Patience (excerpt)I used to hurry everywhere,and leaped over the running creeks.There wasn’ttime enough for all the wonderful thingsI could think of to doin a single day. Patiencecomes to the bonesbefore it takes root in the heartas another good idea.I say thisas I stand in the woodsand study the patternsof the moon shadows,or stroll down into the watersthat now, late summer, have alsocaught the fever, and hardly movefrom one eternity to another.~Mary Oliver .
The spots on a butterfly’s wings are called “false eyes.” Nevertheless, every butterfly–indeed, all creatures, all creation–is truth. Guile belongs to humans alone.
Such beauty. It stopped me in my tracks and forced me to the side of the road.., where there was no “side of the road.” I was on a narrow mountain road just west of Jervis Bay, New South Wales, and I pulled to the side until the passenger door of my “hire car” was inches from the rock wall around which the road curved. Thank goodness, it was early and there was no traffic. I was in Australia to present a paper at an academic conference. More to the point, I was going through one of the biggest personal…
One of the reasons I began kayaking is because you can get closer to birds in a kayak than on land. The lower profile of a kayak on water and the smooth, silent movement–assuming you aren’t splashing your paddle!–seems to alarm them less. I came fairly close to the male Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) perched on a snag over Black Bayou Lake. Was he calling to his mate? Signaling that he was ready to take his turn on their nest? Warning away other birds? Announcing appreciation for the beauty and bounty around him? God told Job, Ask the beasts and the…
Such an ordinary tree, the sweetgum. Plentiful. Maybe too plentiful in Louisiana. An opportunistic species that seeds readily in an area disturbed by construction or a storm or whatever, quickly covering bare ground with glossy dark green, hand-shaped leaves. Then they spread rapidly, preventing slower species from getting started. Sweetgum seed balls are big and prickly and cover the ground in fall. Woe is the person who steps on one barefoot. Or wearing sneakers with openings in the soles. But those gumballs are full of seeds and the birds love them! So sweetgums are a bit of a “good news,…
Edge & Essence 