thereness

As I start on today's entry, I know that there are some of you out there that will be rolling your eyes. Out of a sense of consideration and decorum, I probably shouldn't mention any names (Shawn).

Anyway, the other morning I was sitting at the kitchen table eating my breakfast and noticed something. It was a sunny day, and the grass outside was covered with dew. I realized with a start that this was the first time I'd seen dew on the grass in a long time. In the winter in Vermont the grass is either covered with snow or frost. There is no dew. I got my phone, and went outside to take this photo.

Got my slippers wet in the process.

There are three or four themes that have emerged in the 10 years I've been doing this. One of them has to do with the re-emergence of phenomena. They are here, they are gone, and then they are here again. Why does this seem significant to me? Like I mentioned the other day, things evolve with the changing of the seasons. What's the big deal?

As I was pondering this, a phrase emerged from the dim past out of this creaky brain of mine,"on little cat feet." I googled it, and found that it's a line from a haiku by that famous Japanese master, Carl Sandburg.

Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

It is that "little cat feet" quality that gets me every time. Things simply appear; quietly, humbly, without fanfare. This is the time of the year when "thereness" is most easily noticed: dew, wildflowers, leaves on trees, magnolia blossoms. Thereness, however is not limited to springtime. Fireflies in summer, scarlet leaves in the fall, icicles in winter, all simply appear in their chosen time.

As I was googling this poem, I came across some notes from the Gale Group of the Literature Resource Center. They wrote that Sandburg's poem was "an innocent expression of finding beauty in an ordinary world." On my best day, that is what sometimes comes out of these musings from here on the other side of the creek.