The past few days I’ve been working on a variety of photographs and I have even more ideas in my mind that I haven’t yet worked on. It’s fun when ideas come faster than I can act on them. The muse is not always so kind to me. Over my years of making photographs I’ve learned that just like the seasons of the year, there are seasons of a plethora of ideas and other seasons of stillness and space.
I call the photo above, “Don’t leave home without us.” Though to tell you the truth unless I’m going to a local park to walk or for my weekly grocery run I’m not leaving home.
Random thoughts
Yesterday I walked on the west side of Medicine Lake mainly because I wanted to see if there were any trumpeter swans on that side of the lake. There weren’t any. So I returned to the east side of the lake for another short walk near the beach there, where I found a group of trumpeter swans and hooded mergansers dabbling and swimming. I’ve included the photo below simply to show you how many hooded mergansers there were in the lake today. Seeing them and the swans takes me back to my Ely walk-about in 2017. Both were common visitors on the river behind the cabin I stayed in.
There were also gulls on the ice at the edge of the lake and gulls taking off and soaring overhead.
My heart lifts each time one of them takes to the air.
Nature is such a balm and blessing for my soul.
Speaking of blessings
I’ve also been making photographs of a tiny orchid plant that I brought home Tuesday. It’s not very big but has brought me big joy despite it’s diminutive size.
Finally, here’s a poem to enjoy today,
A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.— James Wright
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