Morning Unfolds at the Ranch

The place I go when I need to be quite and replenish — home. The animals always help me find perspective - keep it simple, lots of happy, slobbery smiles from the dogs, the smells and sounds of the horses-their little nickers, snorts, always calm when I am around them-we sniff a familiar hello, catch up, check each other out for happy/sad...somehow they always know. It's easy to get caught up in all that is wrong with the world, it only takes a quick step off the path to drink in the sounds and smells of mother nature to know that there is plenty right

Photos by Blossom

Blue Moon

Photo by Michael Gough

it's been a long journey back here — sometimes it's just too much. one needs time to step back and replenish, gather up, restore... a start, a poem. for the times at hand — my own words lost in the numbness — sent to a child who has lost some footing...

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver ~