Earth Day 2010

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." -Native American Proverb

"The poetry of the earth is never dead." -John Keats

"What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet, Long live the weeds and the wildness yet." -Gerard Manley Hopkins

"All I want is to stand in a field and to smell green, to taste air, to feel the earth want me, without all this concrete hating me." -Phillip Pulfrey

"I will be the gladdest thing under the sun. I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one." -Edna St. Vincent Millay

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." -John Muir

"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught." -Baba Dioum

All photos by Diane Cordell

Poetry of Another Sort

“Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

"Forsythia is pure joy. There is not an ounce, not a glimmer of sadness or even knowledge in forsythia. Pure, undiluted, untouched joy."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"The green eyes of Springtime,
Charming, as ever,
Flirting, again."
-Michael Garofalo

"I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me
bang in the face." -Langston Hughes

"Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees." -Rainer Maria Rilke

"Is it so small a thing To have enjoy'd the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done..."
-Matthew Arnold

Lessons Learned on a Winter Walk

There is a small park, not far from our home, where I love to wander with my camera.

In the summer, there are people strolling, eating lunch, reading, walking their dogs, fishing, and supervising children at play.

Today, I had the park to myself.

These are some of the thoughts I had, while enjoying a peaceful break from holiday preparations:



It's sometimes easier to strike out on a new path than to follow an old one.




Everything that passed this way has left a mark, although these signs can be difficult to interpret.



Still water freezes into static sheets; where there's a running stream, the ice dances on, and interacts with, the water.



With so much of the color gone from the landscape, it is easier to find beauty in unexpected places.




Each season carries within it the seed of the next.



"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." -John Muir



See other photos at Winter Walk at Hovey Pond Park

which is yes

"i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes" -e.e. cummings

There are two small parks within easy driving distance of my home: Hovey Pond and Crandall Park.

The Hovey Pond recreational area includes a pond, a marsh, and a series of small gardens, lovingly maintained by volunteers.

Crandall Park is larger, and in addition to its pond, boasts various recreational facilities, including a picnic pavilion, large playground, softball diamond, basketball courts, and band shell.

Local residents of all ages use these parks extensively for walking, fishing, bird watching, family outings, and quiet relaxation. School groups occasionally visit, to study history, biology, botany, and ecology.

There are times when I head for the Adirondack wilderness, with its high peaks and pristine lakes. Usually, though, I patronize a more manageable bit of nature, just as lovely but much easier of access, less grand in scale. It's quite enough to still my restless feet and soothe my impatient spirit.

Hovey Pond 7/13/09



Crandall Park 7/10/09

Getting Physical

There was an item in the news this morning describing fishing as a dying art. Sportsmen are worried that today's children are so involved in motorized and digital activities that they lack the time or motivation for a lazy day along the banks of a pond or stream.

I work in a rural district, where families routinely take their children out of school for annual hunting trips. But even in farm country, the lure of dirt bikes, snowmobiles, and the universal computer games, frequently replace real life outdoor activities.



My own married children offset their Wii time with bike rides, hikes, and camping trips. Younger generations don't seem to seek the same balance. Once organized sports are over for the season, many students migrate to the computer or TV.

Does gaming, even a Wii fit workout, provide the same benefits as a walk in the woods?






"Pretend Fishing" by ml_diva
"tex playing video games" by RebeccaPollard
"wonder of nature" by JonF119

The First Fall of Snow

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?" -J. B. Priestley

"True solitude is a din of birdsong, seething leaves, whirling colors, or a clamor of tracks in the snow." -Edward Hoagland

“Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow" -T.S. Eliot

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." –Albert Einstein

Comet Holmes

"Comet 17P/Holmes" by Happy Cat Dave

"Comets importing change of times and states,Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars." - William Shakespeare, Henry VI

There is something new in our firmament: Comet Holmes has erupted into a bright "fuzzball" visible to the naked eye.

Discovered in 1892 by Edwin Holmes, the comet, officially named Comet 17/P, occasionally and inexplicably grows in magnitude. Between October 23-24, 2007, it increased in brightness until, by October 25, it appeared as the third brightest star in the Perseus constellation.

My husband lured me away from books and computer to step into the cold, clear night and observe this strange phenomenon. We reminisced about previous celestial events (the Northern Lights) and non-events (the much ballyhooed but ultimately disappointing Comet Khoutek of the early '70s) that we had shared.

And we observed:

“The endless, foolish merriment of stars
Beside the pale cold sorrow of the moon” -Harriet Monroe