Morning photos from Daybreak Walk @ Cove Island Park. Egrets & Cygnet here.
Tag: egret
Walking. With those unheard are sweeter?
4:50 a.m. Late jump. Scrambling to get out before sunrise. 816 consecutive (almost) days on my daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. 816 days, like in a row.
I walk.
Cloud cover is heavy, humidity is heavier. Twilight is patchy.
I was up late last night reading Seán Hewitt’s memoir All Down Darkness Wide. He shares an excerpt from a Keat’s Poem: ‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter.’ And Hewitt continues…”And what of them.”
And what of them.
I didn’t find Keats, or poetry, until late in life. And like the toddler scrambling to catch his parent who lurches ahead, I’m still playing catch-up. I thought I understood the lines, but lacked confidence to say, yep, that’s right, you got it DK. So, I shut down my Kindle, and googled the lines for an interpretation by Meursault to validate my understanding:
This line from “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is an example of Keats arguing that the power of thought, the imagination and anticipation is often greater than the act itself. Music and “melodies” that are imagined and anticipated are always in tune. They are played perfectly. A melody composed in the mind, cannot possibly be played badly or incorrectly. There is no possibility of error or an imperfect note. Therefore, Keats believes that imagining something brings more fulfillment and contentment than a “real” version ever could. He thinks that anticipation and expectation often outweighs the copy in the real world and that something real can only be disappointing compared to the imaginary.
I re-read the interpretation again, paused, shut down my Kindle, and fell asleep noodling the unheard.
So, back to this morning.
I walk.
…the imagination and anticipation is often greater than the act…they are played perfectly…therefore, Keats believes that imagining something brings more fulfillment and contentment that a “real” version ever could..
To my right, there’s a Great Blue Heron. His long legs, and webbed feet slide across the ever-so-green algae.
To my left, there’s an Egret, ever-so-white as fresh snow. Her feet in ankle-deep, cyan (?) tinted water, pausing from fishing for a moment. Go head DK, here’s my good side. I’ll wait for you to get your focus just right.
My imagination bringing more fulfillment and contentment than this?
Sorry.
That’s bullsh*t.
Notes:
- Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 5:24 a.m. July 30, 2022. 74° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here (birds), and here (landscape)
- Meursault (John Keats Forum, April 16, 2009)
Sunday Morning (Images that stick)
Notes:
- Backstory on Human Sleeping on Bench: “Walking. With Moment that Sticks“.
- Geese swimming in a row. (“Ducks in a Row“)
- Last Photo Inspiration: “I want to believe that if humans really leaned into this impulse to mother one another, it would be stronger than the impulse to tear one another apart.” — Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (Atria Books, April 12, 2022)
- Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 4:40 to 5:07 am, June 26, 2022. 67° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Walking. In Strawberries.
4:23 a.m., or so. Yesterday morning.
It’s been 772 consecutive (almost) days on my daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.
And, I’m walking.
This is after moon shots at 1:43 am, 3:35 am, and now – – all posted yesterday in Let us taste the Strawberry Moon. Why, am I still up? Because Christie told me about the Strawberry Moon. And when my WordPress friends tell me to do something, I do it. So I chased her.
Who’s Christie? Mimi from her post last night: “There are people who I have followed (or who have followed me) on WordPress for years. Never met them, never spoke to them, and would likely not recognize them if we passed on the street. And yet, they are my friends…We commiserate in comment sections, check in with each other on email, rail at times, commiserate other times and occasionally marvel at our common ground. Ground that we walk in figurative step, covering invisible miles through the ether, yet as firm under my feet as the street. There is wonder in this.”
There is wonder in this. I’m nodding my head in agreement. Yet another awesome Human who can put into words, what I can’t, and so beautifully.
I walk. Bleary-eyed. Bone tired. Exhaustion fully set in.
I can see her out of the corner of my eye. She’s Giant, my Strawberry Moon, hovering, and whisper quiet as she hangs overhead, illuminating the earth in her warm glow. All, I’m sure, to protect me from taking a header as I make my way to the North point of the park.
I walk.
I twist my Air Pod snugly into my right ear, and then my left. I cue up a Chill playlist, randomly selected by another giant fruit, Apple.
I walk. My feet are moving under their own propulsion, on the same track that I have now passed hundreds of times. “Siri, turn up the volume.” Henry Green in “Shift” …I feel movements under my skin…” Continue reading “Walking. In Strawberries.”
Walking. In a Flash of White.
Walking. @ Daybreak. Cove Island Park. 746 consecutive (almost) days. Like in a row.
Fog. Dense Fog. (Square alignment with mental state on 4.5 hours of sleep. Yes, we’re back b*tching about insomnia. And we were doing so good.)
No mystical Deer stepping out of the shadows. No Atlantic Gants preening. No Swans-A-Swimming. No Humans. And one Human rapidly losing enthusiasm here. I adjust the backpack, strap on left shoulder biting. Damn, why so heavy today.
I walk.
The shoreline is layered in fog so dense, air brushes my face with infinitesimal droplets of rain.
My footfall sinks an inch or two into the beach sand.
I walk.
There’s a white flash. It’s moving too quickly. Auto focus can’t lock in on her, can’t get a clear shot of her in the fog soup.
An Egret. Legs tucked together tightly, platform diver, wings flapping ever so slowly, all of it keeping her airborne. Miracle. All of it.
And White. Oh, so white. Snow white against the all-world gray morning. A palette no computer can replicate.
Why this white? This so white.
Why not black, or green or fuchsia? Why just egrets this white. Why not all Birds-of-a-Feather be this white?
And who decided?
And I stand watching. Standing in the same fog. With the same heavy backpack. Yet, all of it is lighter. Clearer.
Delia Ephron, in her “Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life“: “Out of this convoluted, mixed-up thinking, I manage to spin a little hope…I do feel that I was thrust into darkness and given back light. And it opened me up to feeling part of a larger world, I’m not sure why…Like everyone else, I have a time here and it will be over…This gift could be snuffed out at any moment.”
The image persists… an old black and white photo decaying on its edges…the egret wing flaps…her legs elegantly tucked tight behind her, she flies. Lightly, child. Lightly.
This gift could be snuffed out at any moment.
Note:
- Photo: Egret, this morning. 5:08 a.m. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More Photos from this morning here.
- Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.
- Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”