Saturday, October 31, 2020

Nov 2020

 


Alfie and Canadian Ex-pats...

Every month I choose an image
To share with you
And that I want to live
On my desktop
For the whole month ahead.

I prepare the calendar and stare at it...
Trying to decide what
Parts of it are drawing me to it...
And which parts of it
To focus on for you.
Often I ask Google for details
To tickle my internal thesaurus.
I stare and ask myself
What's it all about?
Alfie?Kate sent me
This gently autumnal image
From a recent walk
At Reservoir #3 in Jersey City...
Just a few blocks from her home
On a cliff above Hoboken
And across the Hudson
From Manhattan.
They're called Canada geese,
Of course. Each generation
Follows the same flight path
Every year, knowing where
To find the best marshy areas
Even in the midst
Of a highly-peopled landscape.
As an artist, I'm always drawn
To reflections... and here we have
Reflections of the trees and
The geese and the clouds.
And look at how light the edge
Of the water is where it meets
The trees... a dividing line,
As it were,
Between the trees and their own reflection.
And then there are the ripples...
Rapturous evidence
Of life's constant motion.
And back to the clouds:
They all have names, eh?
I sometimes remember some of them...
Cirrus... cumulus... stratus...
Then I am reminded that
An amateur meteorologist
Gave us those names way back in 1802.
This month I can't seem to focus
On just one aspect to write about...
So you'll have to decide for yourself.

I hope you will enjoy having
These geese ex-pats hanging about
On your own desktop this month.

Have a great Mo/November
And
Be sure to remember
While you're remembering
On the eleventh:
Vonnegut
Et al.
His birthday
And pleas
For humanity.

...
If this isn't nice, what is?

              ~ Kurt Vonnegut, of course