photo from Berkeley, October, 2010

a photo from 2008

such treaure
on this earth;
the universe cradled
in a falling leaf

I went to pick up my kid from preschool some years back. The teacher told me they had cut out bats from black construction paper that morning, with Halloween on its way. She said my son, though, had become obsessed with the new task, creating bat after bat after bat. He was so engrossed with this activity, she let him continue through ‘circle time’, and the math-related activities later.

He came home with dozens of bats that we stuck all over the house.

I learned from my son, and I learned from the teacher’s response to his passion. I’ve been taking street photos with intense pleasure since 2005, a year or two after I got my first digital camera. It’s a compulsion for sure. I’ve learned that being aware of what truly brings me pleasure supports my mission in life, and takes nothing away.

I'm obsessed...

The size of the moon doesn't change, but our perception of its size can vary quite a bit.

hot day
on Congress Avenue
then a man
boards the bus
wearing enormous glasses
and a sparkling jacket
casting hope
like a mirror ball

We’re entering the last month of summer, and it hasn’t really rained since spring, and in spring, it hardly rained at all. Parts of the creek were dry at the beginning of the year. The water has continued to evaporate bit by bit. At first there was still a running trickle, and then a few small ponds where we still could see fish and water bugs a couple weeks ago. Now there are only stray puddles.

Yesterday evening, I stopped where the street bridges the creek and looked down. The top photo is the east side.

I crossed the street to the west side, looked over the railing, and froze. I’d never seen anything like it, the snakes in an inch or two of water, motionless, their faces just above the surface. They seemed to be dark in color with a rusty red cast, ranging from one and a half to two feet in length.

Cold blooded creatures that they are, they may have had difficulty in the 105 degree heat earlier in the day, and come to the water to lower their body temperatures. Or maybe they are a species of water snake with little room now to spread out and swim.


At first I noticed only three, and then discovered the fourth a little ways beyond. I took the pics, which do no justice to the serene power that emanated from them. A fifth snake shot out from below the bridge and disappeared under a stone, its body whipping up the sediments into a cloud of muddy water.

...skating away
on the thin ice of a new day.

Ian Anderson

Going in circles gets a bad rap, but the spoke of your bicycle tire goes in circles and look where it takes you.

Language can be intricate, sophisticated, humorous. It can be blunt and in-your-face.

Translation: Happy Birthday!

'I could have spread my wings
And done a thousand things I've never done before.'

Alan Jay Lerner
'My Fair Lady'

the shyness of trees

whimsy

with the lightness of gratitude -

4 at dawn
the conversation

Arrays of light
filter through leafy boughs,
resplendent spirits.
A blue jay repeats
the ringing first half of his call -
he can’t remember
how the rest of it goes.

Can a female bird sing?
he wants to know.
But only the doves
are near -
they murmur among themselves
and flap their wings -
not recognizing the question,
not knowing any answers.

The spirits flicker
within the tree -
they whisper
yes yes yes