Dinesh's photos

A Replica of Thoreau's cabin

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_Caverns

It’s in the perilous boughs of the tree out of blue sky the wind sings loudest surrounding me. And solitude, a wild solitude revealed, fearfully, high I’d climb into the shaking uncertainties, part out of longing, part daring my self, part to see that widening of the world, part to find my own, my secret hiding sense and place, where from afar all voices and scenes come back the barking of a dog, autumnal burnings, far calls, close calls— the boy I was calls out to me here the man where I am “Look! I’ve been where you most fear to be.” "Childhood’s Retreat " ~ Robert Duncan

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened? "At Backwater Pond" - Mary Oliver

Early Fall

Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud, sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue, when I forget or refuse to go down to the shore or a few yards up the road, on a clear day, to reconfirm that witnessing presence. "Witness" - Denise Levertov

A paper lantern coming from the opposite direction; night fog 提灯が向ふから来る夜霧哉 (Ozaki Hōsai 尾崎放哉)

We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod, They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles solved years ago; And some words played between us to and fro-— On which lost the more by our love. The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die; And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an ominous bird a-wing... Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, And a pond edged with grayish leaves. "Neutral Tones" ~ Thomas Hardy

Sometimes, on days of perfect and exact light, When things are as real as they can possible be, I slowly ask myself Why I even bother to attribute Beauty to things. Does a flower really have beauty? Does a fruit really have beauty? No: they have only color and form And existence. Beauty is the name of something that doesn't exist But that I give to things in exchange for The pleasure they give to me. It means nothing. So why do I say about things: they're beautiful? Yes, even I, who live only off living, Am unwittingly visited by the lies of men Concerning things, Concerning things that simply exist. How hard to be just what we are And see nothing but the visible! "XXVI A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe" ~ Fernando Pessoa

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself." - Ruth Stout HFF To All Friends and visitors"

At George Washington Masonic National Memorial Alexandria VA

Safe houses were an integral part of the Underground Railroad, the now famous network of safe house locations that were used to assist slaves in escaping to the primarily northern free states in the 19th century United States. Some houses were marked with a statue of an African-American man holding a lantern, called "The Lantern Holder"

.................................................. And leave it there far from a useful fireplace To warm the frozen swamp as best it could With the slow smokeless burning of decay. Excerpt "Woodpile" - Robert Frost www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44276/the-wood-pile

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it—it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. And lonely as it is, that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less— A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars—on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places. "Desert Places" ~ Robert Frost

The woods around it have it—it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. Excerpt: "Desert Places" ~ Robert Frost