“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.” ~James B. Conant
Looking upward
“I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.” ~Charlotte Bronte
Flit and Flitter
… it’s the juncos,
in their undertaker outfits,
who slip unnoticed into melancholy
smuggling minims of lift.
Bless them. They exit
with a wink, tail
snapping open like a card hand to reveal
white feathers at each edge …
~Don McKay
Hidden
The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
~Charlotte Bronte
The old red barn
“Inside a barn is a whole universe, with its own time zone and climate and ecosystem, a shadowy world of swirling dust illuminated in tiger stripes by light shining through the cracks between the boards. Old leather tack, lengths of chain, rope, and baling twine dangled from nails and rafters and draped over stall railings. Generations of pocketknives lay lost in the layers of detritus on the floor.” ~Carolyn Jourdan
Standing on thin ice
“So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!” ~Robert Browning
Unpretentious
“… A lofty place he does not love,
But sits by choice, and well at ease,
In hedges and in little trees…
and there he sings
Till all the field with pleasure rings …”
~Henry Van Dyke
Dashing through the snow
“The very secret of life for me, I believed, was to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility.” ~Margaret Bourke-White
Icicles
“Winter giveth … the trees so old, their beards of icicles and snow.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Looking out across the fields
White, blue and brown bands
Sprawling out across the view –
Smooth stripes of color.
walking on a country road 