Poem for Thursday and Mill Ruins

Trees Need Not Walk the Earth
By David Rosenthal

Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
Where they stand.
Here among the children of the sap
Is no pride of ancestry:
A birch may wear no less the morning
Than an oak.
Here are no heirlooms
Save those of loveliness,
In which each tree
Is kingly in its heritage of grace.
Here is but beauty’s wisdom
In which all trees are wise.
Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
In the rainbow—
The sunlight—
And the lilac-haunted rain;
And bread will come to them
As beauty came:
In the rainbow—
In the sunlight—
In the rain.

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February began the way January ended, with winter on hiatus and spring attempting to arrive even before Groundhog Day. It was over 65 degrees and sunny, with birds and squirrels and even moths out enjoying the weather. I met for lunch at La Madeleine (best tomato soup in the world and excellent spinach pochettes), then we walked to World Market and A.C. Moore looking at jewelry boxes and various craft ideas. I refrained from buying anything except necessities for travel at CVS.

Adam brought his girlfriend and another friend home for a while but I didn't see much of them; I went for a walk in the woods, where the deer were out wandering and the cardinals were chasing each other. My uncle is in town to visit my great aunt and to come up to my niece's Bat Mitzvah, so we all had dinner together at my parents' house, and we have just watched the exciting and seemingly endless Maryland-Miami game which ended with a woeful Terrapins lost in double overtime. Black Rock Mill photos from Seneca Creek over the weekend:

















Happy Imbolc/Candlemas/Groundhog Day!