Farewell, Gentle Reader!

It's time to move on. I think I've exhausted this format for myself (though hopefully not so much for you!) and it's time to A) take my more personal musings private, and B) explore other formats and venues. Something will be forthcoming, though not sure when. I will post info here on where and how to find me; check back in a couple months if you like. Or let me know, send me an email, call, whatever and I'll be sure to alert you if there's something to see. You know I am Roger at the rrbrand address in the dot-com domain. Mid- to late-May might be a good time to check, to see the new Utah photos — southeast this time, Cedar Mesa.

All of these ramblings will still be here if you ever want to browse them again; there are a lot of brilliant "gems of others" to be found here! Meantime, I've been reading one Mary Oliver poem every night of late, and so will leave you with these two...

The Ponds
by Mary Oliver

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them —

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided—
and that one wears an orange blight—
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away—
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.


Morning Poem
by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging—

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.