Five Flower Photos and a Wood Duck

Saturday morning I saw a male wood duck sitting on the log at the edge of our pond. So I put my 100-400 mm lens on my Canon camera along with my 1.4X extender and made a handful of photographs of him in all his male sartorial splendor. Then I made more photographs of the now fading ranunculus flowers that I bought earlier in the week. So today I’m sharing

Five Flowers and A Wood Duck

with you.

Besides the beauty of the wood duck, I love how you can see small feathers on the surface of the pond below the log. This log, that we placed at the edge of the pond years ago, is a favorite preening spot for the many ducks that visit the pond. But I’ve never before seen small feathers on the pond below the log.

I’ve loaded the photo up as my desktop computer background and am enjoying looking at the photo every day as I sit down to work at my computer. If you’d like a copy of the photo leave a comment along with your email address and I’ll send you one.

In the afternoon Saturday as the rain fell (Thank you! Thank you for the rain!) I saw a small painted turtle slowly crawling diagonally across the lawn towards the side of the house. Minutes later I saw a big snapping turtle following a similar path across the lawn. I didn’t photograph either of them but I cannot help wondering where they were going. In addition I was hoping that the small painted turtle did not end up being a meal for the big snapping turtle or get crushed crossing the street.

Last week I came upon a medium sized painted turtle crossing our street. I managed to drive around him and then watched in horror as another car drove over him before I could rescue him. Luckily the car’s wheels didn’t hit the turtle. Being a bit of a wimp when it comes to picking up turtles I hurried into the house and asked Jon to please come out to move the turtle to the side of the street. He quickly moved the turtle and I told him that he was my turtle-rescuing hero.

Wandering Through Wonder

I assume that the turtle that Jon moved to the other side of the street had come from the pond that is across the street and down the hill from us. But I cannot imagine why some turtles decide to pick up and leave the pond they’re living in to go a-traveling. It’s a mystery I will probably never solve. Still, it fills me with wonder.

With each thought of amazement, gratitude, and wonder I feel as if I am loving the world just as it is. This seems like a good thing to do when I’m not certain what else to do to make a positive difference. Do you, also love the world and all of its beautiful creatures and growing things by feeling wonder, amazement, and gratitude?

Here is another (rather long) Mary Oliver poem that I love. It ends with the instruction, “Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

1.
Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say–behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings of this gritty earth gift.

2.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.

5.
We do one thing or another; we stay the same or we change.
Congratulations if you have changed.

6.
Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason?

And if you have not been enchanted by this adventure—your life—
what would do for you?

7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements, though with difficulty

I mean the ones that are thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment somehow or another).

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

— Mary Oliver