Where I live, it’s normal to get a big snowstorm around the middle of March. It’s not normal to have so much heavy wet snow on a lopsided rhododendron rooted in such soft thawed soil that the whole bush topples over. Could it saved?
Category: flowers
Be(e) in the Moment ~ 😉
Learn from the past and
be ready for the future.
Live in the present.
Choosing images to go with the lines of my aphoristic haiku was easy (for the past), serendipitous (for the present), and beset with false starts (for the future).
I remembered one of the photos I took among the ruins of ancient Greek temples at Paestum in the 1970-s. So stark, so sad, so in the past. Dwelling on the past would rot the mind. Learn from it and move on.
The future is fluid, unpredictable, possibly dystopian. Plan and prepare, but be ready to change plans if an unlikely future unfolds. (It will.) I wanted an image that was noncommital but not just blurry. After several false starts, I took a tight closeup of swirling brushwork in a small painting by an unknown artist, bought decades ago at a charity sale.
Wanting something joyful and ephemeral for the present, I culled some photos of flowering trees taken in 2020. One jumped out. The camera catches a bee hovering for a moment where it enhances a larger overall composition. The admonition to “be in the moment” is like the haiku’s final line and could be tweaked to give this post a title that winks at the final image.
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Persistent Purple
No longer pretty,
potted tulips catch my eye
until petals fall.
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Wanderlust
Planted crocus long ago,
only in their beds, U know.
Staying there was such a yawn,
some went forth to grace the lawn.
Call this doggerel if U must,
but I hold a sacred trust.
I will seize each fleeting chance
to be as cheeky as my plants.
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Sharing More than Light
Slow shutter needed.
Daffodil and tulip share
early morning light.
~ ~ ~ ~
There is enough for us all,
if we take less than we want.
Light ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #319
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Rondo con Chiaroscuro
With less dynamic range than my eye, my camera exaggerated the chiaroscuro in the images posted here. But not too much. With a nod to a common way to describe tempo in musical scores, I began drafting this post with the title [Chiaroscuro Ma Non Troppo]. Then I noticed a closer connection to music. My sequence of images is a visual rondo.
Mountain Laurel
Coming soon:
pink nectar chalice,
bumblebee.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Start the day with a triple espresso? The bee did but I didn’t. While shooting laurel blooms in soft light, I was distracted by the hyperkinetic bee. Neglected to force quick shutter speeds when tracking it. (The camera chose 1/200 of a second.) Got one shot with blurred legs but an in-focus tongue, just as the bee was landing. Otherwise, a blurry bee was mooning me. That’s life. Enjoy the good stuff and cope with the rest.
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Tulip Continuity
Flowers wilt;
leaves still make food. Why?
For next year.
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Memorial Day Colors
Lavender salutes
red, white, and blue of our flag.
Pride and gratitude.
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Never Give Up — Continued
Consciously, I had nothing to add when I posted a photo recently. But the pot always simmers. I brooded on the word “victory” in a comment by Sue Ranscht. I recalled the epic journey across northern Norway in World War 2 by Jan Baalsrud, the sole survivor of a commando force betrayed by a Nazi collaborator. I seized another day of magical light and found there was more to show and to say.
Never Give Up
Crocus & Pachysandra in 3-5-3
Golden glow
with purple and green.
Spring returns.
Golden ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #306
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Summer Compromise
The grass in my lawn is eager to grow into a shaggy mess, so I cannot always postpone mowing until some other plants in the lawn have set seed. But I can do the next best thing and get almost another week from some blooms, plus photos and a 3-5-3 haiku.
Daylily & Chicory & Nat King Cole
Photographing wildflowers in my yard inspired new lyrics for a song about a couple “too young” to be in love. While the original sweet lyrics came true for some couples, I did not marry young. I still like that song’s lovely music and calm questioning of what “they” say, so I am glad to have lyrics that fit my situation. Wish I could sing.
Sharing
Slow shutter needed.
Daffodil and tulip share
early morning light.
~ ~ ~ ~
There is enough for us all,
if we take less than we want.
I considered posting my photo wordlessly, with the post’s title as a hint that I have something beyond a nice image in mind. Too subtle. Compulsively explicit, I wrote a haiku. Then I expanded the haiku to a tanka.
I hesitated. The tanka’s last 2 lines might be too preachy. Then I read the Gandhi quote in a great collection of images and quotes: Our Beautiful, Broken World (curated by Mitch Teemley).
Thanks, Mitch. The time for subtlety is long gone.
Haiga with Several Time Scales
Haiku poems commonly deal with events on short time scales. In a split second, the frog jumps into the pond. In minutes, the sunset fades. In days, the cherry blossoms fall. How about decades? How about millennia? They can show up too, along with the split second that a camera’s shutter is open.
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Sunlit Moment
Mums are good silk fakes.
Rock is real and will outlast
both mums and viewer.
I dithered over whether to respond to
Scale ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #268
with the material above. With small differences in format, it was posted 2020-04-17. Tho usually reluctant to repeat myself, I’ve noticed that bloggers I respect sometimes do repost things they feel are still relevant. I’ve also noticed that 11 months is quite a while on a cyberspace time scale.
Oh well. It’s rare that I settle on a combination of angle and settings that I really like before the light fades or shifts. Seize the moment.
Mellow Curmudgeon 