i had a friend in school who used to eat the center out of her sandwich at lunch because even the pale golden softness of a wonder bread crust was too much fiber for her. the beetles who ate these leaves seem to have had the same attitude about the wonder bread tenderness of these leaves compared to the fibery crust of the veins.

linden tree branch with beetle eaten leaves

st. paul, minnesota

so do you see those jagged little lines of separation between the plates of this turtle’s skull? those were not visible until i corrected this photo for a black background. suddenly there they were, in high definition. previously, when i was correcting for white, the opposite would have happened. the entire skull would have been blown out in a flare of bright white. if i haven’t yet found my voice in this new country of photos on black backgrounds, these little wandering black lines feel as if they give me a few new words of vocabulary.

snapping turtle skull

sucker lake, saint paul, minnesota

it’s too early to be thinking about spring flowers, but what does one do with budding trees and green grass and 50 degrees? one makes bouquets of tulips and daffodils and hyacinth. and one reminds oneself that deep march snows always come, eventually, in this part of the world. and one hopes they do come this year. because it’s too early to be thinking about spring flowers.

spring bulbs: hyacinth, tulips, daffodil, and grape hyacinth

i swear that the eloquently spare white lines in this gray stone are not not painted on, but are the sandwiching of an impossibly thin layer of quartz between loaves of gray granite (i believe). it makes me want to play with a japanese sumi brush, like some guy who just watched the world series, and feels an obscure urge to go play catch.

mediterranean beach rock

sète, france

start at the bottom of this spill of flowers, and move clockwise all the way around to the bottom again. did the colors arrange themselves in r.o.y.g.b.i.v order, or did i arrange them that way without knowing it? is this how the universe speaks, when it wants to be heard? all i know is that i did not intentionally arrange this collection with the colors of the spectrum in mind. i only noticed it as i stared at the photo trying to think of something to say about it.

dried mid-summer flowers

st. paul, minnesota