Dust of Snow

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The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

Robert Frost (1923)

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Today I am grateful for central heat, a warm bed, a downy coat, and my cabled pink gloves, bought when I was so cold at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf (and memories of travel to faraway places)

I'm Grateful: Indian Summers

It is 63 degrees outside. It is beautiful. I don't remember the last time I walked around in the middle of November in a tee shirt, thinking about getting my sandles out, and knowing that there would be at least a week of this weather. A welcome respite from the cold.


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"Indian summer" makes me think of horses and fall leaves and pumpkins. The term was first used by a French American in the 1700's and in literature by John Greenleaf Whittier in 1841 in his poem "Memories"


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Thus, while at times before our eyes
The shadows melt, and fall apart,
And, smiling through them, round us lies
The warm light of our morning skies,--
The Indian Summer of the heart!
In secret sympathies of mind,
In founts of feeling which retain
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find
Our early dreams not wholly vain

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The Indian Summers of the heart. Isn't that beautiful? There is something about the words that sets my heart alight and makes me feel free and happy. An Indian summer day to frolic and play. To walk and run and lie in the grass, out toes bare, our arms showing.

Hope

Hope

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Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,


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And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.


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I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.


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Emily Dickinson

The Rose that Grew from Concrete

The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.

Tupac Shakur

All photos property of Erin Wallace