Quotidian pleasures

Yesterday's poem by Ted Kooser inspired me to take a look in our library and see which books of his poetry lived there. The one that first came to hand was Winter Morning Walks-one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison. That made me realize that I take walks with one or more of our dogs each morning, but haven't yet been moved to write poems about it, or postcards, for that matter. We may need to do something about that. To start with, we went for a mid-day walk, which is better, or at least easier, for photography than predawn perambulations. As we were headed down the driveway, we noticed a fresh pile of dirt and a new hole in the ground near the base of the bird feeder and the roots of the chrysanthemums. After the walk, we baited and set a Hav-a-Hart trap. I'll let you know what, if anything, turns up. I suspect it's a chipmunk.

garden visitor?             © harrington

Kooser is probably much more attentive than I or he lives in more interesting country or takes longer walks or some combination of the three. I tend to see what I expect to see because the trees don't change that much from year to year. I did notice that this year, though, the little maple tree that was so flamingly colorful in late September two years ago is still green this year. Fall colors, while not outstanding, have arrived, but I wonder how little I really understand about what's actually going on in the world right under my nose so to speak.

Below is one of Ted's poems I might have been able to write [we have resident owls, but they're barred, not screech], but didn't. I'm reminded of Shakespeare's line about the problem lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Screech Owl

All night each reedy whinny
from a bird no bigger than a heart
flies out of a tall black pine
and, in a breath, is taken away
by the stars. Yet, with small hope
from the center of darkness,
it calls out again and again.

Thanks for listening. Come again when you can. Rants, raves and reflections served here daily.