Being blown away--twice

My friend who has a camera with a super-duper lens happened to look outside this week and saw our blue birds still flitting around their blue bird house and the nearby bushes, trees and benches--all empty and unused now--except for the birds, of course.

I saw them myself the next day..Pepsi blue is what I call their color. In the late afternoon sun they just glowed. We are blessed.

Photos by Jo Clarke

In the new book, Devotions, I've moved into the '70s now, and was blown away by this entry. I have been to Walden Pond, BTW, though it was a number of years ago. The "trick of living and finding it where you are," I'm still visiting.

Going to Walden

It isn't very far as highways lie.
I might be back by nightfall, having seen
The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.

Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.
They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:
How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!
Many have gone, and think me half a fool
To miss a day away in the cool country.

Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,
Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

Mary Oliver