Portrait of a Peacock

PLUMAGES

We’ve been wearing a winter coat
like drab and tired feathers
and an old beaten hat
like a drooping crest.

Grey days, grey skies, grey hearts.
Barnyard birds of routine,
low horizons, chicken wire souls.
We peck at what’s given us.

Why don’t we wake up early
tomorrow and catch the sun
in the drop at the end
of the drain-pipe?

Why don’t we sing to the moon
for a change and ask foxes
to dance their tangos
and wild tarantellas?

And then let’s change clothes
with phoenixes
and steal thunder
from the peacocks.

Then we’ll stand arrayed in opal
and emerald plumage,
in scarlet and tangerine
and pinions of azure and silver.

Then we’ll be kings and queens
among daisies and irises,
in poppy-fields and thyme-gardens,
through the bluebells
and even among the roses!

Then we are the crested emblems
of life in the air,
life among flowers,
life even in the barnyards
and the crates off to market.

Let’s never take off
these beautiful clothes.

from my poetry friend, Kate Chadbourne

photograph, Milwaukee County Zoo
Milwaukee, WI

Ice Storm

Winterscape © 2008 Bo Mackison

Wisconsin is still covered in white, although we did miss the forecasted storm earlier this week. It is the FIRST time this season that we did not get dumped on when ‘dumping on’ was predicted. Those darned weatherpersons finally made a wrong call – ’bout time. It isn’t nice to be perfect all the time.

I still have enough winter photographs to post daily until 2009, or perhaps even until 2010, but in honor of Leap Year Day tomorrow, I promise a photo that will soothe all the sun-starved, me included.

Today’s photograph
Owen Conservation Park
Madison, WI

Deep Freeze

Taken in a place with no name (See more photos here)

No man should go through life without once experiencing … solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. ~Jack Kerouac

Owen Conservation Park
Madison, WI

Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thirds © 2013 Bo Mackison

Live a third of your time grounded in the earth;
live a third of your time floating in the clouds;
live a third of your time soaring in the sky. ~ bo mackison

Ice Fisherman

Ice Fisherman © 2008 Bo Mackison

• 4˚F sunny
• 14 mph southerly winds
• drill a 6 inch round hole in ice two and a half feet thick
• every 10 minutes scoop out the ice forming on the surface
• lose all awareness of feet and hands
• no evidence of fish in this bay, but watch the hole much of the day to make certain

• Recipe for fun times in Wisconsin

• Priceless