Peonies raise their many tight fists toward the sky. Within a week, the blooms will burst open.
A fun guy has found a place to hang out.
A maple tree really wants to propagate, but this doesn’t look like fertile ground to me.
I’m going to start substituting bike riding blog posts in place of walking ones, on occasion. I’ve had Frieda (my bicycle) for a few weeks now. My rides are getting a little longer, as weather and time permit.
Sure, I had stuff I should have been getting done around the house. But the weather couldn’t have been better. So Frieda and I boogied down the trail out of town, just far enough to see some cows.
Having a mid-life crisis? Forget the ridiculous sports car. Get yourself a bicycle!
Nothing lasts forever. This is all that’s left of a trusty old tree that provided me a shady respite on my walk to work for the past several years.
I have no idea how many rings are there. Many – let’s leave it at that. I’m sure the tree was older than some of the surrounding houses. Goodbye old friend.
Yesterday, the day before Easter, I took a more urban walk than usual, going through downtown to a day-long event. So no flowers in this post. Usual caveats apply — this is only to share my observations and experiences. I know my photos are as amateur as it gets.
I prefer spring blankets to winter ones.
We had a long, long, long, hard, hard, hard winter here. What walks I took were utilitarian and accomplished as quickly as possible, with no taking off of gloves to snap photos.
But spring has arrived at long last. I see color popping here and there, new blossoms, life re-emerging.
We hunkered down, endured through the gray and cold. Then one day, there were flowers.
A few weeks ago the universe gifted me something I’ve wanted for a long time — the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, in two volumes. I’m pretty sure I’ve read all of his freestanding poems over the years. But I must admit to familiarity with only a small handful of his plays. I decided to make a project of reading and then watching all of the plays, which I can do thanks to my public library’s DVD collection.
So, let’s talk about Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Though the story follows conflicts between royalty rather than elected officials, many elements seemed all too familiar to me, with parallels to current events. I suppose this is why Shakespeare’s works endure. He captures the universals of the human experience.
King Henry IV, in his efforts to have things 100% his way, ends up stoking rebellion instead. He is free with insults for those who incur his displeasure. Transactional behaviors and relationships abound — characters all trying to use each other. See what I mean? Sound familiar? Throughout the two plays, alliances shift among several factions, and nobody knows whom to trust. Covert help is sought from foreign sources. Each side has its mix of hot-heads (one even nicknamed Hotspur), schemers, sincere believers, and rascals.
This even holds true within the King’s own immediate family. Prince Hal spends his time getting into trouble with a group of wastrels, deliberately keeping expectations for himself low so he can easily exceed them. Meanwhile his younger brother, John (a character who might strike a chord if you’ve ever known an adult child of an alcoholic) just wants to make all of his kin happy through his hard work and rule following.
The Earl of Worcester foreshadows Fox News as a source of disinformation to gin up the case for war for his own purposes. The spirit of Falstaff lives on today in profiteers who seek their own fortunes and comfort above duties to others. Treachery and double dealing are rampant throughout the course of the two plays.
At the very end of part 2, Prince Hal ascends the throne as King Henry V. And suddenly his scandalous former associates are disavowed as no more than coffee boys he only met a time or two. He doesn’t really even know them. (Sorry if that was a spoiler for anyone.)
I guess there are patterns to human affairs.
Notable quote:
Pride defeats its own end, by bringing the man who seeks esteem and reverence into contempt.
Now seems like a good time to repost this. RIP Mary Oliver.
“And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe…” – Mary Oliver, Upstream
I’m a big fan of Mary Oliver’s writing. She makes connections, or rather shows connections, that are not obvious on the surface. Her descriptions of nature do more than make you want to re-read the passage. They make you want to go see the world for yourself and then re-read the passage. Her poems are bereft of sentimentality, but full of mindful observation. And I can guarantee there’s some sweat behind those words.
Here’s the thing about writing poetry — it takes work…
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On today’s walk, it was sunny but brrr c-c-c-old. On the one-mile lap around my immediate neighborhood, I engaged in not a single spoken conversation. Yet a fair amount of communication happened.
I ignored the caution sign and went close to peek under the rock, because I’m a rebel without a clue. All I saw was a hole in the ground.
I strolled my neighborhood in unseasonably temperate weather, perfect for a walk — the last few warm hours before a predicted winter storm.
I heard leaf blowers, but never saw them. I saw people raking the brown, drying remnants of autumn, and running them over with mulching mowers. I saw a family taking photos of their toddlers playing in a leaf pile. At one house, a determined man used a front-loading Bobcat to push the masses of leaves from his lawn into one big stack near the edge.
Maybe I should have been have been doing yard work instead of playing tourist to all of the neighbors doing theirs. I still have undone weeding, left over from the summer. On the other hand, the mess of my yard might not be visible under the snow by this time tomorrow.
The bodies of the leaves are gone, but their spirits have not yet crossed over:
Nomadic Noesis 