When you look up at the sky, you have a feeling of unity which delights you and makes you giddy.
Ferdinand Hodler
A woodpecker
shuffles up the dead palm tree,
pausing and knocking,
picking out her morning meal
in tiny bites.
She shuffles and knocks
pauses and eats,
up and up,
until gradually
she’s circling
the frondless tip -
where she stops
and lifts her head
to the blue sky.
I spent a week looking up, and this is what I saw:
Seagulls flying overhead, calling.
The noisy green parrots looking down -
wondering what I was looking at.
Crows that alight anywhere,
mourning doves who do not approve of crows.
And then the moon,
the moon,
the waning moon.
Looking up was another assignment from the Zen Camera book by David Ulrich. He meant it more generally, as in keeping your head up and looking around you, observing your surroundings rather than burying your face in your phone, or getting lost in your thoughts, but I decided to take it literally for this week. So, here’s to looking up!
Thank you for being here!
Once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up.
Leonardo da Vinci
