What does the world
mean to you if you can’t trust it
to go on shining when you’re
not there?
Look, I want to love this world
as though it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.
One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn’t see me—and I thought:
so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful.
~ Mary Oliver, excerpts from, October
The photographs are mine.
Sometimes I wonder how a city can be so beautiful after having been in nature. Perhaps it's the difference. Regardless, lovely pictures. Teresa.
ReplyDeleteThey each offer something of great beauty, but it's the natural world I prefer most often. Counterpoints make the world go round ... :) Thanks, Rubye Jack
DeleteBeautiful, and another new (to me) Oliver poem. Did you also take the new header picture? Stunning! :-)
ReplyDeleteThe entire poem is quite wonderful. No, not my photo in the header. It's Tokyo at night ... a "wallpaper" photo ... I couldn't resist it. :)
DeleteOne of my favorites, Teresa, and your photos are breathtaking. Are those hollyhocks?
ReplyDeleteYes, hollyhocks at the top! They grace my veggie garden, such as it is ... :)
DeleteNice photos -- Mary Oliver is a winner all the time -- barbara
ReplyDeleteThank you, Barbara. MO is the best.
DeleteStunning pics. I'm just home from deepest rural Ontario, a source of some mindblowing natural scenenery. More to follow.
ReplyDeleteHey Tony, Welcome Home! Your trip sounds very nice. I look forward to hearing more ...
DeleteMaybe that's why I prefer nature without people around. Because I can imagine the world without people at all...and it is so precious and magical. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree, Rita ... :)
DeleteThis reminds me of all the wildflowers that bloom every year, but no one ever sees them.
ReplyDeleteAnd a great imbalance exists in most folks lives for this very reason ...
DeleteWhen I wrote my etheree about the shy violet, this is exactly what I was thinking about -- all of the flowers that spring up, bloom and fade away without a speck of notice. It grew out of some friends saying to me, "You just MUST publish a book!" And I thought: "Why?" Why not just sprout up, bloom, and fade away, with only a few passers-by noticing?
ReplyDeleteI still haven't a firm answer to that question.
As for the hollyhocks, they're very nearly on a level with your pears, at least for me. Some of my favorite dolls as a child were ones I made from hollyhocks. Did you do that, too?
Regarding book publishing: we are on the same page ... I can't get past the question, "Why?" with any reasonable answer. :)
DeleteLove the hollyhocks but never made the dolls ... had cousins who did, though. Our grandma had hollyhocks lining her big front porch. A good place to be ...
Nice photos especially the last one. The words express my sentiments exactly. Can't imagine having words so better match what I feel.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bill. Mary Oliver seems to have found this shared vein among us ...
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