Why will someone leaves a helmet on a bench
Or hide an empty Remy Martin under a shrub
Around us from a safe distance, wild fires rage
Smokes drift our way
The sun is burning orange
My mistake is to try capture the spectacle
Forgetting my focus can burn my eyes
Walking home a hummingbird catches my eye
Dancing from one flower to the next
In time of the pandemic is everything relevant?
Mrs. Abstract and I came down from the mountain and returned home yesterday. The traffic was light although there was about half hour slow down because of road repair work.
Afterwards the trip was smooth, all downhill and fast.
Today I walked to the river.
One fisherman
alone in the river
fish merrily play
The past are things I do not know
The present are things I can not touch
The future is a cat in the act of jumping
“Deep in your soul you don’t want to be the last.”
I decide I will go south
To master something I have to comprehend it first
I will carry a camera with a simple admonition
“How can I make them blind to my presence?”
Accumulation of solitudes, tumult of the heart diminishes
until it’s just a whisper, light as a leaf
You have been longing
to know your real self
During your walk
or when alone in the river
You feel your deep affinity with nature
with other creatures
Alone with the blue heron
or with other traveler
Pandemic awakens your consciousness,
shakens by injustice.
Beware when all the running stops
numbness sets in and silence.
Out of weariness and withered trees
love will rise.
We talked for hours
We compared our separate memories:
notebooks, cupcakes, candlelight dinners
Coming out at night after we ran out of dreams
Our arms were still empty
and waiting
like two anglers standing on a river bank
reviewing the science of angling,
studying the river landscape
Where are the insects?
the shadows, the deep hiding places
silence of pride and pleasure.
Imagine if life is timeless.
They pause for lunch.
Do the fish miss also the fisherman?
We are sheltered in for more than 2 months now. There are changes that everyone has noticed before: air is cleaner, less cars driving in the neighborhood, in the highways, the hills and mountains can be seen clearly. The world is new again.
But uncertainties remain. Vulnerability exposed. Maybe the same “vulnerability that songbirds feel every single day of their lives” as noted by Robin Wall Kimmerer., author of Braiding Sweetgarss.
Time is time. Not timeless.The pandemic reminds us of our impermanence.
There are now easings of restrictions. Our yearning for open space is more urgent. Will human touch be a strange feeling?
Tomorrow we hope to be curious again. Or maybe for the first time.
Tomorrow when I go out of the door I will be seeing a new world. One says, “ every beginning is monumental.” I will try to believe it.
note: 2 weeks ago I was hospitalized for 4 days. I was very sick with an infection. Not cobid-19. I was negative.
I am home now and recovering favorably. I hope to resume walking to the river again everyday.
The book currently I’m reading or should I say I am listening at is Brading Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
I walked farther today than the previous days: three miles. I crossed Napa River on an elevated bridge and connected to the river trail, to the downtown then returned home on another street.
It was 65 degrees, sunny with a cool breeze. I met along the way other walkers and cyclists. We all practiced the safe distancing. There colorful flowers and plants and art.
I stopped a lot to take photos.
We are sheltered in.
Allowed to go out to take walks
Or get basic essentials for daily living.
I walk to the river for fresh air and scenery
The clouds form many disguises
The blue heron comes then flies away
Horses nonchalant in its movements
Tiny flowers adorn the lawn
My daily miracle.
Saturday morning, crispy cool, I joined other Waterways Keepers volunteers and cleaned up the Riverside Park along Napa River.
I found these yellow wild flowers growing along the riverbank.
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