how great

like so many of Nature’s gifts

dawn was a quiet and brilliantly

brief display of violet to tangerine

to glorious yellow-white too intense

to allow our eyes to gaze upon

but we feel welling within us

song and words that must break

forth : “How great Thou art!”

delighted baby

 haiku

delighted baby

grins, chuckling from deep within

teaching gratitude

varied dawns

my panorama view across the valley

to the west hills affords me dawns

so varied, dull gray and vivid gold

and each gives me pause to be grateful

late January sunrise

the colors of dawn were even more vivid than i captured

moments with JPM

memories and gratitude

fill me in her presence

as she remembers my storyline

from nearly a decade before

and waves away my thanks

for teaching how to lead

a writing group

california quail ‘hurrah’

two california quail lift heavily to the second story

of plant- and bird-feeder, settling broad girth amid the seed

spilling hulls and seed on nasturtiums, stand and porch floor below

i’ve never heard a california quail ‘hurrah’

but the enthusiastic waggle of question marks above their foreheads

must have conveyed other mothers’ and chubby half-dozen offspring’

gratitude for the quailfall