It is not down on any map. True places never are. Herman Melville; Moby-Dick. 1851. February in the woods, somewhere in the American Midwest.

At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this? — The Deaf Republic By Ilya Kaminsky — #IlyaKaminsky #TheDeafRepublic

#poetry #roundel #Klimt

#AnneSexton #Yellow #poetry

Collaborators Despots need craven band, To boost their grim command, With willing, trembling hand. Crimes need a common will, A shared, compliant chill, Where conscience is left still. #poem #poemoftheday #poetry #poems #bluesky #blueskypoetry #blueskyart #art #tyranny #power #politics

February Thin gray twilight falls. Threadbare blanket closes round Winter’s stoney heart.

beauty and truth from Joseph Fasano.

Each day an old oak resists the wind and pests even as we recall the day we saw one fall.

Ilya Kaminsky (2019, Graywolf Press. #poetry #IlyaKaminsky

Was somebody asking to see the soul? See your own shape and countenance, persons, substances, beasts, the trees, running rivers, the rocks and sands. ~ Walt Whitman ~

Winter birds making a good show of spirit in the American upper Midwest, where January frost bites down hard.

By Ursula K Le Guin

Moss peeking from beneath snow in the Midwest. No water. No fleece, no Primaloft or down or Gore-Tex. No helmets, Kevlar, certainly no drone air support. No nothin’ but biology.💚 #MossInWinter #MossIsBadass #january

Sublet Morals He ceased to fear hell's domain, When he perceived he held its reign. His code had no cause to strain. Guiltless power saves much time, It streamlines each devised crime. One's verdicts stay in perfect prime. #poem #poemoftheday #poetry #poems #bluesky #blueskypoetry #politics

#January #MidwestUSA

Winter woods in midwestern US, following snow, rain, flood, freeze/thaw…repeat

Winter birds of the midwestern US. #MidwestWinter

#Icestorm #December

Trimming the Tree One glass swan Faded to Riesling, Weightless. What else endures? Nothing fragile, Ornamental, No relics and artifacts, Not this frost-lit night Or December’s Tea-stained pavement, Even the aurora Flowing through The cold black sky Thick with stars? #Poetry #Memory #Fragility

Growth in permanent supportive housing for the unhoused in Aurora, IL. www.dailyherald.com/20251117/sub...

#poetry #memory #remember

November brings change to the beech-maple forest.

Tiny Dancer.

The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who ever could clutch it? Ralph Waldo Emerson on Beauty. From the essay Nature #Emerson #Transcendentalists #October

#memory #dreams #poetry

Nobel Peace Prizes have often been awarded to people who fight autocracy. Maria Corina Machado fits right into that tradition www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Viva Maria Corina Machado #Peace #Nobel #Resist

#poetry #October

Resolution Of means, none silent as the candle Whispers, none soft as dawn Causes, none grand as the moth to weave moonlight each night. Of words, make mine such steel that I too would render wonder from darkness.

#september #poetry September Again the golden month beauty on beauty's cusp - tell us summer’s green dreams and desires only sleep as October creeps over the dry ground.

#GunViolence #ThoughtsAndPrayers #Poetry

"Everywhere American voices disappear, other powers will fill the gap." On the destruction of America's foreign broadcasters, and the dismantling of organizations that identify and monitor Russian, Chinese and Iranian propaganda www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Yea. It is.

Postcard from the Cusp: Summer Take every summer, just leave me  the fast fading bloom day  the sun growing soft day I want to see the light glowing gold  the one turning cold day.   #SummerEnd #Poetry

Humble chickweed making it work, a hardscrabble life beside the road. #BrucePeninsula #Chickweed

My dear one taking a sail in a quiet bay of the mighty Georgian Bay. #GeorgianBay #sailing

#orchids #BrucePeninsula

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it. Leo Tolstoy

#Summer #Poem

This one found cool shade and ambush for insects moving around a wood pallet. The soil under these rocks is moist and she can absorb water through abdominal skin. Happy toad. #toad #northwoods

August apple limbs bend low grateful grains bow before regal yellow sun hot cicada jazz at high blue noon cool crickets tune true under low full moon #August #Poem #Dusk #Haze

Maya Popa for your mid summer poem.

You lookin’ at me?

If a 1974 camper is considered “vintage” then what am I to be? Antique? Parked in the yard for some tinkering, and to be deployed next week. And now, back to writing and tea.

Summer brings golden gold finches