Monday Blues: Valley Oak

This Monday Blues has nothing to do with bicycling, although the photo was taken at Sunday's race. I haven't been on the lookout for blue bicycle type stuff lately, but the sky over the weekend was such an amazing blue, I decided to let it fill the niche. Here it frames the gnarled, weathered, twisted limbs and branches of an ancient Valley Oak at Corriganville. Fresh leaves are popping out, and galls are hung like ornaments or old dried apples.

Why mourned the wind, why leafless lies the track,

Why breaks no sun, or sings no bird to cheer

The morn, beloved friends, that welcomes back

Your Mary to her home of Sydenham dear?

Could painter's hand appropriate landscape form,

Were she to seem the Genius of the place;

There would not, sure, be there a shade or storm,

But all, herself resembling, bloom and grace.

And yet, dear maid, though loveliest scenes of earth

Might suit thee; more, they could not make us prize

The voice - like music to our wintry hearth;

The smile - like summer's gladness to our eyes.

Mary's Return by Scottish bard, Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)