Day 95 – Acorns

Acorns

Do Stones Feel?

Do stones feel?
Do they love their life?
Or does their patience drown out everything else?

When I walk on the beach I gather a few
white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors.
Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.

Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many
branches,
each one like a poem?

Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?

Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible.

I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.

-Mary Oliver

To say I’m not feeling it today would be a gross understatement. It feels like there is nothing left to photograph. I know that’s not true. I even have a few ideas on how to finish out the week. But today, I’m not feeling it. So I went to October and looked for something to process. I thought these acorns might look good in black and white. I looked for acorn poems. I was not inspired. Then I remembered I promised you something from Mary Oliver. Just started flipping through Devotions and came up with this one. I hope you enjoy.

Day 94 – Christmas Decorations

Lightsw

Snowball

I made myself a snowball, 
As perfect as could be, 
I thought I’d keep it as a pet, 
And let it sleep with me. 

I made it some pajamas, 
And a pillow for its head, 
Then last night it ran away, 
But first – it wet the bed! 

-Shel Silverstein

This is an art piece I created from some Christmas decorations I saw in a store window when I was out photographing the lights. I used some intentional blur images of the lights to create a little more interest in the piece.  As for the poem, I thought we needed something more lighthearted.

Day 93 – Christmas Lights

Plaza

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

I could not find any good poems about Christmas lights or holiday lights, or the winter solstice or the darkening of the days and we lead up to the solstice but that is what I was thinking about and this quote from Martin Luther King seemed appropriate. It was only recently that it occurred to me that we put up lights around the solstice as much to drive away the darkness as to celebrate the holidays. One more week of increasing darkness and then we can begin to celebrate the coming of the light!

Day 92 – Birch Leaf

BirchTree

Birch Tree

The birch tree in winter
Leaning over the secret pool
Is Narcissus in love
With the slight white branches,
The slim trunk,
In the dark glass;
But,
Spring coming on,
Is afraid,
And scarfs the white limbs
In green.

-Arthur Seymour and John Tessimond

This is an other one from my walk in the Railroad district yesterday. I’m not being lazy, really, but I have some night photography planned for this evening and I don’t think I’m going to feel like editing and posting images when I’m done. So, you will just have to wait another day for those and enjoy the birch leaf in the meantime. Of course, the obvious choice of poems would have been Robert Frost’s Birches but I just used him yesterday and that poem is a little too long.

Day 91 – Leaf in Ice

LeafinIce2

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire, 
Some say in ice. 
From what I’ve tasted of desire 
I hold with those who favor fire. 
But if it had to perish twice, 
I think I know enough of hate 
To say that for destruction ice 
Is also great 
And would suffice.


-Robert Frost


Today I took a walk in the Railroad district of Ashland and as usual I found many interesting things to photograph. But I was most fascinated by the ice in the gutters at some of the intersections. I’m sure some of the motorists driving by thought I was crazy as I kept milling around the gutter searching for leaves trapped in the ice. I finally found one. I had to add a couple of textures to bring in some color and make the image more interesting but I think it works. The poem is not exactly related but I searched for poems about ice and this one by Robert Frost that I had never heard before popped up so I decided to use it.

Day 90 – Frosty Rose

FrostyRose2

A Frosty Morning

When the sun hangs low in the eastern sky,
Caught in the trees that shiver and shy,
Red as the robin that flits nearby,
Sing hey, for a frosty morning!

When the lane is a-glitter beneath our feet,
Powered with crystal, delicate, sweet,
And the quiet pond is a silver sheet,
Sing hey, for a frosty morning!

Come out, come out, while the sky is red,
Over the crunching fields to tread,
Ere the frost in the kindling sun lies dead,
Sing, hey for a frosty morning!

-Enid Blyton

We’ve been experiencing a lot of frosty mornings lately. I finally made a point of getting up early enough that my hair would be dry before the frost melted so I could go out and photograph. The same roses that I was so impressed were still blooming a few weeks ago have not fared well with the frost but do still look stunning covered with the little white crystals.  I added a texture to enhance the sense of decay.

