The Lonely Sun

The people looked so tiny, like specks on the road far below--watching sheep wandering along a steep and icy precipice against the towering cliffs. I suppose the fear that brings wonder is like a jolt of life, when the senses work at a fever pitch. Yet the sheep seemed calm and preoccupied by the search for winter food.

The real dangers for me were the black ice strips along the upper trail, where foot steps had pounded the snow into a slippery trap. Warming and freezing conspired in making the snow granular and hard. By this I knew, that the way up and around the rock barriers would be on these cakes of hardened snow. The gritty white surface held, while my steps crunched out noise. Around a rock corner a sheep peered down at me. But the animals presence went unheeded, and I continued up through the rocky outcrops that encircled the woods below.

But I was drawn to something else. Off the main trail, my movements had created a new uncharted one. Sometimes trails are more than permanent lines on maps; they may come and go during the winter season--on freeze ups on the rivers, on the hard packed snow in the woods. Sometimes they may be a soft line of cloud, carrying the curious mind's eye into a sunset sea. So, I remain a searcher of fugitive moments, of conditions hidden in the shadows of the cliffs or made visible in the waning light -- where an inner way has it's own rhythms, connecting to a thousand other faces in nature; from wind and storm to the tidal actions along the bay and beyond.

Yet it was the disk of the sun, floating listlessly in a sea of fog, that mirrored my thoughts, bringing me closer to the edge of silence. That bright burning sun, now reduced to a small circle, sputtered in the swirling mist of a winter's afternoon. And like a weakened moon, it cast only an arctic shadow over the bay below. Yet, somehow, through a hidden gate of cloud, its presence was felt in copper glare upon the tide. My mood swirled and danced like the sun in the cloud, while the gallery of ice and frost and rock remained unmoved by my passing here.

The Electric Night

The street lamps cut passages of light through the alley and beyond, casting a incandescent glow on the leftovers of the snow. Chunks of white hang like strange constellations and shapes along the branches of the trees. And here the softness of night combines with light and reverie. I can only guess what the shapes in the distance might be or what the scenery looks like during the day. I realize there are many ways of seeing, of recording in the mind what each view can become in time. With the camera and an undeveloped theme, the broad strokes of the darks and lights form islands and seas of shapes; the softness and hardness of the edges become trails in the dark; and the colors vibrating in the electric current of night sinks into my thoughts. It is not enough to click the camera, not enough just to look--for each time I am gathering in another riddle in order to stay fresh and curious. It's like throwing a net of attention over a slippery scene. Just the idea, that this journey keeps unraveling like a twisted thread, with no end in sight, can only mean that "wonder and surprise" are allied to each other during these scattered moments here. Yet too soon, with a thin slice captured on film and eye, these hours will transform themselves into new awakenings. Should I return another day, what I have witnessed here and now will be gone. And then something new will take its place. Sure, there will be the darkness, the electric night, and snowy nights again, but this mood and moment will have passed away.

The Fiery Edge of Day

Dawn, the waking moments when the sky comes alive, when colors expand from blues into yellows, oranges, and reds. The world is great canvas on which the painted sky awakens first before the land. Clouds of wind born forms twist themselves in moods of weather shapes. Then the first flame of the sun rises through the lower trees, lapping at the edges, while the lower clouds move across the air. Above, the windy masses form a wall of bluish-grey. Still the tops of the swamp pines are dark, rising into the colored dawn. At this hour the gentle thoughts are fresh and pure.

Alleyways of the Imagination

Alleyways are places for privacy, far from the busy streets. The hours before dawn are best. Usually the neighbors have left for work, or they stay indoors, hidden away with their secret thoughts. Like them, I too am alone, but outside in the these long corridors, slowly moving under the glow of the street lamps and darkness between. How different is the lighting and the mood in this borderland, this place of moods rather than fact. Perhaps the scenery is suggesting instead of revealing, but I like the ambiguity. This place is a reflection of the human mind--where the public eye seldom looks--with a lock on its doors, open to only those who live here.

The Edge of Afternoon

A thin veil of fog and cloud swept over the hills. In places, the peaks were visible islands rising above the airy sea, distant and untouchable to the eye. I stood on the corner waiting for the light to change. Here, a light wind blew down the avenue, but the sun still had warmth to share. One hour each day I come this way, and today the blues and gentle yellows were in attendance over the land; the sky and sun blended the shadows and light through the trees, onto the hills, and over the streets; and shapes with naked latticework interplayed within themselves.It seemed that trees, both evergreen and deciduous, paired up in spacial dance, weaving the movements of sight into their forms.

I turned back and saw that the light had turned from red to green. Then I dashed back into the mad flow of forgetfulness. At least another moment talked with me in the frenzy of the afternoon, but not to the busy drivers passing through. Sky and Sun serve the seasons well, while the other colors depend on a different time of year.

The Empty Vessel

In Winter's Kingdom the greys subdue all other hues. Still, the city streets bring in colors on traffic flow. And beyond, other curious murmurings can be heard along the trail, here and there-- something of worthy note may be seen.

Through the window shapes, tongues of evergreen meet the snowy hills, and corridors open in the marsh, where once the spaces were filled with greenery. This is the time of emptiness, when the mind might truly see the undergarments of Nature's sleep.

The Winter Palette

The colors of Winter's ground is muted and tonal in its changing display, but reveals colors, that in the Summer season would not call attention to themselves. At first, especially in fog and frost, grey and cold, the eye might not register anything of worthy note. But in the openings or sheltered nooks; out in the marsh or within the woods; and over the ragged teeth of the storm or icy blue of the sky--here are things to ponder and look a little deeper at, because in the the Winter palette some fugitive colors only wait the curious eye to find.