All Things New (SWF)

Setting Sun,
December 31, 2008

Perhaps it is the white cast left on the fading grass this frosty January morning. Or the crispness of the day that follows a cloudless night--and sparkles under bright, clean rays.
The newness of this year is almost palatable.

Rising Sun,
January 1, 2009

Like white sneakers, saved for the first day of school. Treasured for their promise of another beginning.
While last year’s, scuffed and worn, are moved to the back of the closet.

I remember fussing over them.
Loving them for being unmarked and wholly new.
Trying to preserve their whiteness.
Fearing the first smudge from another.

Until they, with each day, slowly became like all the others.
With stories told by the marks they bore.

This morning,
wearing white sneakers again.

Frosty Field

Crystals on Teasel

All photos enlarge with a click.

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Where is "there?" (SWF)

My friend at work just returned from a week’s vacation. Her favorite part of each day away, the evening--when she would go to a point on land, and from “there,” watch the sun set over the ocean.

Evening Sky above farm fields

And even though, living in the country as I do, where buildings are seldom taller than several stories, they collect, one after another, in small dense clusters. Barns and coops and silos--ringing each country home.

Here, I have a place that I go to, too.
Where the land touches the sky, and the trees part beyond an openness, stretching broad and deep.
Standing at the edge looking out, I could be anywhere.
But for that moment, I, too, am “there.”

Where is your “there” place?

See more Skywatch here.