29/1001 - Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025 -

My apologies if you read the entry "Many small, fragile lights in the dark" before today. I posted it without formatting it first and didn't realize it until this afternoon. All the footnotes are in proper order and links are linked, in case you want to see how it was meant to be. Now I know not to hit 'publish' before I make sure everything is as it should be. 

February 12, 2025

The moon was brilliant last night again. And Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn are all still visible, with Mars and Jupiter on either side of Orion's shoulders (like the angel and devil of cartoons) and Venus high above Saturn in the Western sky when the sun sets. The winter stars are my favorite. 

Truly, "...the world is fundamentally a great wonder..."

Short story: I'm counting the forward to Collected Poems of Edward Thomas as my short story. It was written by Walter de la Mare, who is an author I would read if he authored a grocery list or the bill for my car's brake job. This forward was a lovely tribute to an obviously dear friend, as well as a celebration of a good poet cut short. He says this about Thomas's poetry:
    "This is not a poetry that will drug or intoxicate, civicise or edify -- in the usual meaning of the word, though it rebuilds reality. It ennobles by simplification. ... These poems...proceed from a saturation, like that of Gideon's fleece; from contemplation rather than from sheer energy of insight. ... Long-looking, long-desiring, long-loving -- these win at last to the inmost being of things."

My goodness, I love that last line. And when he says that the poetry "rebuilds reality" all my heart strings thrum. Yes, yes, yes. Poetry that is worth the name "rebuilds reality" and "ennobles by simplification." It encourages "long-looking, long-desiring, long-loving" and invites you into "at last the inmost being of things."

 Essay: A friend from church recommended Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, and since I've been craving a nature essay, I figured it was time to pick this back up. I read the chapter titled Cormorant Encounter which, since we live a 10 minute walk from Puget Sound and Cormorant Bay, felt nice and local. These are lovely birds. I think having moved here as an adult saved me from thinking they are some kind of nuisance bird. I remember being shocked to see Satan described as a cormorant in Paradise Lost. Cormorants didn't deserve that! 
I wrote a poem inspired by the cormorants I see on the pilings next to the main road out of town. I'm about to subject you to it, so get your scroll ready if you'd rather not read it: 

Inky black cormorant
on a bone-bleached piling;
bird on the gravestone of industry.
Arrow wings spread wide, widening,
in the warm sun glint black
beneath a blazing sky
above a trembling sea.

quick glance as i pass by, 
two images I see:
First is a joyful man
arms flung wide, widening,
offering embrace to the world he sees;
Second man hungry-eyed,
lusting conqueror,
measuring the span as he plans to seize.

Man finds man,
finds meaning for man,
tutored by the birds and the animals and trees -
unknown to the black bird
in the sun on the piling
warming inky wings above a shivering sea.

Poem:

I Love all Beauteous Things

by Robert Bridges

I love all beauteous things,

I seek and adore them;

God hath no better praise,

And man in his hasty days

Is honoured for them.

I too will something make

And joy in the making;

Altho’ to-morrow it seem

Like the empty words of a dream

Remembered on waking.