Be Wary of Snakes

Image of Serpent © 2009 Michael A. Pancier

Please visit my website www.michaelpancierphotography.com

Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, "Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saying, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken"
-- Bob Dylan

The Feeding Begins

Image ©2009 by Michael Pancier Photography
Please visit my website at Michael Pancier Photography

"Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will become a vegetarian” -- Heywood C. Broun

God's Greatest Gift

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
© 2009 Michael Pancier Photography

Please visit my website at www.michaelpancierphotography.com

"The greatest gift that God in His bounty made in creation, and the most conformable to His goodness, and that which He prizes the most, was the freedom of will, with which the creatures with intelligence, they all and they alone, were and are endowed." -- Dante

Good Tidings from Shenandoah National Park

Image © 2009 Michael Pancier Photography
Visit my Website at Michael Pancier Photography

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

-- John Muir, Our National Parks , 1901

Landscape Poetry

Image © 2009 Michael Pancier Photography, All Rights Reserved
Images and Prints Available at MichaelPancierPhotography.com

This T.S. Eliot poem came to mind as I took this photo in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

T.S. Eliot - East Coker

Happy Birthday Olga - First Birthday in Heaven

Today would have been my mom's birthday. This is the first year I celebrate it without her. Many miss her music, and her joyfulness, and her laughter and humor. I do too. But I can't tell you how much I miss talking to her and hearing her words and her motherly advice and wisdom that she gave me until the end.

I know in her way she is there watching over me and her grandchildren along with my dad. When our mothers pass on, I think they become our guardian angels to watch over us and protect us from harm and to help guide us in difficult times.

She is enjoying her first birthday party in Heaven. I'm sure she and her friends will be having a wonderful time with plenty of music and laughter. Some of it will be heard here on Earth. I am hearing it now.

Love you always ...

Your Son Michael

Words from George Washington

Images and Prints available at michaelpancierphotography.com

Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation.

- GEORGE WASHINGTON

Image © 2009 by Michael Pancier Photography