Janet Fogg's Blog, page 15

Eye level with her smallest leaf

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Photo by Richard Fogg

Rock and cloud and sky and space

“Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhumane spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and possessiveness come over me. I want to know it all, possess it all, embrace the entire scene intimately, deeply, totally.” ~ Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Photo by Richard Fogg

No art of man

“A work of art; and yet no art of man,
Can work, this work, these little creatures can.”
~ Geffrey Whitney

Photo by Richard Fogg

The Garden is Strong

“The garden is strong with pearls of moisture…webs wherever I look.” ~ Edwin Way Teale

When light floats

“There is a moment in every dawn when light floats, when there is the possibility of magic.”

~ Douglas Adams

Photo by Richard Fogg

A Shining Owl Moon

“When you go owling you don’t need words or warm or anything but hope. That’s what Pa says. The kind of hope that flies on silent wings under a shining Owl Moon.” ~ Excerpt from Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.

Photo by Richard Fogg

Genuinely interested

“Be genuinely interested in everyone you meet

and everyone you meet will be genuinely interested in you.” ~ Unattributed

Photo by Richard Fogg

Their Finchy Beaks

“In the fields
we let them have-
in the fields
we don’t want yet-

where thistles rise
out of the marshlands of spring, and spring open-
each bud
a settlement of riches-

a coin of reddish fire-
the finches
wait for midsummer,
for the long days,

for the brass heat,
for the seeds to begin to form in the hardening thistles,
dazzling as the teeth of mice,
but black,

filling the face of every flower.
Then they drop from the sky.
A buttery gold,
they swing on the thistles, they gather

the silvery down, they carry it
in their finchy beaks
to the edges of the fields,
to the trees,

as though their minds were on fire
with the flower of one perfect idea-
and there they build their nests
and lay their pale-blue eggs,

every year,
and every year
the hatchlings wake in the swaying branches,
in the silver baskets,

and love the world.
Is it necessary to say any more?
Have you heard them singing in the wind, above the final fields?
Have you ever been so happy in your life?”

~ Mary Oliver.

Keep the light

“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” ~ Theodore Roethke

Photo by Richard Fogg

Various points of view

“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.” ~ George Eliot

Photo by Richard Fogg