing my odds three fold.
The kayaks are about finished in the tinkering I am doing with them. I am attempting to find a seat back for the Hydra kayak. Yesterday I attached Nathaniels little life jacket but this morning decided against it. That meant taking the seat out again. Three of the bolts came out, one stripped in the holder. More work, another trip to Lowes in search of a screw holder in plastic.
On it goes.
Last evening I lent Melanie my good ear plugs and watched as her cat chewed them up. She would just shoo him, and not whack him like I would. So this morning I storm into her office and let her know her stupid cat chewed my ear plugs. Naturally, it was all my fault so I am in the dog house.
Women are that way.
Cats are infallible.
Men beasts.
And so Diane Webb congratulates me on not posting anything of my longing for Nathaniel and says she is sure they are wondering. I do not think so.
I think they could still care less if they ever see us again.
I do think our attitudes are being affected by all this. We are terse and short with one another. Like the cat situation. We are on edge. We mope. They are getting us good, if only they knew, I am sure it
would bolster their throwing upon us.

How deep do you plan on making the incision?
My thorn is only skin deep
Why do you think it best to go in from the backside
drilling through bone and sinew
to push it out from the other side?
Not to mar the appearance?
I thought so.
But wouldn't it just be best to leave it in?
That way the pain will always remain
eventually crippling me
then when I rot from gangrene
screaming
and they put me out of my misery
You can come and cry over me
 feigning an eulogy.

Reality Check up

Friend on Facebook today said I sure love nature more than anyone he knows. Said he did not have time for nature because life and work got in the way. For some reason that convicted me. I wrote back for him not to lament his state of being, that I could use a little more work and a little less nature. Walden is not always a life of quiet inspiration.
Reality check is I have been out of work since May. The search for a new job has bogged down as what is available out there depresses me. Retail, Dollar General, Lowes, Advance Auto...I lament that I am qualified at 58 years to do very little.
The two things I do enjoy, photography and writing are two things not in high demand. I do spend an inordinate amount of time doing both, spending too much time in nature, taking photographs, to what purpose? To gather a few likes on Facebook? To hang at the gallery to dust away?
So today, thank-you friend for the reality check up. They usually do not go the way intended. I end up not doing what I enjoy and grow restless and irritable, like an addict coming off a high.
I honestly do not know what the future has in store for one such as I, weary of work, weary of nature, weary of being weary to only weary my friends with the weariness.
I see the weariness all about me. I do not want to be seen as a Nature Boy, but obviously that is the cabin I have constructed.
Like I said, even Walden has its moments of quiet desperation.

Horsefarm Hundred

Last week I received my email entry to the October 19-20 Gainesville Cycling Club's Gainesville Cycling Festival, The Orthopaedic Institute Santa Fe Century and the Horse Farm Hundred. And then yesterday, my friend Teri Harty called from Deland, wanting to ride the event as a memorial to our friend Roger Sessler.
In 2003 I rode my first one hundred mile century with Roger, we riding for free since I had designed the tee shirt and as a result of our volunteering the day before at the Watermelon Park rest stop for the Santa Fe Century. Rodger and I continued to ride and volunteer up until 2008, riding our final century with Teri Harty and the VetMed Club, Teri being a UF vet school graduate.
Roger passed away in October of 2011 with complications from a heart oblation and ensuing kidney failure as a result. I have yet to ride any distance to speak of since his passing. He was a grand motivator and could  always be called upon for a long ride, at a pace that would not wear you out.
Every fall I long to get in shape and ride a century, especially the Horsefarm. And in shape you have to be for the entire Horsefarm peloton does not slack. The last century we rode, while I rode on ahead, Roger and Teri were the final two finishers. It is not a Sunday stroll through the Horsefarms of Ocala and back to Morningside Nature Center in Gainesville. It is a race, even though none of the riders would admit to it.
When the first cool front finally arrives, I will pump the Basso steel bike with the Gatorskin clinchers up to 110 psi and don the lycra and fill the waterbottles. I think I will ride out toward Gum Swamp in the Osceola Forest, a route we so often took. Less traffic as with each passing year, riding upon highways has become all the more deadly with the distracted texting and facebooking.
If I am able to make it a twenty-five miler, I will be content. I will ride alone, for all my friends are faster and I would not want to slow them down. Must every ride always be a see who finishes fastest and first?
I miss my friend Roger.

Labor Day

We cleaned the house for family to come over today. Lewis and Cindy came from Gainesville with Nick,Noah and Lyndsey. Paula bought mamma. Allison came with Pearce and Carson. Johnathan from next door came. While I cooked the burgers and dogs on the grill, after riding up to the S@S to exchange the blue rhino tank that did not work(convinced the clerk) with Nick, I went ahead and fixed my plate, skipping breakfast, then we all held hands and I prayed. Prayed for those not present, especially Landon and family.
The younger kids did the usual get on our nerve things...chasing the two hens all over the yard, holding them, harassing the cats, the dogs, throwing glass, cutting fingers and feet, texting girlfriends excessively, parents too lax, grandparents too tired, getting away with murder, all in the family.
Lewis and I watched AGS marathon, falling asleep. I awoke groggy and saw Noah from the back standing in the room. He looked just like Landon. In my half-awake state I almost believed he had returned home.
The chickens were elated when Lewis said time to go. We all commented how like serial killers the kids were, excepting Nick, who is given the hardest time and seems to us the most non-serial. But that is the way with family. We see others flaws before our own. Especially family flaws.
Anyhow, plenty of leftovers.
And who was that that said I was getting fat just like my daddy!
I'll kill 'em.