A Picture and a Thought

Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly taking
The rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping
Under the pines, or above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky.
                                                        ~Mary Oliver

 

*Photo by Dixie Lawrence

 

A Picture and a Thought

“When I was a small child, visiting my grandmother at her beach cottage, I used to go down the winding stairs without touching them. This was a special joy to me. I think I went up the regular way, but I came down without touching. Perhaps it was because I was so used to thinking things over in solitude that it never occurred to me to tell anybody about this marvelous thing, and because I never told it, nobody told me it was impossible.”

From Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

Hemingway’s Way

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over. Ernest Hemingway

Writing tight, concise prose is difficult, no matter what age group we write for or what genre. I stumbled across an article concerning this and tried the app mentioned. The creators of the app wanted to help writers realize when their writing was too dense. I got some interesting results when I pasted a few paragraphs of my own writing into the app. As for this blog post? It got a grade 5 readability. One of fourteen sentences was hard to read. The post contained one adverb and two phrases in need of simpler alternatives.

Using this app might be helpful if someone wants a quick look at how their prose is coming along. Or if you just need to do a little procrastinating. Keep in mind, though, it’s just an exercise.

Interestingly, Hemingway’s own writing didn’t fair so well.

Happy writing!

Word Song

 

 

 

WHY I WAKE EARLY

by

Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety —

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light —

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

 

I love Mary Oliver’s poetry, especially this poem.  To me, the words sing the unfolding of a new day.   Beautiful!