The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
----Marcel Proust

I was drawn back to the eucalyptus tree in my yard, the one that is shedding its outer skin and making a big mess on the ground. The outer bark is falling off in great sheets. Looking at the tree day after day is like watching a slow-motion movie of the process of aging. Every day the scenes are different. Today as I looked at the tree through my camera’s viewfinder, I remembered what Proust said about discovery... I think it fits. I like thinking I wake up with new eyes every day.

VOYAGING

I'm drawn back again to places I've known,
and sometimes to people I've shown
some part of myself reserved and kept apart
from all vulgar commonplace and ordinary art;

and to melodies I know I can never hear again
I drift back anxiously pulled by what had been
once beautiful like the song of a gentle bard
whose voice has grown bitter and hard.

As I sail through my personal December
on all voyages I try to remember
that rash is more foolish than bold
and new is not better than old.