Hi everyone,
Yesterday morning on my way to the kitchen for coffee, I looked out the window at Goose Lake and was rewarded with this fleeting scene. I managed to get back to the office to retrieve my phone in time to get a picture before it was too late.
The lake sparkles live with diamonds,
a ransom of jewels spread on display,
framed in green-leaf emerald settings,
till a cloud steals them all away.
Hi everyone,
From sunrise…
…to sunset...
…life goes on…sometimes for the better, sometimes not. But no matter how it goes, we are given the promise of a new day and the celebration of the end of it, both too glorious to ignore.
Hi everyone,
The other day when JEFF was here for a visit he snapped this picture of three crows in a hackberry tree in our back yard here at Goose Lake.
I especially like the picture because it shows how crows are always surveying their surroundings, ready to take off at the slightest sign of danger. Notice how these three are looking in different directions even in the brief moment they spent taking a break in our yard? I remembered writing a poem about city crows a few years ago so I went to find it. Turns out it’s a villanelle in which I only used one sound throughout. Here it is.
City Crows
By paintings on a cavern wall we know
From early times we’ve neighbored with the crow.
They freely come among us to and fro.
Where humans moved, crows went with the flow.
The evidence is clearly there to show.
By paintings on a cavern wall we know.
Whatever season – spring or winter’s snow –
Crows sing raucous songs from long ago
And freely come among us to and fro.
They’ve learned to live where humans live and so
To them we’re more a host than fearsome foe.
By paintings on a cavern wall we know.
From break of day to evening’s rosy glow,
We may not see them in the trees although
They freely come among us to and fro.
City crows keep track of us below
While overhead their newest hatchlings grow.
By paintings on a cavern wall we know,
They freely come among us to and fro.
(c) 2017, David L Harrison, all rights reserved
Hi everyone,
The other afternoon at Goose Lake, three crows hung out for a few minutes on our living room roof. This isn’t a good picture but they spotted me through my bedroom window and away they flew. How about writing a short poem about these neighborhood characters? I’ll go first.
"You said we'd find some bugs up here."
"There ain't no bugs this time of year."
"It's aren't, not ain't, Shakespeare."
"I'll race you back to that dead deer."
Hi everyone,
I have nothing to say this morning. I’ll make an announcement about a new project soon, but this morning I have nothing to say. The pool is covered, for one thing, a reminder as obvious as a neon sign that the green season is ending. I know, I know, don’t tell me about the pretty fall colors, the sign that billions of leaves are dying. Hard frosts, the wraiths of winter, are on their way. The brilliant red geraniums, so glorious now, will hunker under towels and sheets for a few nights, like ghosts in a plant cemetery. The last roses will become trophies of the soulless frost and hang like clinched fists at the end of their stems.
Butterflies will vanish. Squirrels will quicken their pace. Chipmunks will bully their way under feeders to fill their cheeks with seeds meant for things with wings. Leaves scattered across the yard, will lose their crispness and settle into a musty cereal. I’ll put away the patio umbrellas, cover the tables, carry the lounge chairs to their winter quarters. Gray the color of cold will paint my patio, Goose Lake, and, at times, me. All of which is why this morning I have nothing to say. The pool is covered, for one thing.
Children's Author David L. Harrison's Blog 