My Day Off

Too late, I had the idea of volunteering in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Failing that, I took another stab at finding flocks of migrating birds in the Delta.  For the second time, the sight eluded me.  But I enjoyed myself. I encountered few sentient beings.  A curious water fowl — which I believe was a duck — came to shore and found me sufficiently unfrightening to allow for a pleasant interlude just a few feet away.  Crows swooped across the winter sky.  Grazing cows spared me a glance.  Otherwise, I saw no one.  I drove for three hours, occasionally stopping to gaze at some particularly lovely scene.

As I meandered, I remembered the poems which my mother kept on her refrigerator — “I Didn’t To Go To Church Today” and “I Meant to Do My Work Today”.  Please enjoy the poignant words, along with my humble photographic record of my day off.

It’s the twenty-first day of the sixty-first month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

“I Meant To Do My Work Today” By Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work to-day-
But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand-
So what could I do but laugh and go?

“I Didn’t Go To Church Today” By Ogden Nash

I didn’t go to church today,
I trust the Lord to understand.
The surf was swirling blue and white,
The children swirling on the sand.
He knows, He knows how brief my stay,
How brief this spell of summer weather,
He knows when I am said and done
We’ll have plenty of time together.

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