Awakened

Awakened

Roving through a meadow full of grasses and daisies, I stopped, looked and listened. Walking deeper into the meadow, a lake appeared. “It’s a jewel! Like the awesome pendant Ricky gave me last night.” Red-winged blackbirds called to each other. Long legged waterbirds stalked the mud at waters edge. Soft winds rustled thick green bullrushes protecting deep water life. It was early spring before bulky brown seed heads appeared. “Cattails, I think.” 

School had taught Shandra about the environment, but a city girl, she had really never experienced anything like this. She’d been to the beach, collected pretty pebbles and walked barefoot on the sand. But that was just fun. Their assignment for their weekend was to not just go to the beach, but walk out in the meadow behind the school. The land that hadn’t been absorbed into the city yet. She took a deep breath of the humid, cool air. It was different? Is it the wet mud smell? Different than wet beach sand. Shandra hugged herself and rubbed her bare arms. “Will the city really destroy all this?” At the beach, she and her friends played volleyball, laughed and loved the sun and water. Here in this meadow she felt like she had intruded, but that she belonged. 

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

~ Albert Einstein

A Brighter Smile!

Yesterday’s walk at the lake was invigorating. Dressed too warmly, I stepped cautiously around big muddy puddles. Walking across the path over Wascana Lake, I could hear the rush of water under great pads of snow still waiting for the sun. Today, that sun is warmer yet - almost shirt sleeve weather! Courting pairs of geese will have more open water. Sharp edges of snow will have softened and browned from winter soil.

“When snow melts, what does it become? 

It becomes water, of course. 

Wrong! It becomes spring!”

~ Natsuki Takaya, author

Just Because ~ 1

To follow 

the walking path 

past the lake

To rest 

on the dedicated bench

to look out on the lake

or

To take a walk

through leafy shade

past rabbits and squirrels

To take a detour

from here to there

just because I felt like it……

“But the beauty is in the walking — we are betrayed by destinations.”

~ Gwyn Thomas

On a Morning Walk - Missed Photo Op

Really, I tried!

He posed beautifully

on the back of the bench.

I didn’t get too close…

He looked so handsome!

Carefully, I palmed my camera…

From the back of the bench,

he looked straight at me

……and flew off over the lake!

“ ‘As the crow flies,’ a popular and picturesque 

expression to denote a straight line.”

~ William Henry Maule

On an Afternoon Walk - Impatience!

Puddles on sidewalks!

Sand-filled sidewalks!

When will spring show up!?

When will the sun warm the world?

then the lake stretched ahead

with patchy soft frozen ice.

and the sky filled with

ruffled, drifting clouds

geese called to each other ~

pairing for new fluffy families

prehistoric looking trees ~ buds held tight

branches bravely bare, stand tall.

Grateful and content ~ I turned toward home

Puddled, sandy sidewalks merely a bother.

“You’re trying to eat grass that isn’t there. 

Why don’t you give it a chance to grow?”

~ Richard Adams, Watership Down

Noise

Behind the dry bristling 

noise all around us ~

sun shines on the lake.

“Noise is an imposition on sanity, and we live in very noisy times.”

~ Joan Baez

On a Mid Morning Walk - Stepping Out

A heavy leaning tree branch

stepped out on the lake 

layered with thickening ice.

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

~ Anonymous

On an Evening Walk - Pastel Skies

Heat ~

softened by humid skies

down drifted into the lake.

“You are the sky. Everything else - it’s just the weather.”

~ Pema Chödrön

On an Evening Cat Walk - A Cat Tale

Across the lake and through the trees echoing up to the sky ~ bouncing building to building.

Where was it coming from!?

I crouched low, looking everywhere ~ I sat still until I was unceremoniously picked up and taken to my porch…..she’s so impatient!

          ~~~~~

Rhythmic Asian music set my toes to tapping,

A wedding dance? Just a party?

I couldn’t tell ~ only that it was

filling the evening with beauty.

“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.”

~ George R.R.Martin,  

A Game of Thrones

A Prayer to My Muse

Give me an idea

A blossom

A light bulb moment

something, anything

to get the words flowing

take a walk

but my supper is in the oven

so walk after I’ve eaten ~

or maybe just say please.

       ~~~~~

There was a single duck ~

grooming itself by the water

plucking through each feather

on chest and under wings.....

Canoes on the sun glimmered lake

~ laughter echoed in time 

to the dip and pull of paddles.....

Ducklings swam in circles, 

no longer fluffy and yellow

but stream-lined, with young brown feathers.

      ~~~~~

Thank you

“The pages are still blank, but there is 

a miraculous feeling of the words being there, 

written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible.”

~ Vladimir Nabokov

On a Morning Walk - Wascana Lake Waterfall

Clear skies, 

light breezes, 

warm sun

birds threading the air 

with their songs

Which way should I turn?

Bird Sanctuary or lakeside?

On impulse, a swing toward

the lake and a pleasant surprise ~

The Waterfall,  stilled for winter,

flowed once more.

 “Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, 

yet nothing can resist it.”

 ~ Lao Tzu

Silent Echoes

Silence is golden

down at the pond

    by the lake ~

space for nightbirds

to echo goodnight.

“Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?”

~ Lawrence Durrell, Justine

Cross Purpose

Only a photograph,

beautifully developed,

~ a reflection ~

at cross purposes

on the glossy lake.

“The poorest experience is rich enough 

for all the purposes of expressing thought.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spider on the Lake

A twig

frozen into the lake

crawled out

on spindly legs

to become

a spider.

“Transformation literally means going beyond your form.”

~ Wayne Dyer