#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Unable to sleep, I worked on a poem late into the night and slept in and worked on it more, much more, before going out in full sunshine and warmth. I’m revising the poem I wrote about my father’s shoes from last week and even on my walk I kept writing and writing it in my head as it grows longer. The sun grew brighter and I kept walking into the poem taking shape like the lady slipper I found in full bloom in the shade under a tree in the leaves. This morning, on the trail of wildflowers, the emotions of the poem surfaced. I kept walking. There on the trail, I found a feather of a barred owl, probably, right in front of me, fallen to earth. I have a practice of taking pictures of what I find in the state I find it in, so I don’t pick up and move and disrupt or rearrange what I see, I appreciate the spontaneity and naturalness of how nature arranges itself. I love finding feathers and stopped and knelt on the pine needles to take its picture: I snapped. I was about to rise when a little wind blew up out of the stillness and lifted the feather and turned it over nicely so I could snap the other side too. Sometimes the woods really do seem enchanted. Everything happens for a reason.