How life is lately

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
~ Confucius

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
~ Oscar Wilde

Phun with photos

 

Playing around with photos taken with my phone. A tiny downtown Boise can be glimpsed between the two power poles.

I wonder if Rothko rode a bike?

The scene near my office. It's going to be a long summer....

To have such peace as light through a rose.

One evening during sunset

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream.
~Bern Williams

As spotted during a walk

Watch the birdie

So many birds -- so little time....

Maia's bounty

Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun.
~Kahlil Gibran

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.
~ Emily Dickinson

Lost and Found

What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.
~ Dan Quayle

Reflections on the week

As we struggle to make sense of things, life looks on in repose. 
~Author Unknown

Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does. 
~William James

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. 
~Lin Yutang

Three ways of looking at a blackbird

As inspired by Wallace Stevens ~

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Follow the leader

Walk this way...

and don't mind the shadows -- or the fact that we're being watched.

The reply

I've been more than patient with you stomping around here.

Now, get lost!

And stop pointing that frickin' camera at me.

Oh deer....

Here I am relaxing, enjoying the sun after a nice breakfast.

But then Trevor shows up, all neurotic about seeing a few people along the path.  "Trevor," I say, "this is a PARK. We're SAFE. There's always gonna be people. Get used to it!"

But, nooooo, he just can't relax. So it's back to the underbrush -- again....

Someone's watching

Duck eyes. Always watching, keeping a wary eye out, even though I was shooting some distance away with a zoom lens. 
Some ducks have distinctive patterns around their eyes. 

Some don't. 

Some look pissed off. 

Some look eerie. 

And some look miffed because I interrupted their luncheon. 

A difference of opinion

We received this cute guy as a holiday gift from our 5-year-old nephew. It's a birdhouse made from a gourd. To enter the birdhouse, birds would have to fly into the cat's mouth (which our nephew thought was hilarious). It IS very clever.

However, someone at our house was not amused....