be.here.now.

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;

There never was a spring like this;

It is an echo, that repeats

My last year's song and next year's bliss.

From To John Keats, Poet, at Spring Time

Countee Cullen

Today it's raining pink petals.  Last night as I was waiting to drift off, I heard the distant rumble and roar of thunder.  The clamor didn't keep me awake though.  On the contrary, it lulled me to sleep: a heavy, laden sleep that lasted straight through until the sun started to blaze a trail across my bed and the birds resumed their avian choir although not in that order.  The truth is the birds start squawking and chirping long before the sun seems to be on the rise in the morning.  Last night's fast moving storm is the cause of  today's crab apple deflowering.  Nature is quixotically unforgiving like that...harsh and beautiful at the same time, both severe and soft, granting peace one moment and rendering havoc the next.  There is such tame precision and also such wild abandon everywhere I look.  The mystery of it all eludes me, but not more than it fascinates me.

Well, hello Baltimore Oriole....welcome back little visitor.  Just this morning my girl was telling me she had seen a bright orange bird in a friend's yard so I've been watching for you...scanning the trees that are leafy green explosions in just the last few days.  I am intrigued by the return of migratory birds, and humbled by spring storms, and awed by the way Miss Bit's bleeding heart has gone from a bare stalk to a flowering beauty in one week's time.  There is just quite something about the design of things that gives me pause.

Today I stopped during my walk to smell some fresh blooming lilacs, to watch a bluebird in all his brilliance flit through the treetops, and to spy on a mossy backed turtle on a log.  He was a big one...as big as I've seen in the lagoon.  The breeze is warm and welcoming, but the winds are picking up as the day progresses. My chimes are exuberantly singing.  Big thunderheads are building overhead as cool air meets warmer air.  Tonight there will likely be more rain.

Miss Bit asked me this morning where I would live if I could live anywhere.  Anywhere in the whole wide world.  Her answer was Florida...beside the sea.  Today I would have to say that I would live right here and nowhere else.