Beauty can be found in unexpected places… in the silhouette of a dead tree, standing stark against the evening sky, or the mud on rows of dead cornstalks on a blustery winter day. Or in the oil spilled rainbow of colors swirling in the puddle of rainwater on the street. – Linda Poindexter
Before us great Death stands
Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
When with proud joy we lift Life’s red wine
To drink deep of the mystic shining cup
And ecstasy through all our being leaps—
Death bows his head and weeps.
Rainer Maria Rilke
“Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” –> Elliot Erwitt
Stop by Leanne Cole’s blog later on today to view this week’s monochrome madness. While Laura Macky recovers, Leanne along with an international collaboration of photographers will provide an assortment of monochrome images for this week’s viewing pleasure. Thanks to all.
As you can see from the windshield behind the hula girl on my dashboard it was a rainy day.
So I went to a butterfly exhibit…
Book and live butterfly on the lady at the conservatory door.
It was kind of like they were married.
There were butterflies flying around.
Some were just hanging out.
It turned out to be a good day to catch butterflies.
That’s a little bit of my Sunday. I’ll post more butterflies later in the week. Thanks for looking.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare
“Enya never writes a bad melody. That’s first and foremost her secret. As she goes along, she’ll start changing the dynamics, pushing here and there so that not everything is perfectly in unison. It adds a texture you can acquire only from having different voices. The variations lead to interesting quirks. It’s an integral part of the Enya sound.” – Nicky Ryan (Amarantine)
“Peace is its own reward.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“A something in a summer’s Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.
A something in a summer’s noon —
A depth — an Azure — a perfume —
Transcending ecstasy.
And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see —
Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle — shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me —
The wizard fingers never rest —
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed —
Still rears the East her amber Flag —
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red —
So looking on — the night — the morn
Conclude the wonder gay —
And I meet, coming thro’ the dews
Another summer’s Day!”
– Emily Dickinson
Down the Bayou
The cypress swamp around me wraps its spell,
With hushing sounds in moss-hung branches there,
Like congregations rustling down to prayer,
While Solitude, like some unsounded bell,
Hangs full of secrets that it cannot tell,
And leafy litanies on the humid air
Intone themselves, and on the tree-trunks bare
The scarlet lichen writes her rubrics well.
The cypress-knees take on them marvellous shapes
Of pygmy nuns, gnomes, goblins, witches, fays,
The vigorous vine the withered gum-tree drapes,
Across the oozy ground the rabbit plays,
The moccasin to jungle depths escapes,
And through the gloom the wild deer shyly gaze.
– Mary Ashley Townsend
Maverick Mist 