Sock Hop

A Lake Cheston original.

Panasonic GX8 with 45mm Macro

Samsung Cell Phone

I'm well pleased that somebody has found a use for the discarded clothing on the beach.

Happy Accidents, Part 4

(Please note: For parts 1, 2, and 3, please follow the linked numbers.)

Just as I leaned in to snap a few photos of the beautiful yellow-green grasshopper (my favorite variety), James called from the opposite bank, "Love your wildflowers, Robley!"

"Me, too! Just love the College's new grounds manager!"

The flowers and stems set off the hopper to its best advantage, especially as it held its face up to the maroon and lime blossom cups.

But it was only after downloading and looking at the snaps on my computer screen that I realized an equally complementary and colorful creature lurked in the background. A caterpillar lounged just behind.

I really do love happy accidents, so much so that I hope to continue missing what's right there before my eyes. Even when they don't see, my camera does!

Up Close (Grasshopper) and Far Away (Coed Reading on the Hill)

How To Be a Poet

BY WENDELL BERRY

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

Source: Poetry (January 2001).

Harbingers of Spring

A tiny grasshopper and an unknown bug anchored to a stem just beyond.









A tiny fly that scooted along the surface of the lake.












A dance fly and a smaller spider that leapt off the branch just after I snapped.









Surely, these are signs of spring coming, and I'm just starting to get warmed up.

Locking Eyes

Annie Dillard famously locked eyes with a weasel and for an instant felt herself weasel! The thrilling essay that resulted from her transformative experience urges each of us to become like the weasel, to find our necessary focus, grasp it and never let go, to "Live like Weasels."This afternoon, a morning-suit-clad grasshopper calmly lay in the middle of my door sill, as if waiting for me instead of leaving a calling card and hopping off. I hunkered to the floor, camera in hand, and made eye contact with him. I felt no transfer of energy or being, only fascination with his stillness and calm while I, a giant, stared and stared.Only when I downloaded and looked at his photos did I realize I had capture what looked like a meal. Click the picture and look closely: something sticks out of his the area that might be a "mouth" and something lies squashed under him. A friend has explained that his mouthparts are composed of a number of hard structures. How does one turn plants into sustenance, I wonder, with parts like these, shaped so like spider's legs.

I know almost nothing about grasshoppers, but this about this one: he was complicated and calm, only one of which I was today.

Brown and Beautiful

This mature grasshopper sports fantastical armor of variegated color and design as beautiful as a tortoiseshell mosaic or a stained-glass study of brown.

Isn't he lovely?

The Poetry of Earth

28. On the Grasshopper and the CricketThe poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's -- he takes the lead
In summer luxury, -- he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

John Keats
December 30, 1816