Persistence

March 31, 2018.  March blows Spring into Central Texas – bringing wildflowers and fresh leaves.  And in the garden, poppies!  We planted seeds once and now we collect seeds to give away – our poppies keep popping back year to year.  They are a mix of red and pink, big and small, and they are prolific.  But each bloom is brief.  And each worthy a portrait, my excuse to frequently indulge my photography urges.

I lucked onto one “about to pop” and caught the sequence.  Apart from borders and the  stand-in downward bud, all images are of the same poppy.  All but the full bloom, in the span of about 5 minutes.  The fully opened bloom is an hour or so later.

A delight to watch the unfolding!

Pause

March 25, 2018.  This is messy time of year in Central Texas – live oaks drop all their leaves and then immediately begin “blooming” and dusting everything with their yellow pollen.   Might as well wait for it to finish before trying to clean up.

Today I found this green anole on the hood of our black truck – perhaps drawn to the hue of the pollen? Perhaps struck by the reflection surrounding him?  The perfect icon for Central Texas Spring, and decidedly in an extended pause.  Perhaps contemplating source?

Zen In Hand

March 16, 2018.  This poem emerged while studying Zen poets – mostly male, but one female poet made the syllabus.  Otagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875) became a Japanese Buddhist nun and one of the country’s most respected female artists – combining her poetry, calligraphy, and pottery.  She learned from Kyoto potters and decorated her rough and rugged bowls, cups, and other vessels with her poetry, either painted on or scored into the clay in flowing calligraphy. Orders from tea masters and others kept her very busy.  This collage of found images shows both her pottery and calligraphy styles.

Snag Presence

March 10, 2018.  I spent February studying Zen poetry – reading many of the classics and writing to suggested prompts.  Lorraine “Bird” Mejia is a skilled online teacher and manages to pull things from me I did not expect.  True with the Zen writing, for sure.  But one of the exercises took me a bit off-prompt, smack dab back to the New Mexico mountain where we camp every August – specifically, back to the “snag” (a tree dead but standing, top broken off) where I sit in solitude.  I posted about that snag in 2015, and here I repeat that earlier poem followed by my “Zenish” perception.   One snag, two takes.

Who knows? There could be more snag poems to emerge …