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Rainy day

This rainy day has inspired the strangest thoughts...I found myself gazing into the soggy garden, looking at the decaying blossoms and the watered down flowers, the slowly dying daffodils and small weeds and wild herbs, which have taken hold in some of my flower beds.

There I found beauty within the decay and after that, looking at the abandoned breakfast table, I sense the same. The candles are still burning and the bread has not been packed away, eggs still sitting half eaten in their cups, yet left behind. Maybe it's this, this being abandoned, which makes me look at these things again.

I think of the just passed conversations and how our words have evaporated into memories already. How some words turn into actions and some into nothingness.

I love the lived-in table, where I read the paper and begin to think of this and that!
It is the beauty of ebb and flow, it's of being born and death, the steady rhythm of on and off, beginnings and endings...laughter and tears. I am not sure I am making sense to you.

These are the moments, when I muse about life and it is a feeling hard to grasp...
I am thinking of impermanence, the only constant.
We try to reach equilibrium, just to realize a moment later the permanent imbalance of it all.
So we shall enjoy every moment of imbalance, for it is the fabric of our lives.

March is leaving us, he has been kind and gentle and April knocks...

Emily Dickinson wrote:

Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat -
You must have walked -
How out of breath you are!
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell!

I got your letter, and the birds';
The maple never knew
That you were coming, - I declare,
How red their faces grew!
But March, forgive me -
And all those hills
You left for me to hue;
There was no purple suitable,
You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April?
Look the door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a year, to call
When I am occupied.
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come,
That blame is just as dear a praise
And praise as mere a blame.

What can I add?
It is still raining out there and, watching, I sit patiently, knowing the future will bring sunshine.
All is in flux...

Wishing you all a delightful Sunday!

All images by V.Zlotkowski

Trees

The graphic elements of trees.

I marvel at their balanced shapes, when growing undisturbed.

There is such harmony and flawless shape.

I watch the leafless canopies against the sky.

The moon is rising,

When I begin to dream to be a bird.

Words and pictures by V.Zlotkowski

Walks

The last weeks have been walking weeks. Days of exploring different places far away and around where I live. It began earlier in Berlin, Germany and now it has taken me from the shoreline of Long Island Sound to Brooklyn, from Croton Dam to my back yard. I enjoy these walks and now I even try to walk to shops which I thought before beyond reach. Sometimes I have a friend with me, but often I enjoy it all by myself. It takes me from a few minutes to sometimes a few hours.

Walking is not so common around here. The world is set up for driving, there are only a few sidewalks where I live and I have a feeling most people think of it as a sport...which I do not!

I'd rather see myself in the tradition of Goethe and Schiller, H.D.Thoreau, William Wordsworth or the Alcott's for whom walking was, apart from necessity, a way to feel nature and source of inspiration, meditation and romantic love.

I remember long Sunday walks with my parents and sisters, through summer warm valleys, along rivers, snow laden fields or cool forests. Walking was natural and not something we thought of as a chore.

My children miss this almost entirely. They consider it boring. Or - after sports (!) and homework are too tired to go on walks.

Walking lets me think, I can sort ideas, make plans, I dream and of course I can stop and watch. Something I love to do! I watch nature, animals, my fellow humans, I walk through the largest picture book and it does not tire me in the least.

I love the water.

And the light.

I watch crumbling houses and smart cats.

The power of water.

Old trees and older stone walls make me feel young and childlike.

But the sky lets me breath and makes me hopeful.

I am grounded.

Just read this:

The immeasurable height

Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,

The stationary blast of waterfalls,

And everywhere along the hollow rent

Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,

The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,

The rocks that muttered close to our ears,

Black drizzling crags that spoke by the wayside

As if a voice were in them, the sick sight

And giddy prospect of a raving stream,

The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,

Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light -

Were all like workings of the mind, the features

Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,

Characters of great apocalypse,

The types and symbols of eternity,

Of first and last, and midst, and without end.

Prelude(1805), vi, 556 -72

William Wordsworth.

No need for anything more! There is no distance between his feelings and mine, there is a bridge of time, I wander back and forth two hundred and six years!

All images by V.Zlotkowski

The old homestead

We visited lovely friends over the weekend up in the Catskill Mountains. While driving to and fro between small hamlets I saw many homesteads, some seemingly abandoned, some lovingly preserved!

There was one at the roadside to Phoenicia and I was touched by an apple tree next to the house, full of fruit left hanging from the last harvest season.

Birds have a winter feast ...

I found this lovely poem which reflects all my feelings seeing this old, forgotten place!

THE OLD HOMESTEAD

'Tis an old deserted homestead
On the outskirts of the town,
Where the roof is all moss-covered,
And the walls are tumbling down;
But around that little cottage
Do my brightest mem'ries cling,
For 'twas there I spent the moments
Of my youth,—life's happy spring.

I remember how I used to
Swing upon the old front gate,
While the robin in the tree tops
Sung a night song to his mate;
And how later in the evening,
As the beaux were wont to do,
Mr. Perkins, in the parlor,
Sat and sparked my sister Sue.

There my mother—heaven bless her!—
Kissed or spanked as was our need,
And by smile or stroke implanted
In our hearts fair virtue's seed;
While my father, man of wisdom,
Lawyer keen, and farmer stout,
Argued long with neighbor Dobbins
How the corn crops would turn out.

Then the quiltings and the dances—
How my feet were wont to fly,
While the moon peeped through the barn chinks
From her stately place on high.
Oh, those days, so sweet, so happy,
Ever backward o'er me roll;
Still the music of that farm life
Rings an echo in my soul.

Now the old place is deserted,
And the walls are falling down;
All who made the home life cheerful,
Now have died or moved to town.
But about that dear old cottage
Shall my mem'ries ever cling,
For 'twas there I spent the moments
Of my, youth,—life's happy spring.

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

I love these verses!

Victoria

All images by V.Zlotkowski

Happy haunting!

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
~William Shakespeare

'Tis is the night..

Happy haunting and gathering....

Victoria

Pictures by V. Zlotkowski