why do they compete

Lately I’m playing a lot of chess, 8 games, by email. I’m playing with friends. During all these times my mind is filled with chess diagrams of the games. I can’t think of poetic lines or poetry ideas. If there are thoughts that pass by they don’t last long.

Mrs. Abstract says the brain center for poetry and chess must be the same. Is it? Chess and poetry involve creativity.If one is active is the other suppressed or dormant?

note: photo: chess diagram of one of my games. I have the white pieces and behind by one pawn.Black to move.

the road ahead

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
-Thomas Merton

note: The day is sunny and a warm 65. The river is behind me. I’m walking home.

wordless Tuesday

 

a simple afternoon

The small boat passes wakes the placid river
disturbs a fish about to bite an insect
bothering the white heron watching the scene
a fisherman shakes his head
simple stories of an afternoon
I save in my memory
for winter when I ran out
of wood for the fireplace.

note: My Sunday afternoon walk to the river, 11,000 steps.

awareness

 

A white heron on the riverbank
Looks nonchalant about distance
One step forward, flies away.

tiny drops miracles

White plumage with a long curved neck
wide spread wings rising from the pond
“Swan”, said the mother of the girl
standing next to me.

An angel held my hand, counted
beating of my heart in the hospital
I stayed for 2 nights with high fever.

Walking the community garden
I felt quiet movements of the earth
seeds urging to sprout
restoring search for light.

Leaping through a book
words read like butterflies
fusing reverie and meaning
turning to the next page
a landscape, sunny and whistling,
snow and rain,
tiny drops of miracles.

note: I started reading Just Kids by Patti Smith where I found the swan.

photo: The Little Library along the sidewalk where I walk leading to the river.

“A Gift of Imperfection”

“Beauty and harmony are things we can all achieve in our lives., but perfection is not⎯that’s reserved for God alone. Imperfect musicians who still make such beautiful music together remind me that I don’t need to be a perfect saint, a perfect monk, or a perfect anything else. I just need to concentrate on making music with my fellow saints in the monastery and in school, music that isn’t perfect⎯only beautiful.”
-Albert Holtz, O.S.B., A Saint on Every Corner

compassion

In Iliad, when King Priam begged Achilles to release body of Hector so the Trojans can mourn him and give him a proper burial ton hat instant, “Achilles—and Homer—open to an alternative mode of being, one that values not strength or beauty or even shining intellect, but compassion…it appears that Achilles tastes the spring of human benevolence; for an instant he is not a hero, not an individual, not a power, but simply one with another suffering being within the universe of pain.”

from: self and soul A Defense of Ideals by Mark Edmundson

It’s that cold

Thursday was foggy,very cold, and drizzly. I wore with 3 layers of warm clothes: a turtle neck long sleeve shirt, a sweater and a vest. I also put on a baseball cap during my walk. One fisherman on the river left his fishing pole resting on a stand while he sat inside his car. The other fisherman was so engrossed with his cell phone that he had not even cast his line. He was even oblivious of a bird next to him, on his right side.

 

When I returned home the raindrops started to fall.

note: photos are taken using my cell phone.

 

 

If fish can fly

Fish On, the huge fish sculpture which was voted the first Napa ArtWalk People Choice award, is now permanently displayed in the garden of Napa River Inn in the Napa Riverfront area. The sculpture has a swivel and moves with breeze and has an added illumination. And mounted on a waterfall.

The sculpture is created by the sculptor Terrence Martin.