and for all of us
…living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen. – Reinhold Niebuhr
and the accompanying doodle…
the earth has all the time in the world
…I found this book on the shelf next to Hamlet.
He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."
From Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder, published by North Point Press. Copyright © 1958, 1959, 1965 Gary Snyder.
Photo credit: Brian Palmer
These paintings were recently published in Sunspot Lit volume 5 issue 1. Thank you to Laine Cunningham, publisher & senior editor.
https://sunspotlit.com/editions%3A-2023
Lament
After The Storm
In The Desert
Edge of Atlantic 