Spotted deer framed in a glade, the warm morning light showing each coat to be a distinct shade of tawny brown. Two deep brown eyes - glassy but lively - keep watch, while the herd hangs heads low, grazing lazily on the overgrown greenery. The deer mill about so languidly that one could count each one's spots. spotted deer, grazing in a glade, one stands sentry
looking down from blue skies and sparse clouds my next look up the ceiling has lowered and rain is on its way
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 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!"
in the desert, color blooms in dense clumps among scrubby sands
