Forest Bathing

[cornerofmadness]

I took the day off and went forest bathing. Before I did, I stopped at the library. Coming out of the library my knee dislocated. Of course. I slapped it back into place and went anyhow. Everyone went. The forest was a little crowded :)

I walked my favorite walk, Pine Ridge trail at Lake Katherine which is here in Jackson. I FINALLY managed to go at the right time. I'm usually so damn busy in April I never go but this time I decided to find my own church for Easter and that was it. I found SO MANY wildflowers. Fields of trillium, phlox and Virginia Bluebells. I found things I have no idea what they are.

Here let me link you to my FB album because there is too many pictures and too little time to bother with photobucket. Come see the Flowers

I really liked the new companion on Doctor Who. Bill is a great character and that was a good episode. Here's hoping the rest of the series is that good. I also liked Class. It was an interesting start (and yay to the Buffy shout out).

I've forgotten my poems. Sigh. Here they are now.


Haunted Houses
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 - 1882
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.
We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.
Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.
And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—
So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.



I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –