a halloween favorite

Small potatoes can be the tastiest

I've always liked small potatoes...those tasty little red or purple orbs just carry along the garlic so well. They can pack a powerful punch.

And speaking of small spuds, I entered a few of my photos into the New York Sheep & Wool Fest last weekend. I have never been so bold as to show my shots to much more than family & friends, so this was a big step for me, even into a little contest.














"Rusty Mug" (category: scenes)











"Spring Rolling In" (scenes)













"She Revels in Cocoa and Snow" (people)











"Tired Trailblazer" (animals)

If there was ever an appropriate time for a barbaric YAWP....

...it is now.

I just found out that a poem I wrote called "Sugar" has been accepted for publication in Pathways: A Journal of Literature & Art, a smaller publication put out by those fine folks at The Berkshire Writers Room, who publish the annual Berkshire Review.

Sugar

We rise in the bleak half hours

of early March

and cocoon in layers

—Carharts, boots, hats—

thankfully drawn outside into the snow or mud and sugar maples.

We peer into the sky, read the clouds

for signs of snow or rain,

watch for buds in the trees:

their beginning and our sweet end.

Soon the fire crackles in the arch’s warm womb,

its oily black paint bubbling and flaking,

and sweet steam billows up

from the steel streak of the narrow boiling pan.

It won’t be long before we lean into it

for the first whiffs.

All day we feed the flame,

chop and stack wood,

pour clear sap into the golden roil.

Check the galvanized buckets again after the day warms,

peer at the dripping tin tongues with wrinkled foreheads,

and listen for the hollow plunk or splash.

We breathe quick parched prayers

—patience, thanks, strength—

into the wind.

And ladle more sap into the frothy boil.

We stomp cold, sore feet.

We wait, patient.

Even into the starry, howling morning hours,

sticky and smoky,

we wait.

Such slow hours pass in this glad, weary rhythm.

HMMooreNiver

A(hhhhhh)utumn

I took this earlier in the week while on a walk through the local nature sanctuary. The leaves have been pretty subdued so far this season. Such dry conditions supposedly mean lackluster foiage again this year, but isn't it always lovely?

I manifest in mysterious & loud ways...

Loud? Really? OK, maybe. Sometimes.
I guess I should read this now, huh? I am pretty sure I have it somewhere around here, 'neath a stack of other teetering titles...

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!

by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire
faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest
this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking
moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT
SOUNDS LIKE THIS!


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Something blushing this way comes...

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore..."

And so begins my foray into the vast landscape of blogdom.

Poetry, musings, photos, rants. More to come. Stay tuned.