another road trip, a whale watch out of Gloucester. a homeschool group to which we belong helped get group rates. that's a nifty aspect of homeschooling, the cooperative learning opportunity, at 1/3 the price. I survived public schools but totally advocate homeschooling. all the hierarchies and structures of public schools just interfere. this is not to say we were banging on Erin's head to learn something while out on the cruise, in fact he was hanging with his friends most of the time. but when the whales jump out of the water, something catches. we have seen this before. watching the fluke flower and sink is an immediate ping with something down in the wordless place. moments like that. geese in flight always garnish (I think I can use that word here) my attention. I want to talk about poetry now, but I don't want to ham it up. the generative resource in what's here before us is an imperative. we put names on it, like history, or nature. I saw some high-soaring birds at the dock before we anchor a-weighed. I consulted a brother/sister dyad who were talking birds at one of the homeschool volleyball gatherings (at one of which, I famously tore my quad)(just last month), figuring I had expertise before me, and the girl said those are turkey buzzards. my eyesight said black soaring things. she explained what to look for. homeschool know how, it is called interest. ah, the poetry of interest! Olson took interest into certain realms, didn't he? can you imagine this outsized college boy on a fishing boat, peering into sunfields for fish? I think that's lovely and goofy, both. he wasn't the interpolation, he was the plain awkward fact. and I like taking this in with Beth and Erin. you join the party, you bring a camera, you add it up. what the hell is poetry and why does it make me think? re actual picture taking, err... when I take the camera out of its case, it often slips its mode into movie, so I managed several ridiculous 'movies' of anything and everything but whales. you know there are info pictures--here's a whale breaching--and there are arty pictures--here's a weird light pattern on the deck. and there are pictures of folks, us and our friends, you probably won't see much of them. and I have to navigate myself thru these different intentions. not sure I'm equal to that quality. I'm a homebrewed solar misgiving, slightly boggled, slightly too inward. survival depends on the outward, too. in and out, a Wes Montgomery tune.