Category: Flora

Day 47 – Leaf

Leaf

Autumn

A touch of cold in the Autumn night— 
I walked abroad, 
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge 
Like a red-faced farmer. 
I did not stop to speak, but nodded, 
And round about were the wistful stars 
With white faces like town children.
-T.E. Hulme
This is another image from North Mountain Park yesterday. It was a busy day today and it was Sunday so I felt entitled to relax a little. The poem is not a perfect fit but I like it and I do not photograph much at night so I thought I would stick it in here.

Day 46 – Water on Grass

GrassStars

“Get close to grass and you will see stars.” – Dejan Stojanovic

I set out this morning to see how things were coming along at the Japanese Garden in Lithia Park. I was thinking if I got a good early start it shouldn’t be too crowded. Imagine my dismay when most of the parking slots were already full and it wasn’t even 8:30 yet. Then I got to the road block and realized that there was some event going on. So I turned myself around and headed to North Mountain Park instead. Most of the flowers were gone and the bird feeders are not out yet but the sun sparkling on these water drops (from the sprinklers I guess) caught my eye. And there were leaves, and the more I walked around the more I found to photograph. That’s what it’s all about….getting out there.

Day 45 – Chrysanthemum

Chrysantemum

The Last Chrysanthemum

Why should this flower delay so long 
   To show its tremulous plumes? 
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song, 
   When flowers are in their tombs. 

Through the slow summer, when the sun 
   Called to each frond and whorl 
That all he could for flowers was being done, 
   Why did it not uncurl? 

It must have felt that fervid call 
   Although it took no heed, 
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall, 
   And saps all retrocede. 

Too late its beauty, lonely thing, 
   The season’s shine is spent, 
Nothing remains for it but shivering 
   In tempests turbulent. 

Had it a reason for delay, 
   Dreaming in witlessness 
That for a bloom so delicately gay 
   Winter would stay its stress? 

– I talk as if the thing were born 
   With sense to work its mind; 
Yet it is but one mask of many worn 
   By the Great Face behind. 

-Thomas Hardy

All this beautiful weather had me longing for flowers to photograph so I stopped by the nursery to see if they had any in bloom. Of course, the Chrysanthemums were in peak glory so I bought one for my front porch and of course photographed it before I put it there…with pumpkins of course. Chrysanthemum is one of those words I just love to say, though it is a pain in the rear to spell.

Day 44 – Milkweed Seeds

Milkweed_seeds

Omnipresent

the clear autumn morning
hides nothing from the crow
as the backlit sphere
of the milkweed spore
floats by
tumbling with purpose
take a look
at what fills the air
bird leaf tree debris dust smoke cloud sunbeam
invisible eddies
my intellect

– Jimmy Tee

I was walking to the mailbox to get the mail when it suddenly dawned on me that I had neglected to post an image yet today. I had planned on a photographic outing but then FedEx notified me that I had to be home to sign for a package and one thing led to another. But, I noticed the light on the milkweed pods bursting open was quite lovely so I went back and got a camera and played with it for awhile.

Day 42 – Hydrangea

Hydrangea

Hydrangeas

Dragoons, I tell you the white hydrangeas
     turn rust and go soon.
Already mid September a line of brown runs
     over them.
One sunset after another tracks the faces, the
     petals.
Waiting, they look over the fence for what
     way they go.

-Carl Sandberg

I’ve noticed that flowers sometimes get confused when the day length in autumn mimics that in spring. That seems to be the case with my hydrangea which, after months of fading color has suddenly decided to put out some new blossoms, just in case.

Day 37 – Yellow Woods

YellowWood2

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
I managed a walk in Lithia Park this morning before the rain set in. I have to say the colors were amazing and the reflections in the lower duck pond took my breath away. I went with a painterly treatment and texture effect on this one and it immediately put me in mind of one of my all time favorite poems… probably because it was introduced to me by one of my favorite teachers, ’round about 4th or 5th grade.

Birch Trees

Birchesw

Eating Together

In the steamer is the trout   
seasoned with slivers of ginger, 
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.   
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,   
brothers, sister, my mother who will    
taste the sweetest meat of the head,   
holding it between her fingers   
deftly, the way my father did   
weeks ago. Then he lay down   
to sleep like a snow-covered road   
winding through pines older than him,   
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.
-Li-Young Lee
So, today it was more important to visit my Mom than do photography. It was also more important to work on my photo book from New England. So I have selected a photo from the day I was working on. We traveled to Crawford Notch, of the premiere leaf peeping areas of New Hampshire. As you can see the leaves were not quite ready for peeping but there were a few reds showing through. I also had a hard time finding a poem today so when I found this companion poem to the one from yesterday I thought, “Well, why not, he’s a good poet.”

Day 32 – Still Life with Pears

Pearsw

Eating Alone

I’ve pulled the last of the year’s young onions.
The garden is bare now. The ground is cold,
brown and old. What is left of the day flames
in the maples at the corner of my
eye. I turn, a cardinal vanishes.
By the cellar door, I wash the onions,
then drink from the icy metal spigot.

Once, years back, I walked beside my father
among the windfall pears. I can’t recall
our words. We may have strolled in silence. But
I still see him bend that way-left hand braced
on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.

It was my father I saw this morning
waving to me from the trees. I almost
called to him, until I came close enough
to see the shovel, leaning where I had
left it, in the flickering, deep green shade.

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas
fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could I, a young man, want.

-Li-Young Lee

I had these pears in a bowl on my counter and thought they looked very photogenic. So I took them up to the tiny studio and made a few images. Then into the computer for some lighting effects and textures.

Day 30 – Fall Sunflower

FallSunflowerw

The Beautiful Changes

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides   
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies 
On water; it glides 
So from the walker, it turns 
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you   
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes. 
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed   
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;   
As a mantis, arranged 
On a green leaf, grows 
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves   
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows. 
Your hands hold roses always in a way that says   
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes   
In such kind ways,   
Wishing ever to sunder 
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose   
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

 

-Richard Wilbur

 

I stopped by the rose garden today, knowing that they also had sunflowers. I was looking for the beauty in the faded stalks and found a lot. This photo in particular tells the story with the shapes and colors of the sepals which are only enhanced by the bokah and the slight pop of purple from one of the roses which are still happily blooming away. And I didn’t even see the fine filaments of the spider web until I got it out of the camera. I so love it when the camera shows me something I did not see with my eye.  And I think Mr. Wilbur’s poem captures the same message I was going for. The beautiful changes as it ages but it still remains beautiful in a new way.