happy accident

i spent 45 minutes trying to pin these rose branches to a vertical sheet of black foam core in order to set up an appealingly lush arrangement of flowers and greenery. they hung precariously and wouldn’t do what I wanted. they did not look appealingly lush at all, but more like they had been stuck together with glue. then one of my branches fell ignominiously to the tabletop. and lay there with a wounded air. suddenly i had my composition.

bush roses

saint paul, minnesota

expiration

peonies come with an expiration date. handle with care. keep cool. best if visually consumed by June 1.

peony flowers

saint paul, minnesota

sometimes

sometimes you take a photo and then go to process it. you play with highlights and midtones. you up the contrast and then lower it. you brighten and darken. you turn up vibrance and turn it down. you saturate and desaturate. you crop in and pull back. and then suddenly it occurs to you. wait a minute. this has been perfect all along. it doesn’t happen very often, or last very long. about as long as the full ripe bloom of a pink peony.

peony

saint paul, minnesota

we live in the schizophrenic north, where for nine months of the year, we accept the retreat of the sun and the austere, barren landscape that coldness brings with it. and then, for three months of the year, our world is turned upside down. the lushness feels almost suffocating.  the woods become impenetrable. the cattails grow from underwater tubers to seven-foot giants in a matter of weeks. the soil smells of dampness and decay. perspiration sits on everything and fogs my eye glasses. by september it will all be over again. but for three months of the year, i live in a northern jungle.

locust leaves

sain paul, minnesota

it would be nice to think that these feathers were found on shore somewhere wild. the remains of an ancient and familiar struggle between predator and prey. but no. they belonged to a lone mallard drake, spotted crumpled on the shoulder of a busy urban highway. my husband had to take two u turns to get back to him, and he smelled a lot more like death than like life, but he had a single wing of unmarred celestial blue feathers, and these gray and black secondary coverts. the predator that got to him had no malice, and no appetite. it was just in a hurry to get home.

mallard feathers

saint paul, minnesota