Category: Autumn

Day 80 – Bare Poplars

Poplars

Desespoir

The seasons send their ruin as they go,
For in the spring the narciss shows its head
Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,
And in the autumn purple violets blow,
And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow;
Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again
And this grey land grow green with summer rain
And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.

But what of life whose bitter hungry sea
Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night
Covers the days which never more return?
Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn
We lose too soon, and only find delight
In withered husks of some dead memory.

-Oscar Wilde

Who knew Oscar Wilde could be so dark. Well, it does fit the picture and the gloominess brought on by persistent fog in the valley. I was inspired this morning by a photographer I follow who blogged about how she loves to photograph the shapes of the trees as autumn fades into winter. So I decided what better way to put the fog to good use and drove out into the orchards to see what I could find. It’s hard to beat bare poplars for drama against the sky but the colors were so flat it seemed to cry out for a black and white treatment.

Day 79 – Fallen Fence

Fencew

No!

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds –
November!

-Thomas Hood

It wasn’t raining today but it was just gloomy. I kept expecting thing to brighten up but they never did. So I went back to my fallen down fence from yesterday and worked on  it a little more. You wouldn’t guess there is a self storage facility just beyond the next pasture would you? And Farewell to November with 21 one days to go before Autumn officially ends.

Day 78 – Autumn Abstract

Autumn Abstract

Fall Leaves, Fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

– Emily Bronte

In keeping with my vow to visit places I have not been before, I took a short field trip to Blue Heron Park in Phoenix this afternoon. The park itself is nothing special but it does afford access to parts of the Bear Creek Greenway I have not seen before. I found some falling down fences and some nice colors and then I got to playing with intentional blurs created by moving the camera at a slow shutter speed. I loved the way this one turned out because it looks like a painting and other than adding a little saturation I did nothing to it. This one I would hang on my wall (and I may) and I have seen much worse art hanging in public places. I went looking for a generic autumn poem today and came to the conclusion I have about run through them all, at least the good ones by known authors. But I had not see this one by Ms. Bronte before so wanted to include it.

Day 77 – House Sparrow

House_sparrow

The Sorrow of Love

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth’s old and weary cry.

And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world’s tears,
And all the trouble of her laboring ships,
And all the trouble of her myriad years.

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
Are shaken with earth’s old and weary cry.

-William Butler Yeats

Raining again but I had more good pictures from Ashland Pond yesterday so why not share. I’m not sure if this little guy was trying to get a better look at me or just fluffing his feathers but I was glad to see him dip his head below that little branch that had been obscuring the picture before. And here’s something from Yeats that is not quite so dense as the last one. He’s growing on me.

Day 76 – Spotted Towhee

Towhee

Spotted Towhee

The sweetest of songs

Sung high above the treetops

A towhee’s calling

-Dorcinda Duclos

Finally a break in the rain, not too windy. I decided to make a point of trying to visit places I haven’t been in awhile or have never been to at all. So I grabbed the big lens and headed down to Ashland Pond to see what birds might be about. I thought I might be limited to a few ducks way across the pond. But then this Towhee showed up and wanted to chat. Later some sparrows and a Jay. Nothing exotic but what can you expect this time of year. It was just good to get out for a change.

Day 75 – Owl

Owl

The Owl

When cats run home and light is come,
  And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
  And the whirring sail goes round,
  And the whirring sail goes round,
    Alone and warming his five wits,
    The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
  And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
  Twice or thrice his roundelay,
  Twice or thrice his roundelay;
    Alone and warming his five wits,
    The white owl in the belfry sits.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

Another rainy day and another of my knick knacks. I think this one also came from Indian Market in Santa Fe. Owl poems for some reason seem to be terribly long. But I finally found one that I like that wasn’t too long and by someone I had actually heard of before.

Day 74 – Turkey Feather

Turkey_Feather

Around Us

We need some pines to assuage the darkness
when it blankets the mind,
we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly
as a plane’s wing, and a worn bed of
needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,
and a blur or two of a wild thing
that sees and is not seen. We need these things
between appointments, after work,
and, if we keep them, then someone someday,
lying down after a walk
and supper, with the fire hole wet down,
the whole night sky set at a particular
time, without numbers or hours, will cause
a little sound of thanks–a zipper or a snap–
to close round the moment and the thought
of whatever good we did.

