The sun’s still warm, and flowers still bloom.
The air feels heavy, slow and moody, like colors in a dream.
Skies are blue, sad and aching
September 11 blue.
___________________________
© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Tell me
What you think about
When you’re looking
Out to the vastness
Of the sky and the sea.
© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
Photos and images may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
The peace that rises from the ocean.
When I get to the beach, it calms and soothes and calls out to a part of my soul. A part that lives and waits for its powerful reassurance. Powerful and gentle, and real as the morning’s breeze.
White caps, out a ways, wavy lines peak and take their turn, spilling onto the sand, waves crest, come ashore and bubble on morning’s pristine sand, ocean waves break and travel onto shore, repetitive assurance, gentle assurance, waves come, waves fall back, rest assured, my soul, the ebb and the flow lives as it should, we can relax and be as we live out our destiny.
That peace.
© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
It’s a little like when you glance downstairs late at night, and everything is dark. Everything in your full vision, everything that’s both central and peripheral, everything that’s in your soul, it’s all whispers and dark shadows. Dark as the night.
Except that now everything is dazzling bright, and green as a spring day. A full, mature, all-encompassing spring. When I sit at my computer these days and look out over the top of the monitor to what’s outdoors…everything’s the look of spring green. It’s mottled, of course, not one page of flat green construction paper. Patches of dark and bright, and everything in between, shimmering in the breeze. It’s a vision chock-full of spring.
It reminds me of that warm summer day when I went down by the stream, and the water was shining in my eyes in full reflection mode, mirroring the neon dreamy color of all the surrounding shrubs and trees. It reminds me of the time I stood under a weeping willow tree and looked up for comfort to the leafy green strands cascading towards me. A full vision, packed with the wondrous embrace of eternity.
___________________
© 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.
The ying/yang of a rainy night. The sights and sounds a sensory feast, and yet a scene that scares me a bit. Living with tall trees overhead means living with that feeling. In the middle of a windy storm, I don’t know whether to sit by the window and enjoy the light show, or to hide out in the basement.
I look outside and think about birds sheltering down in the elements, and wonder what in the world they think. When they’re at the beginning of their night and wake in the dark to the clamor of thunder and the gushy sounds of rain pouring down through trees and shrubs to the spot where they’re trying to rest. I understand birds are light sleepers, but they don’t seem to wake up and start tweeting in the middle of a midnight rain. Some definitely tweet at the beginning of a daytime rain. As if to say, “Hey, in case you didn’t notice, folks, it’s raining. Better find cover under some branch.” And I imagine the rest of the birds roll their eyes and think, “Yeah, smarty pants, like the rest of us didn’t notice.”
So do the dads come flying to the aid of the nest when it starts to rain hard? As far as I know, they don’t. I’m not sure we have studies, but I don’t think so. The mother, though, the mother spreads her wings over the little ones and must think something like, “Give me a break, I’ve been at this all day trying to keep these guys fed and content, and now in the middle of the night, when I’m not likely to go out and hunt juicy worms… now… now we get this rain. Like, can’t I at least get a decent night’s rest?” I haven’t found this information at the Audubon site, but what else can those birds be thinking?
“Well, I love a rainy night
It’s such a beautiful sight
I love to feel the rain on my face
Taste the rain on my lips
In the moonlight shadows
Showers wash all my cares away
I wake up to a sunny day
’cause I love a rainy night
yeah, I love a rainy night
Lyrics from Eddie Rabbitt’s I Love a Rainy Night.
An evening out back, in the dark, to cover plants. Surrounded by whatever’s left of ragged plants that have given their all, and the smell of someone’s fireplace. We’re well into fall, and yet the morning glories have just started producing buds. I respect their determination, their persistence, and feel the obligation to do my part, which is to protect them from cold nights. I looked up from the task at hand, to the dark cover of tall trees, and listened, deliberately, to the quiet.
I listened for crickets, and heard none. None at all. No cricket-style ‘call and response’. Nothing. It could have been winter.
Yet, in the midst of this quiet, I hear the soft pitapat of dried leaves rustling above me. A familiar rustling. A sound tucked away from the past, not from golden leaves and autumn nights, but from ancient trees and winter days. Days at the end of a long, bitter winter, when February winds blow through lofty limbs and the scattering of leaves still hanging on huge weathered pin oaks.
I turned to step back inside, and caught the creak of a single cricket. One lone, strong-willed cricket with something left to say, calling out from somebody else’s yard, somewhere in the distance.
A single tenacious cricket, and October’s wind rustling the leaves. Fall’s whimsy.
I want to get caught in the spirit of some idea or words and write something that feels like the ocean, like lightning in the distance, like something glorious. Like the lights that shimmer off ordinary plants after a rain.
low tide and sunset skies
Why are clouds so much more when they hover above the open sea? Something about the color of the ocean and the blue sky and summer cotton clouds, ahead, above, and all around. The sky and the ocean, similarly infinities.
Someone’s gazing at clouds from a spot on the shore, and I wish it was me. I can almost feel it now. And I wish it was me.
There should be a checklist. Fireflies. Fireworks. A spectacular storm that doesn’t bring down any trees. Coffee on a fresh morning after it’s rained. A walk on the beach. A walk in the woods. Staking tomatoes. Watering plants. Treading water and lazy laughs with friends. Snapdragons. Dragonflies. Bugs and muggy nights.
The confluence? July 23rd. An evening outside when there’s still more than a few fireflies, and already, crickets chirp, as if to announce a movement towards August. Surrounded by a blend of scents from the plants I love. It’s happened before, evenings like this, and I ponder which plants disperse that heavenly fragrance.
Inside, pink coneflower cuttings drop pollen on the countertop. As my cloth wipes away the yellow powder, I detect a floral scent. Not an overdone designer aroma. But the real-deal pollen floral scent.
Some golden bits of summer to store up, as if I’m capable, and hold for some lifeless November afternoon.
etikser 