portrait

Max Patch, NC

in , ,

On a summer morning

I sat down

on a hillside

to think about God-

 

a worthy pastime. 

Near me, I saw

a single cricket;

it was moving the grains of the hillside

 

this way & that way.

How great was its energy,

how humble its effort. 

Let us hope

 

it will always be like this, 

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

- Mary Oliver

#mvoyage | Austria

in , ,

I spent a day in Austria at the end of my Somersault trip last summer.  My wonderful Airbnb host Monika took myself and 15 elderly Austrians on a hike that passed by 4 glacial lakes.   I was the youngest by 30 years and the only English speaker.  There's a certain learned contentment that comes with being an outside observer.  The white lines carving the mountainsides were streams of pure glacier water termed "glacier milk"; from a distance the water appears white.