25 Monday Nov 2013
Posted in Photography, Poetry
Tags
Black and White, Climate Change, Environment, Grief, Loss, Mortality, Nature, Photography, Poetry, Reflection, Thoughts, Tree, Walking, Water
We fly,
Away from terra firma, windmilling and whirling
Seeing and hearing and imbibing so little
Of Earth’s splendor and shimmering
Glory tragically being lost, lost by the
Grungy grimy hand of
The Ones, the ones with the brains.
28 Thursday Feb 2013
Posted in Stories
Tags
Art Show, Events, Florida, John Lennon, Longing, Loss, Love, Memories, Night Photography, Orlando, Sad, Winter Park, Yoko Ono
Saturday a few weeks ago, we concluded that a day trip was in order.
In Winter Park, Florida, an artistic traveling event had caught our fancy. Yoko Ono has gathered up her late husband’s art and put together an ensemble honoring his audacious genius at plundering the depths of his love and devotion to Yoko and his son Sean. John was an accomplished artist, before, during and after his Beatling adventures.
We ambled enthralled through the exhibit. Both his original penned song lyrics and his Impressionistic ink and pen drawings drifted by our eyes. Beatles songs warbled quietly in the background.
Then I stopped. Flourishing lines coalesced into a deep peaceful pastoral scene of Yoko propped under a tree and John resting his head in her lap. Both were posed in rapturous adoration and completeness in each other. A sob caught in my throat as I reminisced of a time with my departed Jodi so much like this vivid depiction before me, us relaxing at the beach with my head next to my beloved wife now gone these six years. John’s art had gripped the ardor and oneness I had with Jodi. I thought how I would in an instant give up years of my life to have just a half-hour more with her once again.
It takes a tremendously talented artist like John Lennon to reach into my inner soul and touch the pain and joy of our everlasting union. John’s art style was very much like Jodi’s art, showing the joy she had for her life.
25 Friday Jan 2013
Posted in Stories
Tags
Alligator, Beauty, Black and White, Blue Spring State Park, Death, Florida, Grief, Healing, Hiking, Life, Loss, Love, Manatee, Memory, Nature, Nature Photography, Palms, Peace, Personal, Photography, Rain, Spring, story, Water, writing
It was a time of abysmal permeating sadness and drabness.
Life seemed weak and drained.
My daughter and I, moored in grief, crushing pain. Just six weeks since moving from dark and cantankerous Midwest-land near Chicago-the pestilence struck her, five years ago.
It was a few months after my wife of 19 years had departed from cancer; a momentous and ever-chaotic time, us hoping and despairing, then just a deep inky silence where she had been.
After my wife’s departure, we began to take trips to reclaim our balance and to see the bounty of Florida.
Maps were studied; net was consulted. A park with a natural spring shimmered into our review. It is in Central Florida a little north of Orlando. Hmm. Nestled in a heavily wooded park, limpid waters flowing.
The rickety car (it seems we always have these ancient buggies that make travel an interesting challenge) was loaded for a day trip heading West across the boggy swampland and smoky hazy sky.
Onward we rolled, until we went down an ordinary street and into an ordinary park. Off we strolled. It did not seem like very much, just a plain park with usual greenery, squirrels, broad trees.
A sign said “Spring This Way”, next to a wooden boardwalk shielded by a thick hedge.
We pushed through to the boardwalk and down a small path to a silvery platform with stairs trundling down into the spring water on each side.
It was late and sunlight slanted through the trees.
Astounding
Thunderstruck, we surveyed the aquatic scene before us. Brilliant shimmering blue-green water-glass clear pristine water bloomed up at our feet. Eyes agog and jaws limp from astonishment, gazing at the fauna inhabiting the water.
Large Florida Spotted Gar with long tubular spotted bodies and an insanely long snout riddled with needle teeth swam by in droves. Up they surfaced and gulped air, as they have a primitive lung. Large bulbous catfish tangoed in the water, chasing each other and also popping up to the surface and flitting back down. We saw huge tarpon fish sailing by in schools. A turtle or Atlantic Sting Ray would languidly flap by.
It was like being on a Cousteau marine expedition-with us tied to the front mast peering into the waters ahead of the vessel at all the oceanic treasures below (like the occassional baby gator, which, babs, of course, had to dunk into the blue lucid depths to swim with).
The greatest stars of the Spring were the manatees. A dozen can cluster together like giant logjams. Each was a huge gray leathery 1000 pound or more gentle herbivore, related to the pachyderm, with a giant back flipper, two front flippers and a giant comically whimsical head with whiskers and two tiny eyes that peer at you, each creature diving, gliding and surfacing in breathy sprays of wondrous glory. If a human slips into the spring, they like to follow, but must be left alone and are heavily protected and endangered. They come and stay in the spring in winter to escape cold water elsewhere (spring is 72 degrees year-round).
Brilliantly showcased, the wild happy creatures cavorted and played in Nature’s most stupendous aquarium.
Words escape us as it is: Truly a Spring of Paradise.
In honor of Jode, my wife, on her birthday today, January 24th
From Sire, with Love
