Simply Taken Apart

Two more images from Conomo Point in Essex.
You'll have to watch your footing on this dock.
The first step is a doozy!

Check out this house across the water.
See what happens when two brothers cannot agree?

Simply Taken Apart

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Simply Left

Conomo Point in Essex in early November.
Even the leaves have left from the trees.

Autumn River Song
Written by Li Po
The moon shimmers in green water.
White herons fly through the moonlight.

The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts:
into the night, singing, they paddle home together.

Sitting Outside at the End of Autumn
Written by Charles Wright

Three years ago, in the afternoons,
I used to sit back here and try
To answer the simple arithmetic of my life,
But never could figure it—
This object and that object
Never contained the landscape
nor all of its implications,
This tree and that shrub
Never completely satisfied the sum or quotient
I took from or carried to,
nor do they do so now,
Though I'm back here again, looking to calculate,
Looking to see what adds up.

Everything comes from something,
only something comes from nothing,
Lao Tzu says, more or less.
Eminently sensible, I say,
Rubbing this tiny snail shell between my thumb and two fingers.
Delicate as an earring,
it carries its emptiness like a child
It would be rid of.
I rub it clockwise and counterclockwise, hoping for anything
Resplendent in its vocabulary or disguise—
But one and one make nothing, he adds,
endless and everywhere,
The shadow that everything casts.

The Death Of Autumn
Written by Edna St. Vincent Millay
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,—
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again,—but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn!—What is the Spring to me?

Simply Left

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Simply Aground

It is November at Conomo Point in Essex.
The summer has past. Families and visitors have left.
Many of the houses have been closed up until next year.
At low tide, even the sea appears to have journeyed away for the season!

Low-Tide
Written by Edna St. Vincent Millay

These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die,—
The bottom of the sea once more.
There was a child that wandered through
A giant's empty house all day,—
House full of wonderful things and new,
But no fit place for a child to play.

Low Tide
Written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The sea came wooing in mad male fashion;
The strand like a maiden was shy as fair.
He fell at her feet with a cry of passion,
And flung out his arms to clasp her there.

He swore to be true; the bright stars glistened,
And the wind went dallying off with the ships,
While the strand like a maiden leaned and listened
And the sea's wild kisses fell on her lips.

But desolate now in the moonlight's glory
Is lying the pale, deserted strand,
While the sea is telling the same old story
To another shore, in another land.

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Simply Aground

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Simply At Anchor

A lone sailboat remains moored off Conomo Point in the Essex River.

Perhaps this anchor would hold her although with the low tide, she' snot going very far!

Sailboat at anchor.

Simply At Anchor

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Simply Raven-ing

A tree and a rock fight for their own space.

I still don't know which one is winning!

The beginning of a trek down into Magnolia Swamp.

Make sure you don't zig when the boardwalk zags.

A rock with a fern problem. Must have been a "bad fern day".

Or, perhaps it was a "bad moss day"!

Simply Raven-ing

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Simply Breath Taking

Here are few more glimpses of the view from the top of Ledge Hill Trail in Ravenswood Park. On Wednesday, the weather was perfect for walking in the woods, as well as sitting for a spell taking in the vista of Eastern Point down below.

The beacon atop Eastern Point Lighthouse flashes every five seconds.

We are so lucky to be surrounded by so much beauty.

Simply Breath Taking

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Simply Out On A Ledge

One of my favorite spots in Gloucester is Ravenswood Park. This is especially true on the bright, autumn days of early November.

Ravenswood offers that solitude we all need from time to time. It's a place for a quiet walk, a place for contemplation, a place to sit and watch and listen to nature.

If visiting the park midweek, it is possible to walk for hours without seeing another soul, unless, of course, the GHS cross country team is running through the woods!

They don't call this the Ledge Hill Trail for nothing!

A tree with funny feet.

Sometimes, the path is easy to follow.

One of the prizes at the top of the hill.

Simply Out On A Ledge

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Simply Sea-ing

Something about the ocean makes one gaze into it.

Sometimes to reflect upon what could have been.
Other times to give thanks for what one has.

Some gaze and wish they could travel the sea to a far away place.
Others gaze and amaze at how lucky they are to live in this place.

Search the Sea
Written by Steve Napolitano

What is this life I live?
Full of love to give
Always kept inside
to protect my wounded pride

So many dreams to chase
and feel your warm embrace
Standing on the salty shore
Watching dreams never felt before

Gazing out towards the sea
As my dreams swim free
Constantly out of reach
From this lonely desolate beach

Just one more nightmare
Before my answered prayer
I swim through all debris
After my dreams, I search the Sea

The Knowing Sea
Written by Mikol Khol

The tide comes in, and moves back out
Like your chest rising and falling
To the melodic rhythm of your life

In the mist of the sea's dew
I see the future of our understanding love
Two young friends discovering the truth

Sand and shells shift underneath
Realizing the changes that have taken place
I know now . . . where my heart belongs

The Sea
Written by Cao Cao

I come to view the boundless ocean
From Rocky Hill on eastern shore.
Its water rolls in rhythmic motion,
And islands stand amid its roar.

Tree on tree grows from peak to peak;
Grass on grass looks lush far and nigh.
The autumn wind blows drear and bleak;
The monstrous billows surge up high.

The sun by day, the moon by night
Appear to rise up from the deep.
The Milky Way with stars so bright
Sinks down into the sea in sleep.

How happy I feel at this sight!
I croon this poem in delight.

观沧海

东汉 曹操

东临碣石，以观沧海。

水何澹澹，山岛竦峙。

树木丛生，百草丰茂。

秋风萧瑟，洪波涌起。

日月之行，若出其中；

星汉灿烂，若出其里。

幸甚至哉，歌以咏志。

Simply Sea-ing

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Simply Trees

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.

Stanley Horowitz

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

cirrus sky hawk drift
blue haze in the autumn air
and my mouth is dry

Greg Boddy

It was Indian summer, a bluebird sort of day as we call it in the north,
warm and sunny, without a breath of wind; the water was sky-blue,
the shores a bank of solid gold.

Sigurd Olson

falling leaves
hide the path
so quietly

John Bailey
Simply Trees

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