Author: L.E. Hansen

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Mississippi Slough

I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness

-e.e. cummings

This photo is an almost exact rendition of the Mississippi slough where my first love kept his skiff, a hunting and fishing skiff. It was one of the first places we went together and we spent many days on the Mississippi, swimming, fishing, boating. It’s where our families gathered in boathouses for meals and drank not a few beers. (The river is a natural coolant in summer.) Our dogs ran on those beaches, our children learned to swim against the current, and we learned together how to launch our boats. The best of days—river born.

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Song And Joy

Once upon a time
when women were birds,
there was the simple understanding
that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk
was to heal the world through joy.
The birds still remember
what we have forgotten
that the world is meant to be
celebrated

~Terry Tempest Williams

Photograph: Viola Loretti

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Deep Breaths And Thoughts

Scientists say because there are fewer cars and planes polluting the air -at long last Mother Earth is able to take a deep breath.

Sleeping In The Forest
I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

– Mary Oliver

 

 

Posted by masud-moallahyidie2808ealbert-einstein-quotes

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Wild Geese

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
Mary Oliver

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Some Numbers

To put things into some sort of perspective

There are approximately 7.7 billion people in the world.

As of the end of this past week:

# Of global C-Virus cases = 132,567

# Dead = 4,947

# U.S. C-Virus cases = 1,629

# U.S. Dead = 41

Oh, and just for the heck of it, the # of gun deaths in the U.S. in 2019 was = 39,773

Maybe we’ve overreacted just a little bit. But then, I’m a member of the Olds and the Stoics, at least somewhat. I recall walking to school and seeing signs that said, “Quarantine, Mumps.” Others warned of measles and other contagious diseases. No one panicked and nothing shut down. Life went on and it just was what it was.

Now, in other news, from the worlds of the Woods and the Arts and the Thoughts we ponder. Why not let’s think of Love and Beauty!


  • Posted by kathleen-tilman/artist-tina-lavoie—butterfly-kiss
  • Posted by ravenous-butterflies
    Edgar Maxence – Portrait of a Girl with Irises

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” Kahlil Gibran

And then, a final thought for our sweet dreams and morning greetings: