Poem: Hope and Love

Hope and Love

by Jane Hirshfield
from the book "The Lives of the Heart"

All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one--
not knowing even
that was what he did--
in the blowing
sounds of the dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry:
He slept
with with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.

This is the poem in full that I spoke of in my earlier post. Thank you to Lauren on DINET for introducing this poem to me. I admit, I rarely 'get' poetry, but I do love this poem. And the image of the heron sleeping with his neck folded and put away reminds me a bit of my journey as a 'tortoise'--and how a tortoise pulls its neck into its shell to rest and hibernate

Photo: Mom just purchased this photo at a recent arts festival. It arrived in the mail yesterday and it is GORGEOUS. It's hard to do it justice on the blog! I also thought it fit well with this poem.

(Image taken from http://www.blichfeldtphotos.com/)

The Lone Sentinal: Lake Huron Shoreline, Tawas Point, Michigan.

Following is the artist's description of the photo: After searching for a single symmetrical tree to photograph, I came upon this tree and an empty bench along the Lake Huron shoreline. It was such an inviting scene, I knew I had found what I had been looking for - or, so I thought. As I was facing east preparing to shoot, I noticed exceptional skies approaching from the west. The lighting and subsequent cloudscape transcended what I had envisioned; so, I waited there until a complete west-to-east shift in the horizon occurred. After several hours, the drama began to unfold and this image became the bonus that sometimes occurs when one is patient. --Howard J. Blichfeldt--

Blessings,

Emily