What a wise thing to have a koi pond at the entrance to a restaurant notoriously overbooked, yet well worth hoping for a table! We who wait outside Nancy’s Airfield Cafe become a small community. We count fish, compare notes. We point out hiding places. We announce our favorite …
Common Threads (Common Sense) I planted these flowers together (Echinacea purpurea ‘Razzmatazz’ and Geranium sanguineum ‘Rozanne’) because they share two common elements. The first element? That raspberry color so obvious in Razzmatazz, and so delicate in Rozanne. The second? A slightly twisting curl. Again, showy in the reflexed petals of …
I thought you were gone (Imagination) Under a canopy of heart-shaped leaves, I planted a remembrance garden of white flowers and foliage. You can read my garden if you know the plant names, and I could not resist planting the pure white iris “Immortality” here even though the light was …
Like the summer-shaved head of a small boy, moss calls me to scrub my hand over its surprising stubble softness, to soothe my seriousness with its velvety tickle. Today, I restrain myself. The moss blooms! Its stringy, goofy flowers nod their burgundy heads to one another, wave, giggle and delight …
Razzmatazz (Imagination) Independence Day? I singled out this flower from the border to highlight its wild shape and color, but in the larger landscape one flower, even one as wild as this, gets lost. Bolstered by dozens of its mates and set off by a variety of textures, colors, and …
Camouflage (estimation) I learned my camouflage tricks from frogs hiding at the edge of the pond, waiting for a movement, a sign, a hint of malice or… what, exactly? What makes one jump into the water while another sits with patient courage and sings his unique song loudly into danger’s face. …
Love isn’t pretty. It startles you in the nightgrabs you by the throatempties your soulleaves youprayingin the dark silencea primordial light washes the floor,raises your edges: the weave of the bedspread,your hand, and its pop-top scar, tiny white hairs, two sun spots, creases, veins,one broken half-polished nail, the pencil callous on your middle finger, every lie you’ve …
Vanilla Grill (Common Sense) Vanilla-scented astilbe crowds the rusted grill. Its doors still glide open with a smart “snick”. Spiders and leaves fill the void around the cold propane tank. I raise the silent lid, turn the knob, click-click-click, and a blue flame whooshes just short of my face, settles …
“Blue River Garden” (Imagination) 4:30 in the morning is a peculiar time to be writing about sharpness. I am anything but sharp before coffee, before daylight, before noon. But sharpness has been on my mind lately, because I’ve recently switched to Leica equipment, and joined a community of Leica users …