Oh Christmas Tree

Softly falls the snow around you,

as you struggle not to care,

that walkers let their dogs assault you

with legs akimbo in the air.

You wait beside the drifted curb

for the truck that comes around,

with squealing brakes that will disturb

the house's slumber with their sound.

But who will watch as you are lifted

heavenward to meet the end,

as are the others, now snow-drifted

supine and brittle on the ground?

Oh Christmas tree who threw the light

across the faces of the young,

Remember joy, the happy night,

when Christmas carols were happily sung.

Oh Christmas tree who patiently

graced the season of hope and love,

remember hands who carefully

placed the angel high above.

Remember green. The sun that shone,

above you in your forest home . .
and in that home that fades from sight . . .

You were the star that lit the night.

Cathy. Wilson

The View From Northview Diary

Form her very unique vantage point, Marianne posts some beautiful pieces on life.

"So hooray for bluebirds, blue skies, and shining vistas of woods and wild lands. They do a body good."


Northview Diary



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Kate through the years . .

We're waiting, praying and hoping that this dear little girl is soon able to go home to her sister, her dog and a Christmas filled with love and happy memories.

She's endured three surgeries in one week.   She's left a wake of love, amazement and wonder at how one so young and facing so many procedures can be so bright and positive.  So witty and determined.  She is a precious gift to those whose lives she's touched.

A third surgery . . . .

UPDATE:

After a third surgery in the early hours of Tuesday morning . . . hope is blooming that this sweet child is able to return home with a shunt that is moving CS fluid as is needed to relieve the pressure and swelling. The staff in IPCU at Children's Hospital in Aurora are  in love with her . . as are we all.

PS.  Kate is on the right and that is her dear sister, Laura on the left.


She must have another surgery this afternoon.  Swelling causing pressure. She is the dearest of little girls.

Prayers for a precious niece, please . .

Kate is one of God's dearest creations.

On December 4th, she'll be undergoing neurosurgery at Children's Hospital in Denver.

Please pray for her and her family.

From a grateful aunt's heart . . .
Thank you.

Autumn Silhouettes

   The waning light of autumn has its own beauty.  

As the leaves and sun drift away . .  . the trellis of the trees carries the sky.




Pictures from brother Bob's yard.

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Please. Please don't eat the zinnias.

                    First. Check to make sure nobody's home . . . 

          Just to make sure . . . take another look around . . . 

                     Take time to smell the flowers . . . 

                                   Then.    EAT THEM.

THE MARTIN HOUSE

PLEASE SEE THE POEM - BELOW.

                                     The Martin House

Here by the pond the mosquitoes need quelling.

A high-rise birdhouse is the requisite dwelling.

But try as I might the squatters come flying

And now there is mayhem – it’s all very trying.

 

There’s indignant chatter instead of song,

from the martin-less house above my lawn.

The starling struts through the sparrows’ parlor,

ignoring their pleas, ignoring their holler.

A piece of their bedding he holds in his beak.

His head’s cocked askew to measure their pique.

On to the front porch he pushes his way

and spits out their mattress in order to say:

“Birds of a feather may all get along,

but my elegant black trumps your dowdy brown.

Pack up your eggs and pack up your straw!

I’m soon moving in with my elegant frau.”

I could force a truce in this feathery fray

by removing the roost to stow it away.

But I’ve taken a pass on the martins’ sagacity.

(They stay well away from such rapacity.)

No, I’ll go on from season to season,

watching this skirmish for no purposeful reason,

except to muse at these feathered pairs,

squabbling over what isn’t theirs.

Catherine Wilson

The Taming of the Shark

Once upon a time . . .

A nice man went for a wade . . .

He bent to peer beneath the sparkling waves . .   and . .

A BIG SHARK jumped him!!!

The battle ensued!

Right out of the water it came !!

It was fierce, and it grabbed the man's arm with its dorsal fin !!

"Oh no, ya don't!"  shouted the man.

It got nasty!

                                     But the man got the shark on its back!

And he shook him good and said: "Y'er com'n with me!"

And he hauled him up the steps to take him to fish school were he might learn some good manners.

Ruh - roh.

The shark didn't want to go.

He pleaded his case.

(As he showed some very SHARP TEETH)

And he promised to be a good shark . . .

so the nice man took the wily shark back to the water.

Don't you love a good fish (er . . 'shark') story with a happy ending?

(You can meet this intrepid pair at the USFWS headquarter's parking lot on Morris Island, Cape Cod. And while you're there check out the Monomoy Island Ferry which will transport you to areas where you'll see the natural delights (Seals!) along the shores at the elbow of the Cape.)

PS:  And now the rest of the story.  Ed was checking the shark for leaks.   That required submerging different quadrants and waiting for tell-tale bubbles.  A very gentle encounter.

Serendipity

I had a stack of pictures I'd taken over past decades.
Put them in an album.
Cloud and sky pictures together..
Sat down in the front window to enjoy them.
Sun came through the antique window my brother gave me.
All but one of these rainbows came from the window prisms.

The only real rainbow is the faint arc low on the eastern Colorado horizon.

I love serendipity.

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After a long winter, signs of Spring . . .

Something starts to whisper during March.

  When drawers and closets and pantries become 'interesting' . . .

Theres no disputing it, when the mallards show up for the 4th year.

   It was a little shadowy at first . . .

               But, at last,  there it is  . . streaming through the windows . .

                              Happy Easter!    Happy Us!   We made it.
                 Wishing you and yours Light, Smiles, Laughter and Love.



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They Were "Us" . . .

These color photos of the '30's and 40's (clickable) just emerged from the Library of Congress.

Haunting.  Haunting.  Why should color from the past - make it so much more real?

The anonymous people, our ancestors, battlefields -  were always 'then' . . . the 'past' . . .  a strange 'before now' time . . that peered from black and white photographs.  And now this.

Why does it affect me, so?   Perhaps because the same sun that colors our lives, now falls on their faces, on their shining hair, on the fields they plow.  It is a world of blood, sweat and tears.  No longer just a black and white recording of others in a strange other time.

It's unsettling to see these wraiths as no different from me.  After all, they lived so long ago . .  . in that less nuanced world .  . that static two-dimensional world where ghostly images drift.  And they are probably gone - vanished into that gauzy black and white world.  Surely different laws reigned over their lives, than do mine.  But no,  I am now disabused of the notion that  I am more 'now' than they could ever have been.

Truly.  I am moved and amazed at the difference that throwing the palette of common daily life across the past, makes in my perception.

Thank you, Laura.  You should have seen it in color.  Click for a very poignant song.



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This Is More Like It !

Hubby made it upstairs with his new knee.   It was the siren call of his flight simulator that got him to the top of those steep steps.  I thought I heard him calling.  Raced to the bottom of the stairs.  "There's a bird outside my window with a red head," says he.

"Groan." says I.  Plod up the stairs to see what I know will be a Cardinal, a House Finch, a Red-bellied Woodpecker . . .

But waaaait . . . something's wrong with this bird.   A leucistic finch?  No.  There's more than one.
Holy Kamoly.  Grab the smelling salts!  My first White-winged Crossbills - Evah !

Thank you dear hubby.

AND.   In googling images of Crossbills . . . ended up on this unbelievable Flicker River of Indiana bird photography.   It goes forever . . . just like the perfect dream should . . . during the heart of January.

It's the Indiana Audubon Society's Bird Gallery and Archive
(That's a clickable link)

Update:  Did want to mention that after failing to get a pix of them in the tree limbs .. . they dropped into my birdbath . . whence . . . voila ! ^

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