Kris Kristofferson, words

the freedom of an eagle when she flies

etikser


I have seen the morning
Burning golden on the mountain in the skies
Aching with the feeling
Of the freedom of an eagle when she flies
— Kris Kristofferson
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I haven’t been writing much lately. It’s like I forgot how to type words. I forgot the freedom. The freedom of just typing words. We don’t ever want to lose the freedom of just typing words, do we?

“I have seen the morning burning golden…” These have been some of my favorite words for years and years. Some of my favorite words of all time. Why? Because of the way they sound, for certain…morning burning golden, aching with the freedom. Don’t they sound the way words were created to sound? And the picture? The picture they put in my mind? A picture I look up to see in the morning, on every good morning. I wonder what those big birds think when they circle up there. Do they think, oh whoah, that’s a long way down? Or do they look down from above the tallest branches of my favorite oak trees, and do they see it as their domain? Their purview? Their reach? Do they see it like I see the plants and trees that surround me? The plants and trees I look out and see affectionately as my own.

All our souls matter. Souls like Kris Kristofferson’s for sure matter. He gave us the gift of beautiful words and music that reaches down to the very gut of our existence. There’s God, who’s above all. And there’s the stuff of birds and trees and good picking guitar strums and words and souls. They all matter. Beautiful words matter. Beautiful words have a special place in our universe.

Thanks to Kris Kristofferson for his beautiful words.

____________________________________________________
Lovin’ Her Was Easier (1971) by Kris Kristofferson

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.

2024, september

september still

etikser

September

The air’s not still, but it’s slow motion. Like colors in a dream.

Skies are blue, sad and aching September 11 blue. September blues.

The sun’s still warm, flowers still bloom.

And a season’s worth of foliage sways overhead in a hazy, lingering-summer’s, lazy way.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.

sunset

on a warm summer’s evening . . . 9

etikser

When I was a kid, it seemed like summer got a running start at the 4th of July, and then reached its pinnacle in August. I remember August bringing the hottest days of the season, and the warmest, most restless nights. When you kicked the sheets and struggled for sleep with windows left open for cross-ventilation…crickets chirping outside and few cooling breezes to bring relief. It was the time for learning to swim underwater, for cook-outs with family friends (picnic tables, the public grill, and plumes of smoke that smelled of burgers, hot dogs, and charcoal). It was an August day when we went to the lake in the mountains. Surely, it was an August night when they wrote the song Summertime.

Now I’m all grown up, and then some, and August feels more like a cheerless transition.

But…the trees stand green, and the grass and shrubs hold strong, in the face of a merciless June and July. You can’t see it in the picture, but horses ran along a nearby fence, and stalks and stalks of green corn poised robust and plentiful enough to make my paltry six already-picked and drying corn plants at home stand a bit taller with envy. Sunset at 7:30 on a late August evening still has a bit of summery grace.

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On a warm summer’s evening … simple words … my favorite kind of words … packed with age-old nuance and memories.
Credit:  The Gambler, performed by Kenny Rogers (1978), written by Don Schlitz.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.

lightning

on a warm summer’s evening . . . 8

etikser

Fed and rested, after an afternoon bouncing in these waves, I can savor the drama of watching from above, at a window safe indoors. Beach hair and a vacation state of mind, and the allure of an electrical storm out at sea.

_________________________

On a warm summer’s evening … simple words … my favorite kind of words … packed with age-old nuance and memories.
Credit:  The Gambler, performed by Kenny Rogers (1978), written by Don Schlitz.

___________________________

© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.

raindrops

on a warm summer’s evening . . . 7

etikser

I wonder if it’ll rain in the morning. I think I want it to rain. It’s not raining tonight. The sky, it’s the summer version of a snow sky, cloudy gray hiding the stars and the moon behind treetops. But my inner ear senses a hushed sound…soft and distant, almost-gushing…like raindrops.

I believe in grace, and I believe in souls, and I believe in God, and the holy refreshment that comes when we open our eyes from our dreams, and hear the pleasant patter of a gentle morning shower.

_________________________

On a warm summer’s evening … simple words … my favorite kind of words … packed with age-old nuance and memories.
Credit:  The Gambler, performed by Kenny Rogers (1978), written by Don Schlitz.

___________________________

© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.

memories

on a warm summer’s evening . . . 6

etikser


My dad joked about his ‘friends’. I knew the friends he had at home, and this had nothing to do with them. Every time he looked at me and smiled about his ‘friends’, my mom rolled her eyes impatiently. I didn’t get it. I had no idea what he was talking about.

I had a tank of frogs then, pet frogs you could say, in the room that served as the guest bedroom. It was probably the only spot I could find to locate the tank. And my parents used to visit regularly, several times a year, and would stay a few days to a week.

