the edge

....i feel that i have lived on the edge
even of my own life.
i have made plans enough,
but i see now that i have never lived by plan.
any more than if i had been a bystander
watching me live my life,
i don't feel that i ever have been quite sure
what was going on.
nearly everything that has happened to me
has happened by surprise.
all the important things
have happened by surprise.
and whatever has been happening usually
has already happened before i had time to expect it.
the world doesn't stop because you are in love
or in mourning or in need of time to think.
and so when i have thought i was in my story
or in charge of it, i really have been only
on the edge of it, carried along.
is this because we are in an eternal story
that is happening partly in time?
                           ~ wendell berry
                               jayber crow

the presence of place

to come into the presence of the place
was to know life and death,
and to be near in all your thoughts
to laughter and to tears.
this would come over you
and then pass away,
as fragile as a moment of light.
                     ~ wendell berry
                         jayber  crow


the great northwest..
home to the great grey of sky..
the snow mountians unseen as yet..cloud hidden..

water in the air .. the wet of space..
moving one forward toward the presence of place  ~
moist heart pumping waterways
welcoming, welcoming, welcoming

row, row, row

contentment

the sea lions felt it and their barking
took on a tone and a cadence
that would have gladdened
the heart of st. francis.
                             ~ john steinbeck, cannery row

seal pups are getting plumper by the day..
iceplant is rounding the corner on
that mescaline pink we know and love..
you remember the colour, yes?
early dawn spreads fog thick and grey
as wallpaper paste...

heading north soon ..
from the golden hills of california
to the snow mountains of the great northwest..
road trip ~ the many a moon journey i love to rove..

seemingly satisfied with the company of my own self..
content with the content of mind and heart..
aware of the rustle and ramble of rumination -
not claiming one thought as me -
awake for the interval....
stillness makes friends with silence
the head empties - the heart empties -
only the red prius..mila rubie... is full to the brim!

- and the road goes ever on and on-