sundial time

Imprecise but nice enough to tell the hour

Nice to have this sundial reconstructed

Placed to advantage in the midday sun

Aligned with the north star at night

Wide copper band parallel to the equator

Numerals cut out to display highlighted

Gliding across the reading surface

Silently crossing the center line axis

Marking high noon moving up and down

As the seasons turn, following the analemma curve

Adjusting sundial time to match clock time

As the day-over-day duration changes

Constructed with a geocentric understanding

When the sun revolved around the earth

As out of place in our digital world as a slide rule

An analog approximation, an ancient awareness.

franklin lakes early october

album

moving day

I comment wearily “My life in a box.”

As I see yet another wheeled towards me

By the worker unloading the truck on moving day.

He hears me say this and replies

“Mi vida en una caja.” translating for me.

English is his second language.

My move is local in the same county.

His move is long distance from another country

To another language and discrimination.

I am moving a few miles further away

Planning to enjoy senior citizen free time.

I will unpack and settle into my easy life.

He is an immigrant seeking work

Hoping to make a decent living here.

Today our lives cross in passing.

Quiet Serenity

In the stillness of the redwood grove morning

We are alone.  You sit quietly, listening to the hush.

I photograph you next to the quote from Shakespeare

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

The giant trees spread their greenery high above us

On trunks that rise up and up all around us.

We have come here from far away to admire

Their majestic presence enduring here.

These old trees were here before the settler invasion

Now lingering remnants of the great coastal forest.

We breathe in the clean air, speaking few words

Absorbing the calm, forming a memory of this place.

Walking to the nearby river running clear and pure

Walking the path up the creek under all these trees

Standing uncut, towering higher than any we know

Back home, where everything has been cut and cut again.

This place is awesome.  The only sound our footsteps

Softly padding on the deep humus forest floor.

Looking about I see the outlines of strange creatures

Formed by the huge burls on the trunks of some trees.

My imagination animates those figures and I want to hear

What these ancient forest denizens might say to me.

You are so grounded your thoughts do not stray

Seeing these trees for the magnificence they are.