The Little Green Orchard

Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me.
~William Shakespeare

one of today's pumpkin purchases

I've given myself permission to just post when the spirit moves me, so I don't know what my upcoming blogging schedule will be. Last week, posting was pretty much out of the question, but I did buy some Christmas presents. (?) I'm back to the correct season this week with a shivery poem:

The Little Green Orchard

by Walter de La Mare

Some one is always sitting there,
In the little green orchard;
Even when the sun is high
In noon's unclouded sky,
And faintly droning goes
The bee from rose to rose,
Some one in shadow is sitting there
In the little green orchard.

Yes, when the twilight's falling softly
In the little green orchard;
When the grey dew distills
And every flower-cup fills;
When the last blackbird says,
'What - what!' and goes her way - ssh!
I have heard voices calling softly
In the little green orchard

Not that I am afraid of being there,
In the little green orchard;
Why, when the moon's been bright,
Shedding her lonesome light,
And moths like ghosties come,
And the horned snail leaves home:
I've sat there, whispering and listening there,
In the little green orchard.

Only it's strange to be feeling there,
In the little green orchard;
Whether you paint or draw,
Dig, hammer, chop or saw;
When you are most alone,
All but the silence gone...
Some one is watching and waiting there,
In the little green orchard.

who knows what could be hiding here?

Jama's Alphabet Soup has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jama!

Kuroki Neko

The wind outside nested in each tree, prowled the sidewalks in invisible treads like unseen cats.
~Ray Bradbury

Isn't that Bradbury quote great? I am a fan of cats of all colors, including beautiful black ones.

A Black Cat
by Jahn Henne

Slim Woman with a Cat (1913)
by Géza Faragó

Black Cat (Kuroki Neko)
by Hishida Shunso

Elena Kats-Chernin's Black Cat Rag
Ivana Tomášková - violin, Renata Ardaševová - piano

Checking in

This hospital, like every other, is a hole in the universe through which holiness issues in blasts. It blows both ways, in and out of time.
~Annie Dillard

Hi folks!

My husband Ben had sudden kidney failure and was in the hospital for two weeks, so I have been mostly hanging out there. He came home today! Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight (is it bedtime yet??) One interesting thing about being in the hospital was how different it was from my pandemic experience. During the pandemic, it has been pretty standard for me to not spend a lot of time with strangers. A hospital is chockful of strangers. I feel like I talked to a hundred of them in the past couple of weeks. It made me remember how much I enjoy interacting with random people. (Nurses and hospital staff are fascinating!)

trying again to learn to knit

While I was there, I enjoyed reading Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's daily poems, like "Morning Encouragement":

I would like to be a kingfisher—
just for a morning.
I’d arrive at the edge of the pond
with the other kingfishers
and watch for crawdads.
“Catchin’ any?” I’d say
to the birds on my right.
“Nah,” they’d say,
“But we keep trying.”
“Good luck,” I’d say,
as took my own spot
in the branches,
waiting for the pond to still
so I could see the movement
at the bottom.
“Good luck,” they’d squawk back,
then they’d rattle with laughter

read the rest here

Tongue Drum Music for Concentration

She imagined that her drums were planets and the music was all the voices of growth and light and life joined together and traveling the universe.
~Francesca Lia Block

For Music Monday, Greenred Productions from Lithuania:

A Simple Mystery

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
~Mary Oliver

I made this post backwards today. I started with photos that I took while walking Preston and I looked around to see if there was a poem to go with them. Mary Oliver came through.

Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones
by Mary Oliver

How does the seed-grain feel
when it is just beginning to be wheat?

And how does the catbird feel
when the blue eggs break and become little catbirds?

Maybe on midsummer night’s eve,
and without fanfare?

And how does the turtle feel as she covers her eggs
with the sweep of her feet,
then leaves them for the world to take care of?

Does she know her accomplishment?

And when the blue heron, breaking his long breast feathers,
sees one feather fall, does he know I will find it?


read the rest here

**************

I've only heard this once, walking around the pond at night, and it was incredibly startling to hear in the dark:


P.S. When I play this video, Preston thinks someone is barking and he gets all bark-y himself.

Reading to the Core has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Catherine!

In the Small Hours

Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.
~Gaston Bachelard

For Art Thursday, George Clausen and his lovely "In the Small Hours":

In the Small Hours, 1911
by George Clausen

The person who shared this identified the bright object in the sky as Venus.

Ah, good news

If society collapsed, we’d just rebuild it better. I know this, because it’s happened before.
~Jason Pargin

An excerpt from What we do and don't know about kindness by Claudia Hammond, BBC:

One morning, people walking down a street in the Canadian city of Vancouver were asked to take part in an experiment run by the American psychologist Elizabeth Dunn. They were given an envelope containing either a $5 or $20 note. Half the people were instructed to spend the money on themselves. The other half were instructed to use the money to buy a present for someone else or to donate the money to charity. In both cases, they had until 17:00 that day to spend the money...

Whether they had $5 or $20 made no difference, nor did what they bought. What mattered was who they spent their money on. The people who had spent it on someone else felt significantly happier than those who treated themselves.

...In [another] study, a researcher is hanging up washing, but then runs out of pegs. Meanwhile, it's been arranged that the toddler playing nearby opens a box, finding either another peg, a marble to use in their own game or a useless piece of plastic. Digital analysis of their body language showed that on the whole they were just as delighted to find the peg for the researcher as they were at finding the marble for themselves.

I can imagine the pleasure of the children who found a peg in their box, can see their surprised faces.

Also, here's Stop Telling Me Humanity Is Doomed by Jason Pargin (note: there is cussing.)