All You'll Ever Need is Here

Trees need not walk the earth

For beauty or for bread;

Beauty will come to them

Where they stand.

Here among the children of the sap

Is no pride of ancestry:

A birch may wear no less the morning

Than an oak.

Here are no heirlooms

Save those of loveliness,

In which each tree

Is kingly in its heritage of grace.

Here is but beauty’s wisdom

In which all trees are wise.

Trees need not walk the earth

For beauty or for bread;

Beauty will come to them

In the rainbow—

The sunlight—

And the lilac-haunted rain;

And bread will come to them

As beauty came:

In the rainbow—

In the sunlight—

In the rain.

Trees Need Not Walk the Earth

by David Rosenthal

Reaching Roots

The roots of this tree are used to being in the water. But they are well prepared for dryer conditions too, together they stretch for the water in lean times such as this winter is turning out to be.

Ice and Trees

Trees cast long shadows this time of year on the ice of the Marsh. The main river is still flowing free but the channels are frozen. Under the ice spring is just beginning. Tiny midges, aquatic sow bugs, and beetles are all raising young and growing.

Catching Snowballs

The winds have been so ferocious lately that the empty milkweed pods in the marsh have been collecting snow like baseball mitts.

Footprints of My Guide

She leads me on through storm and calm,

My glorious Angel girt with light;

By dazzling isles of tropic balm,

By coasts of ice in northern night.

Now far amid the mountain shades

Her footprints gleam like golden fire,

And now adown the leafy glades

I chase the music of her lyre.

And now amid the tangled pines

That darkly robe the gorgeous steep

She beckons where in woven lines

The sunbeams through the darkness creep,

And shows in glimpses far below

The champaign stretching leagues away,

Fair cities veil’d in summer’s glow

Or sparkling in the cloudless ray.

At times on seas with tempest loud,

The pilot of my bark, she stands,

And, through the rifts of driving cloud,

To tranquil bays of bounteous lands,

The grassy creek, the bowery shore,

The fringe of many a charmed realm,

She steers me safe by magic lore,

Her white arm leaning on the helm.

When, sick at heart and worn, mine eyes

I bend to earth in long despair,

She lifts her finger to the skies,

The violet deeps of lucid air,

The myriad myriad orbs that roll

In endless throngs in living space,

And all the vision of her soul

Is mirror’d in her radiant face.

George  Francis Savage-Armstrong ---My Guide

Icicles

When was the last time you tasted an icicle hanging in a wintry sun? Unlike so many things from childhood that don't taste the same, icicles taste the same.

Fresh, crisp and clean---try one for yourself and laugh like a child.  

Snowy Skies

Giant white, fluffy flakes fell down with great beauty over the holidays. The world becomes a cozy, comforting, quiet place in such a snow.

Hope you have a safe and Happy New Year!