...after seeing a large butterfly and gathering some of the first blackberries of the year...

...a young man, towing small boy in a hi-tech trailer to his bicycle, has just arrived at the tumulus... after mending a puncture (in a very few minutes) he assembled a radio controlled model aircraft which he and the boy flew over the hayfield with frequent harmless crashes... (at the reduced scale of the model, the materials are relatively much stronger than the forces of impact)...

...and now, already, they are gone... man and boy both absorbed in technology, (or models of it) just as i was (at their ages) and perhaps i still am...

walking here this morning by familiar paths
that i'd not walked for many months
and now continuing to walk in woods and valleys
where i first wandered on the heath
when i didn't know the way
i recall pleasant moments, surprises, and memories
in what has become in my thoughts a single place,
consisting of known paths through forest, valley, open field,
a continuity where once were disconnected fragments,
places, seats, and ponds and birds and insects
as well as people more and more surprising
as my attention shifts from natural forms to human lives
each so amazing
when one is free to sit and wait for whatever happens
each place or stop or leaf or sky or person
being in itself a world
sublime release from any worry or concern
that otherwise might shrink my thoughts to nothing
of overriding importance...

(these pages are designed to be read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)

atlas

homepage

daffodil email newsletter

If you wish to reproduce any of this text commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj at publicwriting.net