Day 89 – Oak Leaf with Puffball

OakLeaf

The Old Oak

Brisk winds
rattle the season guardian 
of the western woods,
signaling a turned chime
of brilliant pigment. 

The old oak
gifts the green grass
with blankets of crisp
leafy yellow,
covering the worn 
forest trail. 

-Joseph Kushnir

One more from Touvelle. I still have a few ideas of what to photograph in the next 11 days but I admit I am getting a little burned out on the project and look forward to being done, or at least moving on to the next phases. At last count I have nearly 5000 images in my 100 days folder though some are duplicates from processing and such. Still I have also deleted a lot of second raters so I’m looking at a pretty nice body of work. The next task will be to winnow it down to the best of the best and create a web gallery. I’m also working on a scrapbook of the 100 daily selections plus a few other worthy entries. And then there will be plenty of art to create during the winter.

Day 88 – Mount McLaughlin

MtMcL

The Snow-capped Mountains

I want to be where the Snow-Capped Mountains are- 
Where the white snow gleams in the sunlight, 
Where the crystal-like sparkles penetrate the body 
And relieve every dismal thought you’ve ever had. 

I yearn for those Snow-Capped Mountains- 
Where the thoughts of today and yesterday are obsolete, 
Where you tower over every normative thought, every routine action 
And where idealism is actually within reach. 

But my arms are not long enough, 
To transcend these limits 
And my fingertips cannot grasp 
Those Snow-Capped Mountains gleaming on the horizon. 

-Cate Gooch

This was the view at Touvelle State Park yesterday. As a native Oregonian snow capped volcanic peaks mean home to me. They just do. And Mt McLaughlin is the most homiest of them all. It’s easy to forget it’s there. You have to be in the right place, somewhere north of Medford to get the best views. But every time I see it it takes my breath away. And I have been know to cry on spotting it from an airplane returning home from some exile far away.

Day 87 – Acorn Woodpecker

Acorn_Woodpecker

Woodpecker

Rhythmic tympani of woodland symphony,
His search for lunch in Quercus branch
Ads music to a forest glade.
Dawn’s chorus would the poorer be
Without his insistent cacophony

-Colin Tuckett

I hope you won’t mind another bird picture so soon. They do seem to be the most beautiful things out there to photograph these days. And with the leaves gone they are much easier to photograph. Long on my list of places I have never been but should go has been Touvelle State Park, on the Rogue River just north of Medford. With the gorgeous weather holding I decided today that there was no time like the present. Well, if I’d know the place was crawling with Acorn Woodpeckers I would have gone much sooner. I have also long wanted to get a good picture of their little clown faces. This one was so close to me I almost had to zoom out  a little to get him all in the frame. I love how you can see his little toes digging in to hang on to the tree.

 

Day 86 – Oregon Junco

Junco

Juncos

They operate from elsewhere,
some hall in the mountains–
quick visit, gone.
Specialists on branch ends,
craft union. I like their
clean little coveralls.

-William Stafford

Well, after all my moaning about the weather I had to get out and shoot today, an almost perfect day for December. But it was also a busy day. So, I threw the cameras in the car and took a quick tour around North Mountain Park between errands. I was surprised to see the sun go behind the mountains at 3:30 in the afternoon and even more surprised to see that this seemed to inspire all the birds to settle in for the night. I was gunning for a chickadee but the little rascal kept moving every time I got the camera focused on him. This Junco was more sedate and I really like the color coordinated leaf in the background.  I just got a new book of Mary Oliver poems but I said to myself, “Well, I’ll look for Junco poems but I probably won’t find one, so then I can turn to Mary.”  But darned if Oregon’s own poet laureate hasn’t written about Juncos. But don’t worry, I’m sure we will hear from Mary again before it is all over.