Glorious Day!

Yesterday I got up and drove to Noerenberg Memorial Gardens with my camera early in the morning.

What a glorious day!

I thought I might find a few peonies still in bloom in the gardens, but with the two weeks of hot hot weather preceding this week, no peony flowers remained. Still, it was one of those picture perfect summer mornings I dream about.The sun was shining, humidity was low, temperatures were mild, and there was a slight breeze.

As I stood in the garden gazebo overlooking Lake Minnetonka I saw fishing boats, speed boats, water skiers, and jet skies whizzing here and there on the lake. Even at a little after 8 AM the water skiers were already in the water.

I saw a couple sitting together lovingly on a bench over-looking the lake. And though the garden had lost it’s first blush of blossoms, there were flowers here and there and beautiful lush grasses and ferns.

Along the shore I saw a mama duck and three tiny ducklings. So I stood and watched them, photographing them again and again as they meandered near the shore feeding and swimming. I wished that I had brought my 100-400 mm telephoto lens along though I enjoyed photographing them with my work-horse 24-105 mm lens.

First sighting of mama duck and ducklings

At the Lake

After a slow meandering walk by the lake I sat on an inviting bench that was shaded by pine trees. In the shelter of the trees I soaked in the beauty of the day, activity on the lake, and sights and sounds of nature all around me. The perfection of everything reminded me of Mary Oliver’s poem, At the Lake.

At the Lake

A fish leaps

like a black pin —

then — when the starlight

strikes its side —

like a silver pin.

In an instant

the fish’s spine

alters the fierce line of rising

and it curls a little —

the head, like scalloped tin,

plunges back,

and it’s gone.

This is, I think,

what holiness is:

the natural world,

where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.

Inside every mind

there’s a hermit’s cave

full of light,

full of snow,

full of concentration.

I’ve knelt there,

and so have you,

hanging on

to what you love,

to what is lovely.

The lake’s

shining sheets

don’t make a ripple now,

and the stars

are going off to their blue sleep,

but the words are in place —

and the fish leaps, and leaps again

from the black plush of the poem,

that breathless space.

— Mary Oliver