I didn’t know this, but apparently, in the middle of the night, the frogs were vocal. Yeah, what you’d imagaine…ribbit, etc. My dad would hear them, and ribbit back. Yes…these were his friends. My dad was amused, my mom not so much. So this was the scene. It was 3 am or so, the room (somewhat familiar and somewhat foreign) pitch dark, and the ribbiting started. My mother wasn’t charmed by the sound. She wasn’t the camping type, and didn’t find the sound of nearby frogs lulled her to sleep. She pictured frogs hopping around the room. That wasn’t bad enough, but then my dad would start ribbiting back to them. So she’d lay in the dark with the sound of frogs nearby, and the imagined visual of frogs hopping around her, and this guy next to her making his own frog sounds.

My dad thought it was funny. I thought it was very funny. My mom did not think it was funny at all. It wasn’t easy, but we found another spot for the frogs.

I can’t honestly say I would appreciate the sound of frogs ribbiting nearby in the middle of the night. The frogs pictured here, fuzzy photos through dewy glass, don’t live in my house, and they don’t ribbit. So it seems, anyhow.

Almost another lifetime…more than 15 years ago. But these are the memories that bring whimsy and a smile to our lives.

_________________________

On a warm summer’s evening … simple words … my favorite kind of words … packed with age-old nuance and memories.
Credit:  The Gambler, performed by Kenny Rogers (1978), written by Don Schlitz.

___________________________

© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.

writing

on a warm summer’s evening . . . 5

etikser

None of the words in my head tonight are words I should write. They’re words I’d delete in the morning. A glass of wine, and they’re the best words I have for the night. My best unspoken words.

[Okay…last night it wasn’t unspoken.]

_________________________

On a warm summer’s evening … simple words … my favorite kind of words … packed with age-old nuance and memories.
Credit:  The Gambler, performed by Kenny Rogers (1978), written by Don Schlitz.

___________________________

© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.

bugs

on a warm summer’s evening . . . 4

etikser

I killed something the other night. Something I’d call a thousand-legger. A centipede? A millipede? I have no idea. It was late at night, and my vision detected movement along the floorboard. A centipede or a millipede…no matter. It was moving quickly, with lots of legs, and it was creepy. I knew I had to be swift, firm, and aggressive, and I had to completely kill this menacing bug if I intended to sleep. No half-smacks. It was standing still (all those legs motionless), and this was my chance. I had to move without hesitation. Like really, there I was, the day’s chores complete, teeth brushed and flossed, and I grabbed the weapon of choice (a wad of tissue). I stood there (shoeless), it stood there (with all those legs), both of us poised, ready. I’d already seen it move, and I knew I had to bring my A-game. I moved quickly, grabbed it and squeezed, and breathed a sigh of relief. The bug was more or less crushed in my wad of tissue. Emphasis on ‘more or less’.

A brief moment of examination …

And then it moved … what was left of it moved. Yikes! This half-dead bug moved enough to escape the tissue and brush its creepy legs against my finger. I felt it…tickling my finger!! Eeech, creepy, creepy, creepy!!

My instincts kicked in. Without pause, I moved, and what was left of the thousand-legger dropped off my finger into the water, which, woosh, swiftly washed it away. 

_________________________

On a warm summer’s evening … simple words … my favorite kind of words … packed with age-old nuance and memories.
Credit:  The Gambler, performed by Kenny Rogers (1978), written by Don Schlitz.

___________________________

© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
This is not the actual insect involved, but an outdoor bug.
All photos and images here are my own and may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com,
where I post mostly nature photos.

kids

on a warm summer’s evening . . . 3

etikser

I don’t know why I was running. Maybe I needed to get ‘home free’. Back to ‘base’. Maybe part of Hide n Seek. It was part of some game, and it was dark out. When I was a kid, I thought I was a fast runner (doubtful), and that thought was in my head as I ran down the sidewalk. I can remember that precise thought and I can still envision the cracks in the sidewalk, right under the street light. I could find the exact spot today. I don’t think it was the crack in the sidewalk that tripped me up. I think it’s that my upper body was feeling so very confident, it was pulling me faster than my legs could go. In any case, I fell (went flying) down and slid along the sidewalk, like a runner slides into home plate. But this wasn’t a baseball game, and my legs were wearing shorts and sliding along concrete, not the sandy dirt they use to line a baseball diamond. Yeah, my legs got all scratched up, bleeding, a big bloody mess, etc., and it was the end of the evening’s fun for me.

A lifetime ago, since I had that fall, and I think today about summer knees, and how bad my knees are nowadays. Maybe it’s the contrast and the awareness of my current shortcomings that made me write. Things wear out. Knees wear out. But that night, I was so confident I was a great runner, right up to the moment I realized I would, for sure, hit the pavement.

Maybe this one’s a salute to who we were as kids, to the confidence, to the knees, we had as kids. Yeah, on a warm summer’s night, many nights ago.

__________________________

On a warm summer’s evening … simple words … my favorite kind of words … packed with age-old nuance and memories.
Credit:  The Gambler, performed by Kenny Rogers (1978), written by Don Schlitz.

___________________________

© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.