OMG it is Wednesday Already - Poetry!

Sorry Poetry fans. I think my poetry of late has been of the visual kind. Pictures of flowers and clouds and sunsets and sunrises. No doubt soon it will all digest itself and produce a poem or two but for the moment I am all eyes! And camera lenses. So I am posting a favorite poet of mine: Rumi. And a poem new to me which appealed because of the risks I have been taking in mud holes and narrow four wheel roads.

WHY CLING

Why cling to one life
till it is soiled and ragged?

The sun dies and dies
squandering a hundred lived
every instant

God has decreed life for you
and He will give
another and another and another

Rumi

If you have a poem for the tour this week (I generally ad them through Thursday) leave me a comment here or on Facebook or in Profiles.

Nicholas V

Aussie Lynn Downunder

On both your houses

Never on Sunday

July in New Mexico

I was asked for more photos from Michael. And since I definitely had more photos I decided to put together a slide show of pictures taken over the four days my sister was here and we were off-roading in her Jeep.



July is the monsoon season in the New Mexico mountains. The combination of moisture rich winds coming up from the south and the heating of the New Mexico sun creates a situation where clouds always seem to be forming or burning off. As we climbed the ridge lines we could look down on clouds or out into the distance where a new set was forming. Hope Michael and all of you enjoy.

Friday Foto and story

My sister has been in town and we have been taking many trips around "the neighborhood" and lots of photographs. So this week there are a log of pictures to choose from for my Friday Foto. Frequent readers of my blogs will no doubt see some of the others in the weeks ahead. I chose the one below over some of flowers I really like because it is of "the neighborhood" as it were.

Storm over Eagle Nest Lake

Debbie and I found a crude road which climbed via switchbacks up to the summit of Green Mountain outside the town of Eagle Nest on the banks of the lake. Afternoon thunderstorms had chased us away from fishing on Cimarron River in the Palisades area of the state park. Reluctant to go home we threw gear in the car and set off on a bit of backroading.

After we rose above 9000 feet we noticed the storm which had been the end of fishing in the canyon had topped the mountains and moved into the Moreno Valley. It looks as if it was raining over my house in Black Lake when I took this photo. And when we finally went home to fix dinner my section of the land of enchantment had indeed been drenched with another rain.

Multi-blog Poetry Wednesday

I have also posted this on Yahoo Profiles this week and linked it into Facebook. Because of the bad news on Twitter I am ignoring posting a link on that site this week. I cannot guarantee how much longer I will post on Profiles. Blogger is daily becoming more and more my blog platform of choice. And Facebook my place to chatter with friends.

Pen Pals

Sitting here
Reading blogs
Sipping coffee
Awaiting dawn.

The world is up
My section not
Chats with New Zealand
Posts to friends in London
IM Australia.

Connected in the ether
Sitting here alone
Surrounded by slumbering pets
My keystrokes fly as digital beeps
Around the world
Between sips of coffee.

Pen pals
Gone cyberspace
Neighborhoods
Gone global
Morning coffee
With friends in blogland
Before dawn
We share
The World.

(c) J. Binford-Bell

Thought I would get my Poetry Wednesday post up before it was Wednesday somewhere in the world. If you have a poem you love or one you wrote you want to share leave a comment here or post your url on my page in Profiles or on Facebook. I will link you in for those taking the tour.

My So-Called Life with Mundane Things

Bev's Blog

On both your houses

Intelliblog

Bee's Blog

Heatherbelle

3 T's Trail Opens

It has been a long time coming but anything worth doing often takes more time and trouble than we want. Especially when dealing with government agencies. I don't remember exactly how long ago it was I attended a breakfast with the director of New Mexico Arts Council and listened to her rave about the Blue Ridge Art Trail. She was feeling out various local arts councils about their feelings.

At the time my now studio was going to be a greenhouse and sun porch. But I listened intently to the guidelines she said had been employed back east and the success it was experiencing and modified my plans to include the required separate entrance, etc. I enlarged the original plans to allow space to give lessons and host receptions as well as be a base for doing my art.

My studio is done. Eighteen galleries and studios have applied and been accepted with more clamoring to be considered next spring. The Website (www.nenmarts.org) for 3T's Trail is open. My page is http://www.nenmarts.org/binford-bell-studio.html. The brochures are printed and being distributed in four states plus all New Mexico tourist sites. I have my studio sign up and am today painting an open/shut sign to hang on the gate. And I have my first student coming tomorrow.

I am excited. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Friday Fotos and story

Stage one uniting current bush to pond

When I first moved to my land here I saw it as pasture for my llamas and horse. Improvements had to do with fencing and grass seeding to improve the pasture. Lawn was in my opinion unrealized pasture. When due to time constraints I got rid of the livestock I had more grass than I could handle and I had to get a riding mower to keep it trimmed. I look at that move as the beginning of the end. I went from that to raised gardens for growing lettuce and veggies and now my flower bed.

Up to now the flower beds had been things that came with the house and were merely added to her kept up and as I blogged earlier this year I lost control of a few. I am not sure why I decided to do this new free form flower and herb garden. It began as an idea to link several things together and minimize the problem of mowing around each. Now there is one large feature to mow around.

Adding more plants and beginning to enlarge around pond.


Weeding around the back of the pond

I added the little pond the year I started the studio. I figured while they built I would make a rock garden water feature in my yard. But the studio ended up being my project and the pond got abandoned. In spite of landscape cloth laid under the dirt I got weeds. I pulled them up and laid more cloth and then more dirt.

It is not done yet (who knows when a garden is ever done) but I am further than I thought I would be. I am surprised I have not given up on it. The garden will wrap around the little pond and end in a rock garden with or without fountain/waterfall. The pan figure is a butterfly bath. There are round rocks in the bottom of the dish and just enough water that the butterflies can land on the rocks and suck water. I added new plants this week including lemon balm, sweet herb, tarragon, straw flower, painted daisy, and a low spreading ivy edge as well as three different thyme.

I need quite a few more rocks to edge the bed and the pond with. The wagon in the picture is my rock transport. I have plenty of rocks up along the drive area. I am like this little ant making trip after trip. When I can afford to build my deck on to the studio it will overlook this garden. Maybe that is why I am doing this or maybe it is just that my mother's craze for gardening has finally entrapped me in my old age.

Another Multi-Blog Poetry Wednesday

I believe my poem for today is a repost but when I went through my word files looking for it to save myself the retyping I was unable to find it. So maybe it was one I wrote and never posted. It seemed so very appropriate for today because many of my fellow bloggers have written of late in prose and poetry of stopping to reassess the direction their lives are taking or reflect on their lives.

The Path

I am not sure
Where I was heading
What direction I had chosen
It seemed more about
Just keeping on
One foot before the other.

I have not stopped
Of late to check the distance
Or the path I had chosen
It has been a while it seems
Since there has been a fork
A choice to make.

I have not questioned
The path I walk
Or the direction it was heading
Or where I wanted to head
It was not always clear or easy
Just a way to go.

I never considered
Turn back or pausing for too long
If asked I might have said
It just seemed the way to go
Though to what destination
I could not have answered.

I never considered
Stopping as an option
It was a journey
Never questioned
Toward a goal
Ill defined.

So imagine finding
The path you are on
Is going where you want
And where that is
Is closer
Than you had
Thought.

(c) J. Binford-Bell December 2008

My dear friend Bev, and superior poet, rejoins us this week after a long absence. Let us all welcome her back.

Bev with Dawn

Aussie Lynn Downunder

Heatherbelle

Intelliblog

Bee's Blog

Kennedy