Camera Note

Note: To operate the camera, cradle your life in such a way,

standing above it, and in it, looking down, through it, and all around,

from childhood to dawn, then press the button that takes the picture —

and be sure not to frown, when you realize you forgot the film.

Thoreau’s journal, entries for March 2 and March 4, 1854. The First Bluebird. Golden Senecio Leaves. The Melting of the Ice.

Yesterday I saw a wasp slowly stretching himself and, I think, a fly, outside of Minott’s house in the sun, by his wood-shed.

In one or two places on the snow under the Cliffs I noticed more than a half-pint of partridge droppings with a diameter of six inches. Were these all dropped in one night by one bird, or in the course of several nights, or by many birds? I saw that they had eaten the buds of the small blueberry vacillans.

We last went to the library book sale in 2019, I think. Today, in an elbow-to-elbow crowd, we were able to find a few books to bring home: The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, in a revised and expanded edition; Melville, a biography by Edwin Haviland Miller; The Oxford Book of Light Verse, chosen by W.H. Auden; The Pacific Crest Trailside Reader: Oregon & Washington, edited by Rees Hughes and Corey Lee Lewis; and one gem from the special collections room, Shakespeare Rare Print Collection, published in 1900 for private circulation and edited by Seymour Eaton. The volume contains 144 loose prints of scenes, characters, and actors grouped in 12 sturdy, removable sleeves. Many bear passages and poems from Shakespeare’s plays, with act and scene numbers. The copy number of this particular set, which is complete and still in good condition, is 417.

October 6, 2023.

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