Darkness Visible

Glade in Uralla

Glade in Uralla

Frozen dandelion

Frozen dandelion

Fallen willow trees at Narracan

Fallen willows at Narracan

Autumn Twilight, Dwelling Among Mountains

In empty mountains after the new rains,
it’s late. Sky-ch’i has brought autumn –

bright moon incandescent in the pines,
crystalline stream slipping across rocks.

Bamboo rustles: homeward washerwomen.
Lotuses waver: a boat gone downstream.

Spring blossoms wither away by design,
but a distant recluse can stay on and on.

— Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton.

Uralla Nature Reserve

Uralla greenery

Black and white backyard

Black and white backyard

Falls Creek

Falls Creek

Professor

W.H. Auden’s definition of a professor was a person “who talks in other people’s sleep.”

Orthodoxy

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.

— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Trafalgar

The mornings begin at about five degrees.

For the first time in almost a year, Wilson isn’t sleeping in the room with me. I hear him next door when he wakes, shaking off the frowst of sleep and heading to my door.

Some mornings when I take him outside there is fog trapped in the valley, so thick that I can’t make out the mountains. Other mornings the sunrise catches metal chimneys and neighbouring windows: gilt, brilliant.

Each morning gets colder.