View high resolution

Bonnard with his cat. 

Lately, I have been struggling. This happens sometimes. Often.

Three mornings in a row, I have woken with words that seem like messages. They evaporate but not before allowing a fleeting moment of hope or something to consider. Yesterday, it was about not giving up on something or someone.

This time, like the other two times - the words are clear and precise. It sounds like the end of a sentence with the first part missing:

‘…which would cause a break back to where the soul has retreated.’

                                                *****

Yesterday evening, I went for a walk. The moon was almost full - that was what drew me outside.  It sat like a yellow rock in a blue sky. The sun was going down in fiery orange fashion and the second it vanished the spring peepers started singing. And I was there, tangled in the tall dried grass beside a little pond in the woods, in my muddy boots…listening.  Aha! Finally -  a sure sign of spring. Spring is late this year; discouraged, we have all been watching for signs.

But I don’t have spring fever this year. Damn! I miss it… it makes me feel alive. But the frogs have given me this moment of gladness. I point my camera to shoot the moon where it shimmers in this water that has just erupted in sound.

The sound of love. 

                                          *   *   *   *   *

As I walk down the stairs to make coffee, I  turn today’s words over in my mind, determined to commit them to memory. Unbidden, they mix with yesterday’s moon and new words come:

‘The moon has retreated back to a place of mystery’.

View high resolution

She was looking right at me. Did she see me?

I thought there were birds fluttering about but it was her long white tail.

It was the white that caught my eye. I stood stock still when I spied them across the marsh… a family of deer. What joy! Two mothers watching over their frolicking youngsters.

To the left of the photo, you can just barely make out the other mum. 

The forest elder, keeps watch.

My forest walks have resumed. I seem to have a new companion, a feline. Intrepid, adventurous and  long-winded (she howls constantly to make sure I haven’t forgotten she is following along behind me). Now she is in my chair by the fire, sleeping as cats do.

View high resolution

My feet crunch in springtime snow.

It is maple season. Sugaring-off time. When I listen, the forest is quiet. Well, except for the downy woodpecker. He is high in the pines - here then there; closer, farther…tap, tappatappa, tap.

There is another sound that I can’t place for a moment: a musical plonk, plonk. Oh, of course. My eyes had been high to spot the bird; I bring them down and see metal buckets everywhere. I lift a cover - it is full! And I am thirsty. I wish I had a cup (the bucket is a far too heavy heft to my lips).

I use the cup of my palm to savour sweet water.

View high resolution

Who are you?

You had your dinner in the snow and left a bloody mess. Nothing remains, just pink trampled snow and tufts of gray that tell me it was a deer who fell here.

Were you the killer or the cleaner?

View high resolution

Hello Spring.

You are late - past due.

Are you hiding in the shadows, or trapped in another dimension?

Surely, beneath the crisp cold cover of snow, things are shivering to life.

View high resolution

Accidental masterpieces of time and circumstance…

photos by René de Carufel   http://www.rdcphoto.com/