Life: Through the Lens

  I received a lovely package in the mail a few days ago.  Meri, of Meri's Musings , has written a beautiful book of poetry.  The photo which graces the cover is also hers, with a poem by the same name within.  Visit Meri's website and learn more about this writer and photographer. Writing poetry is not an area I am particulary good at.  I write narrative fiction and non-fiction,  but the art of poetry has always escaped me.  So I admire a creative spirit who can make few words say so much. One of the poems in the book, "Lesson Learned," is a poem which I identify with very much...speaking of the process of finding yourself, letting go of one way of thinking and embracing a more growth-minded attitude.  At least that is my interpretation; poetry is so personal, two different people can achieve an entirely different perspective from the same passage. I used to love teaching this writing form when I taught middle school students.   This age group is all abou

This year I have finally decided that I am not meant to be a "gardener," but I still want to have flowers for visual appeal, and to photograph.  I would like to encourage some of the good visitors to the garden, like butterflie s and bees and caterpillars and have flowers fairly resistent to the more notorious species of critters which will keep me from my goals.  This includes controlling the rabbit population, apparently.  So my small space is evolving into a perennial garden, one which I'm really beginning to enjoy.  I can spend a modest amount of time tending it, and then emerge with a camera and tripod and reap the benefits.  Perfect! And when the little creatures come to visit, I am ready! Enjoy!

Photo from North Palm Beach, Fl website. Isn't it a great composition?    After 236 years of freedom, the words to a very special poem, from Defence of Fort McHenry , still stir us every time we hear them sung. Written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, and adopted by congressional resolution as our national anthem in March of 1931, these words can still make me cry.  What about you? O say can you see by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the b