4.07.2014

as if dreaming outdoors
...Thoreau's Journal: 7-Apr-1853

If you make the least correct observation of nature this year, you will have occasion to repeat it with illustrations the next, and the season and life itself is prolonged.

I am surprised to see how much in warm places the high blueberry buds are started, some reddish, some greenish, earlier now than any gooseberries I have noticed. Several painted tortoises; no doubt have been out a long time.

Walk in and about Tarbell’s Swamp. Heard in two distinct places a slight, more prolonged croak, somewhat like the toad. This? Or a frog? It is a warmer sound than I have heard yet, as if dreaming outdoors were possible.

2 comments:

michael jameson said...

when standing in nature and making an observation, all your senses come into play, new colors and growth change daily, the spring warmth makes you feel comfort,the sights and sounds you recognize,this has always been and always will,the repetitive life of our world how could one not day dream and knowing the beauty of nature will be here find peace in our own final rest. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com

T.S. said...

If we are dreaming when out in nature instead of carefully observing, the following year we will again miss seeing nature. Nature changes each year and we will continue to see last year's nature because we have fixed that image in our mind through some other process than observation. If we observe rather than dream, we shall be surprised.