Just had to cross the street from our hotel and walk up the stairway entrance and I was in Central Park at the so-called Great Hill. On the flat circle at the top that Sunday morning at half past seven there were at least 50 people with their dogs and they had them chasing balls thrown in all directions.
What a spectacle: the sight of those dogs, legs extended, in flight . . . in the morning sunlight.
Today I saw a cherry tree, almost bare already, as if daring winter to come, and coaxing it in.
This morning as I walked across the fields I heard a lark up high, trilling. . . or was it Him?
Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . . words I prayed on the morning walk. I stopped and thought for a moment. Why, why all that formality? Aren't we on a much more intimate basis? It was like pushing Him off into the distance, losing Him in mystery.
The crows have been following me around. They sit in the trees, swoop across my path. When I stand at my window they land on the roof next door and look down at me. I am not afaid. I have come to see them as friends.
It was dark this morning and foggy. With my coat collar up around my ears I felt hugged and somehow protected. Walking across the fields I could see nothing but the path passing under my feet. In the distance the sound of cars rushing to their urgent destinations. Oh darkness, stay! . . . How will I ever be able to face the bright, glaring days of spring when everyone is so happy and dancing blithely around the maypole?
Where has the summer gone? I see it now in the brown fields . . and feel it as I walk on the carpet of damp leaves under my feet on my path.
Stayed overnight with Nancy, my sister. We took our morning walk together. It was raining. Under umbrellas we walked in silence but each of us knew what the other one was thinking. We had breakfast, a little extended agape. Talked about Mother and Dad. The way things were. It had stopped raining when we walked out the driveway. I looked up at the trees. Then we got in the car and were off to the airport.
Morning walk in Virginia Manor. Tranquility along the path. Heard robins, cardinals, bluejays— birds I miss in Germany. It seemed as if they had come out to welcome me back.
At seven thirty in the morning when I take my walk I look up into the eastern sky and there is the morning star. The sky is bright already and other stars have disappeared, but the morning star still graces the heavens. Near it this morning there was a thin sliver of the waning moon.
Observation: When I stand looking out my window at five o'clock on these beautiful November afternoons and see the setting sun light up the western sky, I see the crows flying past and towards that light. Likewise, in the morning when the sun rises as I take my morning walk I see them coming back from the west over to the beautiful red sphere appearing at the eastern horizon.
This morning while walking I felt my shoes swishing through the first patches of dried leaves and heard them crackle under my shoes. So now it's been one whole year already since I experienced that last. That sharp moment of awareness that time had passed.
I look up into the blue but can't catch sight of the lark singing all those glissandos to thank You for a perfect Sunday morning.
Stood in the middle of a field and listened to a happy twirping of a lark that was fluttering high above me. Then I saw a windhover approaching, stand perfectly still in the air, the soft white of the flapping underwings caught in the sunlight. Then I saw a crow coming from directly behind the windhover and finally the two birds swooped. The crow flew on but the windhover went down.
I waited long but saw nothing more of that noble wind-dancer.
This morning at half past seven the eastern sky was tinted reddish-orange as the sun was just about to come up behind the hills, while in the western sky the bright moon was still hovering over the horizon. It was bitter cold. Five crows flew overhead, gliding lazily toward the sunrise.
