Photography – Dancing on Frozen Beaver Ponds

Winter hawk

I took this photo of a Sharp-shinned Hawk outside our kitchen window last winter. Another (or perhaps the same one) is back, but not as bold. I’ve only seen her a couple of times over the past few weeks and am typically aware of her presence only because the other birds have disappeared, or frozen in place.

Wow! As I’m writing – this the hawk just landed on our deck railing about 12’ from where I’m sitting – what a beauty!

The doodle in the top left corner made me think of the photograph. A couple of hours of playing around in the evening and I figured that was it for that particular exercise. The poem “Still Life” just emerged the next morning. Hmmm… not unlike the Sharp-shinned a moment ago.

February 9, 2017

a-child-walks

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Morning walk

Contemplating the first four chapters of the Tao Te Ching.

Nameless origins, non-action and natural order. The first nation’s humble relationship with the world comes to mind. Chickadee appears and as quickly disappears.

“… becomes one with the dusty world.”*

*Tao Te Ching, Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo translation

In the exile of your absence

In the exile of your absence, I remember Po Chü-i

and look for poetry in the emptiness.

Late November snow buries the garden and unfinished chores.

Tomorrow’s sun, gone from the forecast.

Belted Kingfisher

Bull Moose

Moose, Cape Breton Highlands

On Benji’s Lake Trail. Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia.

Appearing from nowhere

Beyond the bulrush, leaf-bare birch trees suggest the slender face of a doe. Hooded mergansers and a white scatter of gulls on the marsh. Belted kingfisher and red-tailed hawk. Opening the window, morning chill fills the room. Dry fallen leaves, crow call and distant traffic. I stretch toward the hidden sun. Bend at the waist. Sit and strike the brass bowl.

We appear from nowhere. Our existence is not voluntary.

A dream: Bound and blindfolded. Smoke filling the room we roll across the stone floor and press shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek. Impassioned. Every last thing we can possibly be. Then gone.

Forward bend lunge. I photograph animal tracks. Blue shadows. Wingtips pressed into snow. Chaos of dove down and feathers. Some blood.

Does self wear out like muscle and bone? Does it turn white and thin like hair?

Something that we are

Seeing me, the heron
turns abruptly in flight,

it’s something that we are.

No, not the threat.
The turning and away.

Disappearing sweep of blue-grey.

Category: Photography