Tag: blogging

2021, plants

ferns

etikser

If someone did a Top Ten list of plants that inspire, ferns would be there. Mayapples would be there. Giant oak trees would be there. Flowers that show up on their own, and bloom at the edge of a paved street, for sure would be there. I’m talking about plants with personality, plants that stir the imagination, plants that make you smile. Plants that make you write a story. It’s a short list.

A field of wildflowers, as far as the eye can see. That kind of imagination.

Ferns. A stegosaurus stomps the ‘earth’, the way we imagine the earth looked millions of years ago. With each step, the ground thuds as the dinosaur moves past vegetation…huge, prehistoric ferns. Yeah, that kind of imagination.

So, ferns. This is what I love about ferns. Well, for one thing, they hang around all year. They survive the winter. Like we do.  They’re not fresh and robust when they meet the first light snowfall, or the last cold icy storm. But they don’t dry up and wither away, or lose all their leaves like some bigger, stronger, more impressive ‘plants’, otherwise known as trees. Buried under January’s coldest, iciest cover, the fern hunkers down, close to the ground. You scrape away the slush and snow and hardened icicles. And there’s a fern. I have respect for that.

Is there another plant that comes to life with the charm and charisma of a fern? I know, somebody’s gonna come up with some mushroom that pops up overnight in an interesting way. Nope, forget it, not good enough.

You can smell the scent of ‘earth’. And take in the filtered light shining from above through the branches of those tall awesome oak trees. Peculiar little mayapples cover the leafy-rich surface. And fancy green ferns unfold.

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Bob Marley

music and images

etikser


When I hear Bob Marley, I see shades of tangerine and vivid pink. And pictures in tropical greens and blues and yellows. And one of those small half-circle type windows, with sheer white curtains gathered neatly in a fan, to block out the afternoon sun.

Outside on the covered porch, someone waits in the shade of painted wood. A fancy overhang, and thin carved spindles. Tiny glass chimes, multi-colored prisms, hang down between the spindles, quiet and motionless on a day that’s warm and still. And past the cover of the building, blue skies. Gravel and grass, magenta-colored flowers, and lush green sandy vegetation.

I pick up the scent of stewed chicken.

The imagination’s funny. It takes a little of this reality, and the flavor of a song or a memory, and without beckoning, it floats some kind of blurry image your way. Like the soft elements of it all have been waiting around in your head, waiting for something to stir them up.

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2021, space, time

continuum

etikser

In high school physics class, I did a paper on the theory of relativity. I didn’t choose the subject. It was a random distribution of topics, and I was lucky enough to get the theory of relativity. I did the research, I typed up the words and wrote sentences and paragraphs, and I prepared and delivered a presentation. Did I understand anything about the theory of relativity? No. I didn’t understand it then. I don’t understand it now.

After our stand-in-front-of-the-class presentations, the teacher asked each student a series of questions. So I read what I’d prepared for my report, and he asked me question #1, which I don’t recall at all. I spoke some words, because I was aware that words were required under such circumstances. But I knew, and he knew, I had almost no real understanding of the subject matter. I finished speaking and looked at him, and he looked at me with something like a blank look on his face. He said, ‘okay’, and there was a pause, and he moved on to the next presentation.

It’s called mercy.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.

Not my artwork on the wall. It was mass produced, and I bought it years ago. All other 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.

2021, continuum

reflections

etikser


It’s a lull. It’s a pause. It’s a pendulum ready to swing. It’s a moment that hangs there. It’s a breath, and then it’s gone.





© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.

Not my artwork in first photo. It was mass produced, and I bought it years ago. All other 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.

John Denver

the end of your rainbow

etikser

I caught a ride on the dreamland express last night.
I was sailing on an ocean of blue.
And right there by my side,
Much to my surprise,
Was you….
You said, let me be the end of your rainbow.
Let me be the stars up above.
Let me be the one that you long for, darlin’.
Let me be the one that you love.
Oh, let me be the one that you love.

The words are John Denver’s, from Dreamland Express. A sweet romantic old song.

The photo’s mine. One of my all-time favorites, from 2019, and the best rainbow I’ve ever seen. It stretched out across the big sky in front of me and came to rest in the trees, a couple hundred feet away. I wanted to run over to the trees just to find out what I’d find, you know, whatever it is you find, at the end of a rainbow.

night

out on the edge of darkness

etikser

I’ve only seen the milky way once. If I had to guess, I’ll never see it again. I suppose there are people who live in the middle of nowhere and see it often. Sometimes? Often? I don’t know. But. There are stars.

And there’s the milky way.

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This is a night sky with clouds. I surely don’t have any photos of the milky way. “Out on the edge of darkness”, those are words from Cat Stevens’ Peace Train (1971).

heaven

????

etikser

I don’t know what heaven’s like. Sometimes I imagine, though.

Do souls remember each other? From their days on earth, on solid ground.

Do they have a level of souldom beyond anything we, living humans, can understand? Like, do they know the code? And do they make new connections with fascinating souls who lived centuries ago? Or do they still hang with the same folks they knew from human times, old friends from their lives, the lives they lived here?

Ahh, I don’t know. What do you think?

Is there still pride? And egos? Music and noise?

Are they sitting around a table? Laughing out loud. Joking. Telling stories.

I hope so.

2021

out and about

etikser

Excitement and high pitched voices. Nothing you could recognize as words. It wouldn’t be going too far to call it squealing.

The sound of kids. The sound of kids heading somewhere with the pace they use when it’s just them. Kids with no grown-ups holding them back. Like … FREEDOM!

After a full minute of just sounds moving up the trail, two boys came around the bend on bikes. Maybe eight years old. Helmets. Full speed. Wheels bouncing over bumpy dirt. You know the rhythm of left/right, left/right. That standing-up kind of pedaling kids use when they want to go as fast as they can. All the time, their almost-yelling-we’re-so-excited-voices. Not indoor voices. No, definitely outdoor voices.

They looked and sounded like they’d been in timeout for a week, and were just released. Or they were pals who hadn’t seen each other for a long time. They sounded like it was Halloween night, and they just left home for a couple hours of fun, fun, fun. It sounded like the last day of school, in normal times.

Kids have their own version of YAY.

reading

tiptoe

etikser

It’s like a tiptoe.

That book we read at night.

In a room that’s dark, but for the glow of a reader, everything’s still and the day’s chores are done. A minute for the brain to shift reality. Then, on cue, characters find their places in the plot, and slowly start up where they left off, with footsteps, stealthy footsteps. And their flaws, and missteps.

They creep along, close to the ground. And stop long enough to peak out, from the shelter of a field that lies quiet, below a sky that hasn’t changed yet, from evening to night. It’s July, and the damp air lingers with the smell of dirt, and vegetation, and tension. They rise up, so they’re almost standing, and stare past the tall stalks, into a clearing. And then stunned and silent, they fall back. Without even time to digest and recalculate their surroundings, they hear words in the distance. Far-off words, words that should be silent and mysterious, hang with invisible clarity in the air overhead, in that place where hope evaporates to sky.

life, music, prince

in through the out door

etikser

First, you want to picture him. One-of-a-kind in that blue sky / white cloud suit, his impish grin, and those big brown eyes, drawing you in….

Okay? Ready?

One,
Two,
One, two, three, four.

I was working part time in a five-and-dime.
My boss was Mr. McGee.
Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing
But different than the day before.
That’s when I saw her, ooh, I saw her.
She walked in through the out door, out door.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[lyrics from Prince’s Raspberry Beret]

[This is a re-post. Prince passed away five years ago, a genius lost much too soon.]