Stand and Stare

(8" x 10" oil study of Loveland, Colorado ranch)

This coming weekend finds us taking time off to celebrate the Labor Day Holiday.  Webster's defines labor as the expenditure of physical or mental effort, especially when difficult or compulsory.  So we take a break from that this weekend to cease from labor and to honor the sanctity of good, honest work.  To stimulate that transition, let's look at a poem about leisure.  Leisure is the freedom from work or duties.  Here is a good way to use your leisure this weekend...

Leisure

What is this life, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.  

---William Henry Davies

Welsh Poet

Winter Water

16" x 20"

Acrylic

"As one sits here in summertime and listens to the cuckoo

and all the other bird songs,

the crackling and buzzing of insects,

as one gazes at the shining colors of flowers,

doth one become dumbstruck

before the Kingdom of the Creator."

                                                                   ---Carl Linnaeus

                                                                       Swedish botanist, zoologist

                                                                       Father of Taxonomy

Live bravely and beautifully!