Category: Tenneson Woolf Poetry

The photo is of recent trip to Wyoming. That’s the Snake River. I was drawn to the beauty of water flowing next to snowy forest.

The words below reflect learning to me. Of specific circumstance present in my life. Yet also of generic circumstance so common to many.

I seek to follow the potent learning of now. It’s beauty. It’s challenge. I seek to be with what I myself might be asking, subconsciously, for Life to teach.

There is potent learning here.
Of loss.
Of judgement.
Of poor behavior.

It might be true that Life gives you what you ask for.
Or need.
Or that challenges.
Or that sometimes even transforms.

While you are in your poor behavior.
I am in mine.
We are in ours.

And life goes on.
Teaching.
Yet, perhaps inviting flow.

I wrote this poem four years ago, during the early shutdown of Covid. It was context then for an environment of nerves and feeling startled. I read it again today, by chance, looking for something else on my website. And thought, ah, yes, some good remembering that applies today too.

Enjoy.

Toward Pheasant Brook

I walked this morning.
Down Lakeview toward Pheasant Brook Park.

The sky was mostly blue.
The sun shined.
Dogs barked.

I did in fact see a Ring Necked Pheasant as I walk to the park.
It nervously scrambled from bushes,
startled by my passing.

That bird was impressive,
full color against the brown of yet un-budded spring.

I needed that walk today. 
To feel an unquarantined world.
To see majestic mountain.
To say and receive sun-warmed “Good morning” 
with passers-by, also out walking.

We are all a little nervous these days,
wondering about safety for ourselves, our loved ones, 
and the postponed world around us.

We are all a little startled
and jarred by hyperbole that has become reality.

This time will pass.
There is budding yet to happen.
Open fields will grow vegetables.
Dogs will lick our hands, tails wagging.

There is much impressive beauty 
among us,
and ahead of us.