Blue and Pink Dawn

Hoy es la fiesta de la Virgen de Guadalupe en Mexico. The moon is in its last quarter, and it's the birthday of Dionne Warwick (1947), Frank Sinatra (1915) and Gustave Flaubert (1821). It is also the birthday of Jedidiah Luther Hyde, born in 1971, d. 1974, in Washington, DC.

Here's a poem for the waning moon:

Luna, la luna,

Comiendo su tuna,

Echando las cascaras

En la laguna.

And a reading from the Nova Scotia Public School Speller, henceforth referred to as NSPSS:

An ignorant vagrant lay by a crystal pool. His face was roguish. He had slept in the midst of an abundant growth of fragrant clover. It is a mystery how the knavish fellow lives. (Form III, Senior Grade, Lesson 22)

Church

Sparrows come in the first light, and the cardinal next, before the cats get out. I go out and pour warm water to make small pools in the ice and scatter seed. The birds peck on the ground, then drink. A little more light, and the cardinal and mourning dove arrive. A black neighbor's cat with white chest mirrors my cat, who is indoors, looking out. Then, attracted by the peanuts, blue jay lands, scaring off the cardinal. Later the cardinal returns with his mate. She feeds on the ground while he sits on the birdbath and drinks. Finally, the sun streams above the hemlocks.


Some keep the Sabbath going to church --

I keep it staying Home --

With a Bobolink for a Chorister --

And an Orchard, for a Dome --

E.D.

I've never seen a bobolink, but the blue jay is enough for me.

Here are a few sentences from The Nova Scotia Public School Speller, 1917:

"The kingdom is to a great extent inaccessible and unexplored. Mountains run east and west, parallel to the straits. The almost perpendicular cliffs present a complex problem to the professional mountaineer."

December Morning

It's cold today, and bright, after a balmy spell. The winds came and blew away the warmth and clouds. The water in the birdbath was frozen. After I poured warm water over it to melt it, the small black cat was hanging out under the bath to catch the drippings on her paws and lick them off. Cats are certainly weird. I dreamed that I was at my inlaws and they had friendly kittens but I wasn't allowed to pick one up and talk with it or breathe into its fur. But when I went to bed, the kitten I'd erred with was there, waiting for me.

Later in the day the sun warmed everything up, and in the evening the gibbous moon rose among streaks of bright clouds. This picture wouldn't load, so now it's Sunday, less cold, no ice in the birdbath, mixed clouds and blue, and my picture has loaded. This is a new camera, and I vow to take good care of it. I'm trying to ignore the fact that I could have saved money by being patient and ordering the same model from J&R.

Later today: the fate of my totem. I miss him terribly.

Sunday dawn:

Note the bird's glowing egg. Okay, it's subtle, but it's a lovely egg.