11.30.3035 – mystery of trees

mystery of trees
and water and all living
things borrowing time

Salt Marsh on Pinckney Island, SC at Sunset, Nov 28, 2025

They used to say we’re living on borrowed
time but even when young I wondered
who loaned it to us? In 1948 one grandpa
died stretched tight in a misty oxygen tent,
his four sons gathered, his papery hand
grasping mine. Only a week before, we were fishing.
Now the four sons have all run out of borrowed time
while I’m alive wondering whom I owe
for this indisputable gift of existence.
Of course time is running out. It always
has been a creek heading east, the freight
of water with its surprising heaviness
following the slant of the land, its destiny.
What is lovelier than a creek or riverine thicket?
Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us
birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water
and all living things borrowing time.
Would I still love the creek if I lasted forever?

Debtor by Jim Harrison as published in Songs of Unreason (Copper Canyon Press; 2011).

What is lovelier than a creek or riverine thicket?
Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us
birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water
and all living things borrowing time.

Walking on Pinckney Island, the day after Thanksgiving at stopped at this spot, looking west, where I have stopped hundreds of times.

I have stopped hundreds of times but I have never stopped time other than by capturing a moment using the phone on my camera.

Back it the day, it might have been called a still shot, I guess from the painters, still life.

Nothing about this picture is really still.

The tide is moving the water out at 6 knots.

The Sun is spinning away at 1,000 miles per hour.

The earth tips 1 degree north of south each day depending on the season.

The clouds and marsh grass move with the wind.

Everything is in motion.

All by accident.

No Artificial intelligence.

No photoshop.

Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us
birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water
and all living things borrowing time.

I might have captured the moment but the time is borrowed.

11.22.2025 – that time of year when

that time of year when
yellow leaves, none, or few, hang
shake against the cold

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare.

If you traveled the length and width of Beaufort County, South Carolina you might be hard pressed to find more fall color then is this little patch of trees near where I live.

Beaufort County is 40 miles long and 10 miles deep and covers the coast of South Carolina from Savannah to Charleston.

At high tide, 50% of Beaufort County is underwater.

The salt is in everything and there is not a lot of color you can get out of salt.

Growing up in Michigan, the local forests are a poor player for fall color.

Having lived in Atlanta for years, the local forests are just as lacking for spring color.

The simple pond in the picture has the very real chance to be home to both alligators and water mocassians but it sits in the middle of housing development surrounded by an lawn that invites you to bring a picnic lunch and sit and enjoy your surroundings.

If you do that and aren’t bother by the alligators or snakes, either the fire ants or the sand gnats will eat you alive.

So why do I live in this salt marsh swamp?

That one line there captured by Big Bill.

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.

Its the end of November.

It is forecast to be in the low 80’s and we are off to the beach.

Now my favorite fall colors are the numberless shades of blue in the sky and in the water of the Atlantic Ocean.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,

11.20.2025 – telling myself, I

telling myself, I
was impressed, had to be some
impression in it

Impressions of Sunrise over Hilton Head, 11/20/2205

Impression I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it — and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.

Louis Leroy’s review of the painting, Impression, Sunrise, was printed in Le Charivari on 25 April 1874.

Claude Monet, *Impression, Sunrise* (1872)

According to Wikipedia, While the movement and the painting initially garnered controversy, Monet’s Impression, Sunrise gave rise to the name and recognition of the Impressionist movement, arguably exemplifying more than any other work or artist the Impressionist movement as a whole in style, subject, and influence.

Driving to work this morning I could see the sunrise.

I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it.

11.19.2025 – dolphins had always

dolphins had always
believed far more intelligent
for the same reasons

Sunrise over Skull Creek with dolphins mucking about unseen – but I know they’re there.

Adapted from the passage:

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

From The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (New York : Pocket Books, 1985).

I had a ride to work this morning so instead of defending myself from drivers who are intent on killing me, I was able to look out the window.

When you ride to work in the Low Country of South Carolina you get to look out the window at water.

You get to look out the window at water and look for dolphins.

Sometimes you spot one or two or more as they muck about in the water having a good time.

They have such a good time that just to see them makes you feel better.

And sometimes, when I get a ride to work I can look out the window and see dolphins.

There are worse places to ride to work.

I got to thinking about dolphins.

They do not labor or spin.

They spend the lives not knowing about borders, taxes, politicians, jobs or NFL Referees.

You know what?

I do believe that they ARE far more intelligent than man.

11.9.2025 – we tend to house our

we tend to house our
products according to value
that we put on them

Yesterday my wife and I drove up to Beautiful Beaufort by the Sea, South Carolina for the Friends of the Beaufort County Library Book Sale.

It was held in the waterfront pavilion in downtown Beaufort.

I have been to and taken part in a lot of Friends of the Library book sales in my day but never one outdoors, along the coast, and in November.

I am at a time in my life when divesting of accumulated books is more on my mind than accumulating more physical books (As I buy more and more tablets to hold more and more e books – and for those who wag a finger, I also have a solar power tablet charger for when my Twilight Zone ‘Time enough at Last’ event happens) but then you just never know what a book sale might have and what I might find.

And what I found was a biography of the great …. MAX PERKINS!

Most likely you have never heard of him which is the way it should be.

He was a book editor and it was his job to remain anonymous while making an author’s writing better.

The author’s Mr. Perkins edited include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.

I got through the first page, just the first page, where the author described the Charles Scribner and Son’s bookstore in New York City.

A bookstore that is no longer around, but it is still remembered as being in the top five of bookstores ever in the world.

Wikipedia writes: “The building opened by May 18, 1913, and became the seventh headquarters of Charles Scribner’s Sons. In addition to the bookstore and offices at 597 Fifth Avenue, Scribner’s had a building at 311–319 West 43rd Street for its printing press. The development of the 597 Fifth Avenue building was described by architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern in 1983 as “sure testimony to the rapid march of commerce to upper Fifth Avenue”. New York Times journalist David W. Dunlap, writing in 2012, said 597 Fifth Avenue was like “the Apple store of its day”. At opening, the bookstore contained shelves of books arranged along both the ground floor and the balconies.”

I went looking online for photographs of the store and came across the blog, Jeremiah’s
Vanishing New York which on February 8, 2010, had a post titled, Scribner’s Bookstore, where the Jeremiah discusses the store and its contents.

The author wrote, It’s difficult to imagine anyone in New York today providing such an opulent setting in which to sell books. We tend to house our products according to the value we put on them.

I like that line as I think of the bookstores that are left to us today.

And then I thought about the book sale had just left.

In an open air pavilion.

In a park.

Along the waterfront, 2 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

Such an opulent setting in which to sell books.

We do tend to house our products according to the value we put on them.