New Pencil Happiness In a Nature Blog?

If one admires them
In the yard, they qualify!
Backyard Spectator

~dkm 195/365

Mixed Media

Liriope grass
Creates art in The Wayback
Framed with cement block

~dkm 194/365

Rooted, Planted, Given To Friends

Third generation
Sprigs from Obama's ivy
Spreading his kindness

~dkm 193/365

Human Nature

Yayas trying out
New reclining furniture
Ready for yoga

~dkm 192/365

Aging Landscape

One limb at a time

Death by bacterial root rot

Aucuba black leaf

~dkm 191/365

Coffee and Foxtrot

Through kitchen window
Morning quiet graced by a
Pure magnificence

Trotting across yard
Down the curvy garden path
And into the woods

Long, lean, sleek, and red
Black legs, white chest, black-edged ears
White-tipped bushy tail

An urban red fox
Prowls at daybreak, late Jan
His mating season

 ~dkm 190/365

Image similar to our fox. Photo credit: Ken Thomas

On My Windowsill

Sprigs pinched from plant that

Grew from sprigs pinched from plant in

Obama's Whitehouse

~dkm 189/365

Swedish Ivy via Obama

Revealed Through Binoculars

Our red-tailed hawk pair
Sharing lunch on a high branch
Red meat, floppy legs

~dkm 188/365

Just Passing Through

Edging the birdbath
A ring of cedar waxwings
Masked whistlers flocking

~dkm 187/365

Winter

Vermont's crystalline
tower on birdbath answers
Georgia's icy rink

Northern birds will melt
snow with their body warmth
to sip a few drops

Southern birds will fly
across town to running creeks
Or find bugs or fruit

Northern family
Will sled down driveway with dog
I will stay inside.

~dkm 186/365

Morrisville, Vermont:

Photo credit: Lisa Zinn

Decatur, Georgia:

Dear Migrant Birds

The baths are frozen
But the creeks are still flowing
May you find water

~dkm 185/365

Sheila's Bald Cypress

Eight friends placed today
Stones on the roots of her tree
We read together

~dkm 184/365

Gone From My Sight

         -by Henry van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side, spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast, hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone," there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

Morning After Storm

Rain-soaked moss on tree
Black today, yesterday green
Slow dry back to green

~dkm 183/365

One of eight dying cherry trees in yard

Morning Walk Sunrise

Words are no match for

the beauty and the silence.
A thousand poems

~dkm 182/365

Photo credit: Sara Cushing

Photo credit: Pearl McHaney

Cherry Tree Gummosis

Really. It's called that.
Sap oozing from dying trunk
I cry with this tree

~dkm 181/365

Descending Screams In The Wayback

Red tailed hawk lovers
Fly into tree overhead
Mating I presume

One displays feathers
Perching long in place. Female?
Code for come hither?

The other flies in
And out of the tree, each time
Mounting her briefly

Many smaller birds
Flitting in nearby branches
Offense or defense?

                           ~dkm 180/365

I

Secret In The Wayback

Chocolate Haagen Dazs
For breakfast today, outside
Unforgettable

Sweet sorrow, the last
of Sheila's ice cream stash from
her freezer to ours

~dkm 179/365

Redwing Blackbird Flock

darkens lawn till some
imperceptible signal
scatters it at once

~dkm 178/365

Sixty Year Lifespan

Another downed branch
The cherry trees are dying
Covered with lichen

They've already lived
Beyond their expected time
Still, I'll grieve their loss

~dkm 177/365

Planted in 1955

Morning After Rain

Groups of like species
Landing in droves on feeders
Chippies, blackbirds, blue

(also singles of many other species)

~dkm 176/365

Outside My Kitchen Window

Wintertime trio
Waiting for turns at feeder
Blackbirds and cardinal

~dkm 175/365

Joie de Vivre 1

Robins in birdbath
Ducking and splashing in turn
Sharing the pleasure

~dkm 174/365

Not in Kansas Anymore

Sunset in Georgia

Filtered through trees in slow time

Antidote to stress

~dkm 173/365

Oh Look!

There's a feminist
Swimming in the sea of trees
Behind Charis Books

~dkm 172/365

Cherry Tree Twist 2

An aura of light
Might as well have said welcome
With today's hello

~dkm 171/365

Cherry Tree Twist 1

I knew not this twist
Until Makayla, age nine
Painted it for me

Now I notice her
And every day since that day
She has greeted me

~dkm 170/365

For the Beauty and the Benefit

Lichen medallion
Changing carbon dioxide
Into oxygen

~dkm 169/365

On concrete meditation bench in backyard

Leather Leaf Import

I don't understand
Why so many people love
Mahonia shrubs

They grow in odd spots
They're thorny, they're not pretty
They're non-native weeds

Birds over-plant them
Lured by purple spring berries
Invasive species

~dkm 168/365

Morning Meditation

View from inside out
A study in gray and wet
Splash of rain on rail

~dkm 167/365

Bald Cypress

We planted a tree
With Sheila's ashes today
Poured with rain and tears.

~dkm 166/365

Decatur Cemetery

The Nature of New Year's Day

Walk, garden, lose weight
Sort through forgotten papers
Learn to bake yeast bread

dkm 165/365