The river glides like a glassy sheet. It seems to steam, but it's just fog forming over the frigid water that is nevertheless a reservoir of heat compared to the freezing air above. The fog erases the sharp edges that make the world seem real -- neither painting nor figment. The far shore is a brush-dabbed fiction... and I may be, also. The early morning cold affects my brain in the same manner that the fog influences the scene. river fog makes the cold morning a painted scene
The clouds hang gray this mid-winter day, while streets glisten with the watery sheen of rains that never break for long. Wheels roll through, throwing the water into a swish-slosh song. All seems clean, if perpetually dreary. The air looks clear, though some funk clings to one's shoulders as one walks through town, and every scent is compressed in intensity at street level. streets glisten, the city slick from rains that linger
The forest is silent, and winter has painted the woods in earthen hues. Bare black loam is spottily strewn with beige to brown leaves -- dried to a curl and crunch that's almost crumbling. If any animals are moving, it's only at the eyes. There're no skittering feet, no frantic digging, no chirped warnings, and no explosive attempts to flee. Then, at the base of a downed log, there's a lively scene of vibrant green moss and tender, burnished-orange fungi caps. winter forest -- all seems dead or dormant, but one tender scene
This mantis pulls off the dead leaf look. Its abdomen mimics a leaf - desiccated and rolled up upon itself. A barber-sign slant spiral of veins add the perfect touch. Even once one notices the six thin legs, legs invisible to all but a piercing, hunched-over stare, there remains a period during which it is more acceptable to the mind to think of it as twiggy leaves than as an insect. Amid a litter of dead leaves, I'm sure my eyes would never land on this skinny bug, but even on a rocky outcrop that's perpetually swept bare by way of the breezes that whip and wrap around the mountain, it still seems more leaf than bug. a dead leaf mantis, standing in an unlikely place, yet my mind screams, "Leaf!"
Couriers carry communiques from town to town in the country of me. These secret messages are unprojected, but couriers sometimes sneak peeks. Then, a summary can be read in an expression - a precis that could elsewise not be divined. An expression read from aspect of eye is a hint, and is as reliable as any hint -- which is to say, not very. A hint is subject to misinterpretation. It presupposes a common language, a lingua franca that doesn't exist because one side has no language and the other is afflicted by the arrogant assumption that all things are understood via language. shooting signals snap through the unmapped spaces of my mind
The sun rises; its fiery form flares in the slit between monsoon skies and rocky monoliths. The crazy array of karsts, pillars, and islets block this bright amber flash from most angles, but here the light aligns with eye. A golden walk painted on the rippled surface stretches to the boat's bow. A thousand boats won't see this rising fire, but this one did, this one time. the sun squints beneath thick clouds, painting a line to us
The condor soars, riding the updraft, its back sun-gilt, its wings stretched taught and flared at the tip, its head and eye swiveling seemingly independently, as if able to pierce any point with militant precision of vision. The condor is pure power, but knows the economy of the glide. The condor seeks something meaty, for to land on a desiccated pile of bones and fur is the worst kind of insufferable, and so he glides and watches... and glides and watches... with piercing eye and readiness to dive the condor soars
A volcanic cone looms in the distance, far but not so far that it can't lend perspective. The cone draws the eye, beautifying the backdrop, crediting the city character, but - also - making it seem small. The volcano plays the stalwart guardian, but stands as the destroyer, promising devastation on some dark and distant day. The citizens love living under the great volcano, but one day it will spit fire, raining down a dense dust, pelting the city with rock chunks that fall like fiery hailstones. the volcano features in every photo, but heed its rumbles
The air was dry and the valley was dry. Tufts of yellow grass clung to the hillside and to the edges of the valley floor -- where they joined with the barren, brown tines of bleak shrubbery. In the riverbed, smooth stones and boulders sprawled to the shoulders, far wide of the feeble stream that flowed at the moment. The water ran gray, having come from the edges of a glacier that scoured its way down a granite channel. And in the "V" far ahead, clouds as thick as the mountains were being lifted and dropped over a snowcapped peak, pretending they'd bring their moisture into this arid landscape.
mountain clouds may become your fog, or may sit in wait
Crisp air and clear skies freshen the senses, injecting one into a world more real than one has felt before. Cerulean skies, free of contrails, feel close at hand. Grazing leisurely, a deer cracks a downed limb, the sound carrying across the lake. A fluttering fishtail breaks the water as a bass turns and darts down and away, the sound of sprayed water is heard clearly, though one sees no indication of the creature. Shifting winds fill one’s nose with an antiseptic scent of pine. One is alive — fully alive.
early autumn
skies tint the muddy lake
a cold color
Tiger Riding for Beginners 