Footprints Across the Bridge

Proud and lowly, beggar and lord,

Over the bridge they go;

Rags and velvet, fetter and sword,

Poverty, pomp, and woe.

Laughing, weeping, hurrying ever,

Hour by hour they crowd along,

While, below, the mighty river

Sings them all a mocking song.

Hurry along, sorrow and song,

All is vanity ’neath the sun;

Velvet and rags, so the world wags,

Until the river no more shall run.

Dainty, painted, powdered and gay,

Rolleth my lady by;

Rags-and-tatters, over the way,

Carries a heart as high.

Flowers and dreams from country meadows,

Dust and din through city skies,

Old men creeping with their shadows,

Children with their sunny eyes,

Hurry along, sorrow and song,

All is vanity ’neath the sun;

Velvet and rags, so the world wags,

Until the river no more shall run.

Storm and sunshine, peace and strife,

Over the bridge they go;

Floating on in the tide of life,

Whither no man shall know.

Who will miss them there to-morrow,

Waifs that drift to the shade or sun?

Gone away with their songs and sorrow;

Only the river still flows on.

Hurry along, sorrow and song,

All is vanity ’neath the sun;

Velvet and rags, so the world wags,

Until the river no more shall run.

Frederic Edward Weatherly---London Bridge

Heaven and Earth

The sunset reflects off of a sea of snow and the sky seems to trace out the paths of the people on the ground in an answer to our wanderings.

What a Difference a Year Makes!

Here's a warm up from March 17, 2012 when spring came early.

This year there is nearly a foot of new snow on the ground, and no matter how fast it melts the daffodils will not be showing their heads by March 17, 2013!

Cheery Chickadee

The Speckled sky is dim with snow,

The light flakes falter and fall slow;

Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,

Silently drops a silvery veil;

And all the valley is shut in

By flickering curtains gray and thin.

But cheerily the chickadee

Singeth to me on fence and tree;

The snow sails round him as he sings,

White as the down of angels’ wings.

I watch the slow flakes as they fall

On bank and brier and broken wall;

Over the orchard, waste and brown,

All noiselessly they settle down,

Tipping the apple-boughs, and each

Light quivering twig of plum and peach.

On turf and curb and bower-roof

The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;

It paves with pearl the garden-walk;

And lovingly round tattered stalk

And shivering stem its magic weaves

A mantle fair as lily-leaves.

The hooded beehive, small and low,

Stands like a maiden in the snow;

And the old door-slab is half hid

Under an alabaster lid.

All day it snows: the sheeted post

Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;

All day the blasted oak has stood

A muffled wizard of the wood;

Garland and airy cap adorn

The sumach and the wayside thorn,

And clustering spangles lodge and shine

In the dark tresses of the pine.

The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,

Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;

In surplice white the cedar stands,

And blesses him with priestly hands.

Still cheerily the chickadee

Singeth to me on fence and tree:

But in my inmost ear is heard

The music of a holier bird;

And heavenly thoughts as soft and white

As snow-flakes, on my soul alight,

Clothing with love my lonely heart,

Healing with peace each bruised part,

Till all my being seems to be

Transfigured by their purity.

Midwinter by John Townsend Trowbridge

Coffee Creek

A very light snow was coming down on Coffee Creek Saturday afternoon and very little was out battling the frigid winds.

March in Cold Injustice

Suddenly I saw the cold 

and rook-delighting Heaven

That seemed as though ice burned 

and was but the more ice,

And thereupon imagination 

and heart were driven

So wild that every casual thought of that and this

Vanished, and left but memories, 

that should be out of season

With the hot blood of youth, 

of love crossed long ago;

And I took all the blame out of all sense

 and reason,

Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,

Riddled with light.

Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,

Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent

Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken

By the injustice of the skies for punishment?  

W.B. Yeats Cold Heaven

Snowy Woods

The winter woods are quiet and hushed and beautiful.

Path to Blue Skies

The sky was bigger than land and cast an eerie shadow as the blue fought the dark.

The dark won.

Deceptively Frosty

A frosty frozen backwater reflects the naked branches of winter's end. But things are coming alive in the waters under the ice as the food for all from dragonflies to frogs awakes from its winter's slumber.

Trudging through the Snow

This deer was following instead of fleeing down the path. It doesn't look malnourished. Maybe, like all of us around this time of year, it's looking for some spring.

Icy Paradise

Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven

That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,

And thereupon imagination and heart were driven

So wild that every casual thought of that and this

Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season

With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;

And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,

Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,

Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,

Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent

Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken

By the injustice of the skies for punishment?

Yeats---The Cold Heaven

Sand, Sea, Sky, Ice

Ice continues to build on the shores of Lake Michigan. The sand is solid in most places along the shore. Not so in the Dunes, however, which the sands are busy moving one scant grain at a time in blustery winter days.

Misty Threesome

Three trees seem to stand alone but the truth of the scene---more beauty than can be imagined is hidden by the mist.

Frostful

Where the forest path widens out to the meadow there was a sudden stretch of white. On closer inspection the white was tiny shards of frost. Isn't it amazing how something so small can repaint the whole landscape?

Spring is in the air today---the blue birds were a whirl as they performed their mating dance.

Mid Winter's Eve

The darkness meets the day early on the Indiana landscape in the winter. One day this week it was as if the daylight was fighting for its right to remain---shoving the dark away.

Frozen in Time

The spots of white out in the lake are waves frozen in time---they didn't quite make it into shore. Out on the horizon there is also a line of ice waiting for a warm day to visit the shore.

Affection or an Itch?

This pic from the archives has always left me wondering---is this love or just an urgent need to scratch?

Fruitless Lifeless Boughs of Time

In the last spring I ever knew,

In those last days,

I sat in the forsaken orchard

Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered

The hills at Miller’s Ford;

Just to muse on the apple tree

With its ruined trunk and blasted branches,

And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms

Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle,

Never to grow in fruit.

And there was I with my spirit girded

By the flesh half dead, the senses numb,

Yet thinking of youth and the earth in youth,

Such phantom blossoms palely shining

Over the lifeless boughs of Time.

O earth that leaves us ere heaven takes us!

Had I been only a tree to shiver

With dreams of spring and a leafy youth,

Then I had fallen in the cyclone

Which swept me out of the soul’s suspense

Where it’s neither earth nor heaven.

Edgar Lee Masters---Spoon River Anthology

Forest Mist

The January thaw has arrived and filled the forest full of mist....and mud.

Water Color

A water color sky is reflected into the water of the lake in the misty early winter morning. You only get light like this early in the morning when the sunlight gets filtered through the atmosphere.