vesper bells

sometimes it's just good to slow down.

stop.

and begin.

again.

hold this moment . . . .

vesper bells at the shomyoji temple

kanazawa shomyo temple hiroshige

the little white boat with the red sail

michael woloschinow

adrift! a little boat adrift! emily dickinson

adrift! a little boat adrift!

and night is coming down!

will no one guide a little boat

unto the nearest town?

so sailors say -- on yesterday --

just as the dusk was brown

one little boat gave up its strife

and gurgled down and down.

so angels say -- on yesterday --

just as the dawn was red

one little boat -- o'erspent with gales --

retrimmed its masts -- redecked its sails --

and shot -- exultant on!

finding and maintaining direction - to sink or to rise - is a challenge and an opportunity presented inside each moment.

in dusk and dust and dreams

i see beginnings and endings in a tangerine hued cloud of dust. a million grains of sand and salt dance wraithlike, rising and falling, curling in on themselves and then exploding in impossibly synchronous calligraphy. each grain a minuscule world containing a single sunbeam. a ray of light that has pierced first the emptiness of space, then the thickness of this atmosphere until finally low and thin, barely making its way across fields of young grass, it somehow finds this cloud hovering above the asphalt and settles inside the crystal heart of a solitary grain of dust at dusk - and dreams.

bringers

"cover me over
in dusk and dust and dreams.
cover me over
and leave me alone.
cover me over,
you tireless, great.
hear me and cover me,
bringers of dusk and dust and dreams."

carl sandburg