A different walk today

Meander: ​to wander aimlessly or casually without urgent destination

Most days I walk briskly for exercise. Sometimes I walk with purposeful destination. Several times a day I walk the dog. Today I meandered. No purpose. No destination. No tracking.

The day was exquisite. Spring. Fresh. Almost liberated from our strange 
pandemic normal. I had nowhere to go, but could not stay inside.

But of  course I did take my camera. It helps me meander. Photography stops me in my tracks to notice. Here are some of the things I noticed.

I do not read much poetry. I remember virtually none. But somewhere in my head there is one poem, heard in my teenage years, that is always with me. Back then, I found it touched my soul, and I still find that "oft, when on my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood" this poem and days like today come to mind.
​

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

​The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.