January 2026

The new year has arrived in sunshine. Young henbit and onion grass have forced their new leaves above a covering of bald cypress fronds here on the creek bank. A lone honeybee has awoken in the warmth, and is eagerly searching the deadnettle buds for the few fully opened blooms. Glossy new grass and spider threads tremble in the breeze and sunlight, and a crowd of tiny, iridescent-winged gnats hover close to earth. The ground is alive and rippling with light. 

...The poetry of earth is
ceasing never... 

- John Keats, On the Grasshopper and Cricket

A single red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is across the creek, small and shaped like a Christmas tree from a picture book, on a bank covered in silvery deciduous brush. There's a little grove of slender mimosas (Albizia julibrissin) next to it, smooth-barked and almost white, with a chaotic crown of pale seed pods, papery little adornments that never stop their movement and barely audible chatter. The trees' reflection in the creek is almost perfect - the bright white of the trunks against the algae-covered dark of the creek bed.  Their image is only disrupted by a constant gentle zigzag of ripples that makes them look rather like they're in a movie, being fast-forwarded though.

...Beyond all towers strong and high, / Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun...

-J. R. R. Tolkien, Return of the King

A bonfire of the creek-bank brush is hissing out a steady spiral of palest blue smoke, casting bizarre and warbling shadows across the grass, the sort of shadows that a tank of water sometimes makes when light shines through, constantly moving and hardly there.  The world cannot stay still in this thoughtful spot.  It is so close to silent, gentle, and so very calm on the surface. 

Don't the question beg an answer?/ Don't the song beg a dancer? 

- Marc Scibillia, More to This

But if you listen, all around there are whisperings of grand plans and delight.  The earth is growing in a conspiratorial glee, building strength, gaining energy.  Slowly, in the light winds and beamish light, it's beginning to dance. 

...it is only rarely that we realize, like a vision of the heavens filled
with a chorus of giants, the primeval duty of Praise.

- G. K. Chesterton, Chaucer