Behold

*

I existed

from eternity

and

behold

I am here

and I shall

exist till the

end of time

for my being

has no end

Kahlil Gibran

Single Unison

*

I clean my teeth in water
drawn from a cold well
And while I brush my clothes
I purify my mind

Then, slowly turning pages
in the Tree-Leaf Book,
I recite, along the path
to the eastern shelter

...The world has forgotten
the true fountain of this teaching
And people enslave themselves
to miracles and fables

Under the given words
I want the essential meaning
I look for the simplest way
to sow and reap my nature

Here in the quiet
of the priest's temple courtyard
Mosses add their climbing colour
to the thick bamboo

And now comes the sun
out of mist and fog
And pines that seem
to be new-bathed;

And everything is gone from me
speech goes, and reading
Leaving the single unison

Reading Buddhist Classics with Zhao at his Temple in the Early Morning

by Liu Zongyuan  773-819

Tang Dynasty writer

and master of free and simple prose

of the early Chinese philosophers

All artworks except the final image

are by Chen Jun

*

Proteas

Proteas...

I have posted on Proteas before
so I won't repeat myself


I suggest
for background information
you might like to visit
Gondwanaland


and for variety look at
and Protean Proteas

to accompany
this bunch of proteas
I offer you
these lines

of Persian poet
Mahmud Kianush
called

Of Life

Let your words
be like a wild flower

a smile of azure

with a tiny mouth of gold

in the naked sunshine
of a desert

as blissful as the kiss
of a mother

When you talk of life

it seems as if on the road

we are confronted
with a rock

unsightly and huge,

happened to be there

for no known reason,

unyielding to all solutions.

Let your words fly

lightly in the sun

like

butterflies.

*

King of the Castle

*

King of the Castle

My friend and I

return after our whale walking

to her home in the rain forest

and entering the bush

we take a short cut

across the neighbour's yard

where we notice

something odd...

 

a large area of garden

under the trees

has been cleared of mulch

the irrigation pipes exposed...

and over here

in this section

a huge mound

of leaf litter

and ground cover

banking up

around the palms

 

and here we have the culprit

the king of his very own castle

the very industrious brush turkey

 

the male bush (or brush) turkey

has been very busy

readying his nursery

 

for it is his job

to scratch and flick

scratch and flick

 

until he has a home fit

for the incubation

of 16-24 eggs

 

of which he then is responsible

for maintaining the climate control

the optimum temperature

for hatching is 33-35*C

Father will add to

or remove coverage

as need be

according to his beak thermometer's readings

which are taken

several times a day

 

the mounds can be 1.5 m high

and about 4m wide

 

 

and the same site

will be used

year after year

 

as he scratches and flicks

his yellow wattle

swirls around his neck

the wattle increases in size

and brightness

at breeding time

 

 I wrote about the bush turkeys here

including information

about an albino turkey chick

spotted in town last spring....

 the owner of this property

has been told

it is an offense

to remove the nest

and reclaim his garden...

We'll leave this busy bush turkey

to his focused

scratch and flick

scratch and flick

he has a schedule to meet...

*