The Heart of the Wood

Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian, Callaway Gardens Wedding Chapel is quant and peaceful.  It is a lovely location for a small wedding.

The Heart of the Wood

An old anonymous poem translated from Gaelic.

My hope and my love,

We will go for a while into the wood,

scattering the dew,

where we will see the trout,

we will see the blackbird on its nest;

the deer and the buck calling,

the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches;

the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green;

and death will never come near us for ever in the sweet wood.

Gentle Water Bird

The Gentle Water Bird

In the far days, when every day was long,
Fear was upon me and the fear was strong,
Ere I had learned the recompense of song.

In the dim days I trembled, for I knew
God was above me, always frowning through,
And God was terrible and thunder-blue.

Creeds the discoloured awed my opening mind,
Perils, perplexities - what could I find? -
All the old terror waiting on mankind.

Even the gentle flowers of white and cream,
The rainbow with its treasury of dream,
Trembled because of God's ungracious scheme.

And in the night the many stars would say
Dark things unaltered in the light of day:
Fear was upon me even in my play.

There was a lake I loved in gentle rain:
One day there fell a bird, a courtly crane:
Wisely he walked, as one who knows of pain.

Gracious he was and lofty as a king:
Silent he was, and yet he seemed to sing
Always of little children and the Spring.

God? Did he know him? It was far he flew?.
God was not terrible and thunder-blue:
- It was a gentle water bird I knew.

Pity was in him for the weak and strong,
All who have suffered when the days were long
And he was deep and gentle as a song.

As a calm soldier in a cloak of grey
He did commune with me for many a day
Till the dark fear was lifted far away.

Sober-apparelled, yet he caught the glow:
Always of Heaven would he speak, and low,
And he did tell me where the wishes go.

Kinsfolk of his it was who long before
Came from the mist (and no one knows the shore)
Came with the little children to the door.

Was he less wise than those birds long ago
Who flew from God (He surely willed it so)
Bearing great happiness to all below?

Long have I learned that all his speech was true;
I cannot reason it - how far he flew -
God is not terrible nor thunder-blue.

Sometimes, when watching in the white sunshine,
Someone approaches - I can half define
All the calm beauty of that friend of mine.

Nothing of hatred will about him cling:
Silent - how silent - but his heart will sing
Always of little children and the Spring.

                        
By John Shaw Neilson

(February 22, 1872 - May 12, 1942 South Australia)

Leaves and Butterflies

Callaway Butterflies

Wild at Heart Absaroka Range

Artist Paint Pots Nature Trail

Sunwapta Falls

 

 

Pelican Creek at Yellowstone

 

Wandering Bighorn Sheep

Wild Flowers in the Valley

Snow capped mountains and flowers in the meadows at Yellowstone National Park and Lamar Valley.

The flowers in a summer meadow

are infinite

The big and the small, the colorful

and the plain,

The ones that bite and the ones

that delight . . .

All are intrinsically treasured for

part in the whole.

by Sandra E. McBride

(excerpt from Flowers in the Meadow)

"Where the Buffalo Roam" An American Song

 

"Home on the Range," the state song of Kansas since 1947, was composed by violinist Daniel Kelley with text by otolaryngologist Dr. Brewster Higley.  The poem was published in the Kansas newspaper Kirwin Chief in 1876. However, within a few years of publication, "Home on the Range" gained immense popularity throughout the United States and both composer and writer became practically anonymous as settlers claimed the song as their own.

My Western Home
by Dr. Brewster Higley

Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam
Where the Deer and the Antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Chorus:
A home! A home!
Where the Deer and the Antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the sky is not clouded all day.

Oh! give me a land where the bright diamond sand
Throws its light from the glittering streams,
Where glideth along the graceful white swan,
Like the maid in her heavenly dreams.

Chorus

Oh! give me a gale of the Solomon vale,
Where the life streams with buoyancy flow;
On the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever,
Any poisonous herbage doth grow.

Chorus

How often at night, when the heavens were bright,
With the light of the twinkling stars
Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I gazed,
If their glory exceed that of ours.

Chorus

I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours,
I love the wild curlew's shrill scream;
The bluffs and white rocks, and antelope flocks
That graze on the mountains so green.

Chorus

The air is so pure and the breezes so fine,
The zephyrs so balmy and light,
That I would not exchange my home here to range
Forever in azures so bright.

Lamar Valley "A River Runs Through It"

 

Wapiti Valley

These Children Singing in Stone

by E E Cummings, 1939

these children singing in stone a

silence of stone these

little children wound with stone

flowers opening for

ever these silently lit

tie children are petals

their song is a flower of

always their flowers

of stone are

silently singing

a song more silent

than silence these always

children forever

singing wreathed with singing

blossoms children of

stone with blossoming

eyes

know if a

lit tie

tree listens

forever to always children singing forever

a song made

of silent as stone silence of

song

Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway

Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway winds through the Shoshone National Forest, Cody, Wyoming.  We drove thru Wapiti Valley to the East entrance of Yellowstone National Park.  Passed a lot of unusual rock formations.

Rock Creek

On the drive to Beartooth Scenic Highway, we stopped at one of the camp grounds along Rock Creek. The clear mountain water of Rock Creek flows along Highway 212 and through Red Lodge, Montana and it also passes through Custer National Forest.