Milestones
It’s wonderful to have the word ‘royalties’ to finally be part of my life. I first saw self-publishing to be a kind of defeat, a huge compromise to my dream of being accepted by a publisher.
Instead, it has become incredibly affirming. Not because money, which is nice. Because people are actually reading my words. The reality of self-publishing is infinitely better than the dream of being published.
Notes on infinity
I don’t know if this is going to be a poem or article. Maybe both. I’m trying to grasp the infinite abundance of our world, our universe.
Count the pine needles
I thought of that line as I walked through the woods, looking at the yellow blanket of pine needles on the trail and under the trees. Imagine trying to count them. It made me think about the line where measurements blur into the infinite.
Look to infinity
Relentless abundance
You are standing in it
Walking on it
Throbbing with it
Infinity is the disappearing importance of measurement
Of rulers
Of defining numerals
Measure me out
a teaspoon of thyme.
But make me the same teaspoon twice
With the exact number of grains each time.
I feel like I’m capturing something that I have been after a long time. These are elusive thoughts, though, and it takes time to refine them.
Heron caught hunting
I got extremely lucky and caught this heron in the act of hunting.
Also I wrote a poem about Herons: https://bozbozeman.com/2022/06/03/heron/
Mulch
This spring I spread mulch with painterly strokes Or smeared hurriedly, abstraction in brown My canvas: Rooty humps around tree bowls Beneath blooming bush branches Along Flowering paths My palette: Earth, all the shades From mahogany to ebony. My motif: Circles and curves And deep loamy earth The contrast of browns and greens That beautifies the beautiful.
No limits?
Great Pond
I am dressed for a hike in the sunlight. My gear is made for a crisp November 52 degrees. Long sleeve dry weave, Solid hiking pants.
5 minutes in it’s raining. Sure the shirt is wicking water, But it’s not made for the heavy stuff.Continue reading
Bear Cub on the move!
After an encounter between Anna the dog and Mama Bear, I was able to video this cub climbing down from a tree.
Being a teacher on 9/11
Very few classrooms had televisions in 2001. We all crowded into those that did, students and teachers mixing together. Bells were ignored: though we didn’t know exactly what was happening, there was nothing else to focus on except the tragedy unfolding before us.
Though we had learned from the Oklahoma City bombing not to jump to conclusions about who was behind this, foreign terrorists were an obvious possibility. That’s when these moments really hit me. If that was the source, then we were about to go to war. There would be no alternative, just by using history as a guide.
This is where it went from surreal and horrifying to real and frightening. Looking around the room, it hit me that some of my students would be in uniforms in a far away land. That however many deaths would happen on 9/11 would not end with that day. That the sounds of the towers falling would echo into the future, and that this tragedy was just beginning.
I had to step out of the room. Feeling faint, I leaned my forehead against the cool wall and breathed until I could face those terrible images again, and what it meant for the future of all of us, but especially my students.
Eclipse in a Dish
I watch the eclipse On a dish In the garden window. Even reflected The light stings my eyes. The water is still, Deep enough to give shape to the sun. I tap the rim and the water tilts Tipping side to side. The sun in a cradle Rocking, rippling, warped.
Mark Bozeman 