Through Yesterday's Windows
Emily:  "It goes so fast.  We don't have time to look at one another...all that was going on and
we never noticed.....earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.  Do any human
beings ever realize life as they live it?  Every, every minute?"
Stage Manager:  "No.  Well, the saints and poets maybe - they do some."
                                        -- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"
It's not what you look at that matters.  It's what you see.
-- Henry David Thoreau
There is as much dignity in plowing a field as in writing a poem.
-- Booker T. Washington
Up from the meadow a wind is blowing, the wind we longed for the summer through.
The sky, which was gold and hot and glowing, is high above us and deeply blue.
There, where the apple tree was budding, ready to bloom, we hear a sound;
And turn to find it's an apple thudding, heavy and hard to the sunbaked ground.
A line of geese sweeps up from the river, dry leaves crunch on the browning lawn.
We look at each other, surprised, and shiver, and suddenly - swiftly - summer is gone
-- Lois Duncan
Words on a church wall in Upwaltham, England

I will not wish thee riches nor the glow of greatness, but that
Wherever thou go, some weary heart shall gladden at thy smile,
Or shadowed life know sunshine for awhile.
And so thy path shall be a track of light,
Like angels' footsteps passing through the night.
-- Author Unknown
To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than
the most luxurious Persian rug.   
-- Helen Keller
I dwell in a lonely house I know that vanished many a summer ago,
And left hardly more than the cellar walls, and a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart in that vanished abode there far apart,
On that disused and forgotten road that has no dust-bath now for the toad;
When night comes, the black bats tumble and dart.

It is under the small, dim, summer star; I know not who the mute folks are
Who share the unlit place with me - those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses now mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad, though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,
With none among them that ever sings, and yet, in view of a number of things,
As sweet companions as might be had.
-- Robert Frost
I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field, and all the leaves were calling to me.
And the wind went sighing over the land, tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand, so what could I do, but laugh and go?
-- Richard LeGallienne
We never understand or appreciate anything until we look at it through yesterday's windows.
-- Roberta Spurlock
Framed within the casement of my window I can see
The rich and varied colors of the autumn tapestry,
Worked in glowing shades of red and russet, mauve and blue,
The gardens in the foreground and beyond - the rolling view.
-- Patience Strong