Coral Skies at Seven

I was surprised by coral skies
With bits of golden at the edges
And pastures gray which grimly lay
beneath the fog that swathed the sedges

I ventured out on a country road
Where the noise of traffic could not follow
And soothed my eyes with the flaming skies,
With the solid hill and the wispy hollow

And standing speechless all alone
Surrounded by Heaven's lush display
A bare-boned tree, amazed, like me
Sighed a quiet song as we started the day.

A delicate song that matched the mist
on its fragile way to vaporize
A peal of praise for this day of days
And the lavish beauty of coral skies

Aspirations

Whenever I travel, I keep my eyes open--not just because I don't want to run into something on the road, but because I invariably run across whimsical things. On my recent trip to Missouri, I found these three scenes so close together that it only took one back-tracking on a side road to capture them all.

What caught my attention first was this old red barn. It's difficult to see in the picture, but there's a tree growing inside the door--a large tree, not a recent sapling. I noticed as I whizzed by on the four lane highway, but, fortunately, there was a feeder road running alongside so I was able to turn onto it and backtrack to capture the shot.

Since I was now stopped at the side of the road, I was able to fully appreciate the scene on my left, clouds chasing a windmill in the morning.

Further on I passed this silo with a tree growing up through it--what is it about Missouri trees? Western Oklahoma trees would only have grown knee-high and settled contentedly into the darkness, happy with the slit of morning light and the one golden circle at high noon. . It makes me wonder what I have missed seeing in my life, just by being in too big a hurry to pull off onto a side road and look around. I also wonder how many times I settled for the small sunshine instead of climbing up into all-surrounding light.

May--Canola and Wheat Pictures