Suwannee Pieta

 Suwannee Pieta

Cradle me 

 Suwannee

Upon your knee

Keep me

From the raging

Coming

Quickly...

Learn

 Learning curves

I’m learning a few things about avian photography. One, being close to the subject covers a lot of issues. You can’t pull detail from a bird a half mile out. Two, I think pixels do matter. Though I’m shooting a 24mp camera, it’s still an amateur camera. They tell me you need at least 40mp and full frame. Glass matters. I’m shooting a f5.6 zoom. The way to go is primes. Primes are fix focus lenses, say 500mm only. And why not? All my zooms I shoot at full power anyway. I’m wasting my money. 

And that is the final thing I’m learning. It takes a camera case full of money to achieve the results I’m after.

71

 false side of the moon

john clare 

after nearly 

(in nine days)

Seventy-one years

Of musing

I have come to

The conclusion 

I have done 

Everything wrong

Listening to Floyd

In thirty-three

When all along

It was supposed 

To play in 

Seventy-eight

Backwards even better

To reveal the

Hidden meaning

To life

I so missed

Playing along

Musing at the false

Side of the moon.

Christmas 1987

 "We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive...The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow."

-From "A Winter Walk" by Henry Thoreau; First published in The Dial, 

I took a walk that morning in 87, I only wish I had walked longer and recorded more, as it was a once in my lifetime snow in Lake City. 

Angels Unaware

Angels Unaware

By john clare

Now if he was an angel I would have seen the wings

Heard the tune that heaven and nature sings

I would have placed upon the table the finest Rhodora

Set the golden silver in the proper order

But there was no table just a lift station pump

No song just the sound of sewage that stunk

Not the realm where angels should dwell

Wrapped in frumpy robes with a woody smell

And then as soon as my order came he was gone

The cars in line impatiently honked to move along

Later as I set the table of Lenox dinnerware

I wondered who would entertain angels unaware?

Dream wish

 I wished you in a dream

The brush of flesh to wing

I dreamed upon the wind

Winging flesh caressing.

Walk scently

 Walk scently 

Through the early mists ahead something slips

and one pauses perchance it hasn’t noticed 

but it knew the presence from the scent

long before the interloper ever came to stillness.

End of days

 Last year we opined 

The end of Diluvian days

And so it was 

And so we recall

Moon down

 Moon down

Moon down 

Came the cry

Stars up

Stars up

Came the reply

Of Redwings I sing

 Of Redwings I sing

Of pinewood vistas unfolding

Crescent moons humbly setting

Frost and freeze holding beauty

Down to the cry of one

Beholding eternity

I these I sing.

Larry

 Larry

Johnclarestokes 

Saturday mornings we see Larry

eating breakfast alone

at the Huddle House

in Five Points

Larry is an artist

Larry had a friend

Owen

Owen died

Larry eats alone at the Huddle House

I stop by his table and tell him hello

We both miss

Owen

Book yearning

 A Book Yearning

Johnclarestokes

Quickly! the Marshall said

Flee from the burning

And in my haste

I reached for the shelf

Scanning the books to read

Lamenting

I could not decide

Which to save

As in the flames

Words unread ascended

Not one remembered

All greatly missed