Balance Poem

 

If you read my post in June you can see I’ve updated my Balance Poem. I’ve also printed it on 17 x 22 inch San Gabriel Fiber Semi-Gloss Paper (Red River Paper). It will be framed and exhibited at Selah Tea at 177 Main Street, Waterville, Maine from mid September until mid November. Give me some feedback here about what you think about this new way to present my work. Thanks!

 

Balance

White feather, dropped or shed.
Trace of an invisible presence,
now gone,
balanced
between the water’s surface
and the sky above.

White bird feather floating on lake with large water drop resting inside portion floating on the water. Stem is caught on pickerel weed holding it up at an angle above the water.
White Feather Floating in the Belgrade marsh in Maine

Seen up close.
It floats so sweetly
hanging by barbed threads
grasping a
pickerel weed.

From afar. It drifts
in a galaxy of blue rippled water
inside a pickerel grove
habitat for waterfowl and their prey.
From whence it came,
Loon, swan, egret.
Does it matter?

Closer still.
A moon-like drop of water
magnifies silver lines curving
into the meniscus at the water drop’s edge.

This keepsake memory of
more than “sight seeing”
to quietly absorb this non-human environment,
water not asphalt,
loons not English sparrows,
air without the fumes of car exhaust
but living smells of lake ecology,
This is enchantment.


email me at galedavison@me.com for

Framed Print: $350 (pickup in Waterville, Maine)

Paper Print with no mat: $200 for 11×14 image on 13x 19 paper (mailed in tube)

Alternative lawns for Photographers

 

It’s gardening season and every year at this time I work on converting another section of my lawn into naturalized flower gardens. The benefit for me is having flowers at my yard-tips for photography. I don’t have to drive to public gardens to find excellent specimens and I can cut them to bring them into better lighting conditions for my camera. These ox-eye daisies spread into my lawn and I leave them to grow undisturbed until June.

The no-mow movement is growing and there are many articles and seed resources for learning how to do your conversions and finding seeds to do it. You might want to check out a great article from the NRDC [National Resource Defense Council] on converting lawns.

 

Earth Day 2021

Earth Day 2021. How do you want to celebrate today’s holiday? Will you take the day off from work? Will you travel to someplace special? Will you take the time to get out into your yard? Will you delete all the Earth Day sales and requests for donations from your email folder? Will you create your own set of sacred rituals to honor the Earth and all animals and plants life that co-inhabit our world?

I went out into my gardens with my iPhone to record the surprise snowfall on my spring flowers. The upright daffodils of yesterday have been pressed to the ground by the weight of the light but heavy crystals of early morning snow flurries. At times the wind blew the snow through the yard as though it were a true winter blizzard. It looked as though nature was streaking the view of my yard  with “white out” to erase the details beyond my windows.

Daffodils bent over from weight of snow.
Spring Daffodils after snow flurry.