-Marvin Bell

I have to admit, I wanted to go on strike today. But I’ve come this far so I need to power through. I found this picture of a turkey feather from a walk in Lithia Park back in September. I searched and hunted and hunted and searched for a poem to go with it. I finally said just let me find something I like and went into the November pages of my 365 poems for every occaision book. I started at the end of the month and worked back and this was the first one that resonated. And it spoke of a wild thing so it seemed appropriate enough.

Day 73 – Christmas Light Abstract

LightAbstract

Black Friday, The Shopping Poem

The people crowd the entrances
at Malls all over town.
To seize the choicest bargain deals, 
They’d gladly knock you down.
The retailers all hold their breath
as shopping gets in gear.
Will Santa fill his sleigh as hoped? 
-or lay off more Reindeer? 
There are plastic toys from China
colored with suspicious paint.
Whip out your last credit card
(-when you see the bills, you’ll faint.) 
“The children must have Christmas! “
No request will be denied.
Never mind your youngest child
has just turned thirty five.
Don’t forget a gift for you
Don’t you deserve the best? 
Shopping is such good therapy
for the financially depressed 

-John McCullagh

So, as we kick off the official Christmas season it is my duty to inform you that there are still 27 days left of Autumn. My brother-in-law is really into the Santa Claus parade in downtown Ashland (apparently he has fond memories of a drunken Santa and hopes for a repeat performance) so I agreed to go along, mainly because I wanted to photograph the lights. We never made it to the Plaza because the parade was a little long this year and  grandma and nephew were waiting at home for supper and sister was not really that happy about walking another three blocks on top of the 5 or so we had to go from where the car was parked and then the eight back… so, now we have a date to do it again next year and not to miss the illumination. As for the poem, I really didn’t expect to find anything when I searched for poems about Black Friday so when I did I just had to share it.

Day 72 – Autumn Rose

Rose2TI

One Day is there of the Series

One day is there of the series
Termed “Thanksgiving Day”
Celebrated part at table
Part in memory –
Neither Ancestor nor Urchin
I review the Play –
Seems it to my Hooded thinking
Reflex Holiday
Had There been no sharp subtraction
From the early Sum –
Not an acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room
Not a mention whose small Pebble
Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto such, were such Assembly,
‘Twere “Thanksgiving day”

-Emily Dickinson

I felt like I needed to get something posted before food coma sets in. It is a beautiful day today but still windy. But I took a chance and ran out the door with the camera and around the neighborhood where the most interesting thing I found was the ornamental roses still blooming away. I used the big camera without a tripod and paid the price but a little painterly treatment in photoshop made those fuzzy edges look just right.  I have to admit I always find Emily Dickinson a bit obscure but to me this poems speaks of how Thanksgiving is not just the one day we celebrate at present but the memory of all the Thanksgivings before and the memory of those who are no longer here to celebrate with us. This is particularly fitting for my family which has suffered several losses in the past few years. But on a happier note, all who remain will gather at my Mother’s house today.

Day 71 – Spirit Bear

SpiritBear2

Untitled Shaman Song

The great sea
frees me, moves me,
as a strong river carries a weed.
Earth and her strong winds
move me, take me away,
and my soul is swept up in joy.

-Uvavnuk (Iglulik Eskimo, 19th century) [translated by Jane Hirshfield]

I was going to go out for a camera walk but it was so windy I thought I would never get a good photograph because nothing would hold still. So I started looking around the house and decided to photograph some of my knick-knacks. I think I came by this Spirit Bear at Indian Market in Santa Fe one year but he has been with me long enough, I don’t really remember. I wanted to give him a more ethereal quality so added some textures and gave him a Georgia O’Keefe treatment in Topaz Impression (how appropriate!) Then I started looking for a poem. Not many poems about spirit bears and surprisingly few about bears, spirit animals, etc. I finally turned to gratitude in homage to Thanksgiving and nothing tripped my trigger there either. I finally found an anthology of Spiritual Poetry on the Poetry Foundation website and while Eskimos and spirit bears may not be a good fit, the Native American connection with nature and spirituality worked for me.