No longer pretty,
potted tulips catch my eye
until petals fall.
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Persistent Purple
Category: flowers
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.
Snow Fall
Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has the theme “autumn leaves” for November of 2020 and the subtheme “colors of life” for the CDHK episode posted 2020-11-17. Where I live, snow rarely falls before the leaves do. When it does, the resulting colors may foretell the colors of awakening life in the coming spring.
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Carpe Diem #1839 colors of life
Snow Fall
Bright white and strong pink:
early snow on burning bush
predicts apple blooms.
Ozzie Had His Head on Straight
David Eppley’s photo of a bald eagle named Ozzie was among the fan favorites in the Weather Channel’s 2016 Photo Contest. The same excellent photo inspired a haiku that can respond to a CDHK challenge about daffodils. Really.
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Carpe Diem #1832 Narcissus (Daffodils)
Mythornithology
When we saw himself,
Narcissus forgot to drink.
Eagle had more sense.
Click here to see more images and read interesting facts about flowers in the genus Narcissus (AKA daffodils).
Click here to see more images from the Weather Channel’s 2016 Photo Contest.
Mellow Curmudgeon 