Light painting uses long exposures in dark places to allow selective lighting to highlight objects or parts of objects, provide a different perspective, and to represent motion and color, in ways that cannot be done in a single fast frame. I’m still working on timing and brightness, but here is a sample of some of the results. More work is needed.
You, bitter trinity, long I have wed.
Our courtship started early in my years.
Your whispers, claiming you are truth, have led
Me to make you the author of my tears.
Dear Darkness, Sadness, Worry, as one you carve
The mortise to my tenon, joining me
Into your lifelong, seamless structure, fast.
That we are joined, not one, is hard to see,
With subtle signs that only few observe.
The love around us, silently, you starve,
Ensuring my fidelity will last.
Cruel Darkness, you faithless, possessive love,
Abandoning your consort to the light,
Then, jealously, you count the cost thereof,
To take your ounce of flesh in bitter spite.
You, alone, can change the world. Your power,
To refine the greatest brightness into dross.
The shining hills, the taste of apricot,
The lilting song, the lace of morning frost,
The magic kiss of love, the dew crowned flower,
the Sun Itself of marvelous strength, all cower.
With murky veil, you dim the shining lot.
Cold Worry, how your countenance comes forth,
Appearing with the first shade of a doubt.
Your vap’rous chill, descended from the north,
Instills penetrating fear throughout.
The future, only mist, you make a ghost,
That haunts tomorrow’s doorway with a dread,
And tells me, “through this threshold is despair.”
You, thief of night who chains me to my bed,
Do tear the gentle respite from its host.
To sleep, I sign a contract made for Faust,
With this aching soul, the bargain seems quite fair.
Sadness, you strum the lyre inside my breast.
The pitch is harsh, with dissonant refrain.
The clamorous noise, an overstayed guest,
That sings to me my failures, losses, pain.
You steal the day, and take me to a place
Regret becomes the main fare of this blight,
Seasoned through with bitter herbs of grief.
Your artist’s hand sculpts darkest moments bright,
Mistakes and wrongs once just a feeble trace,
Now chiseled deep into my fragile grace.
I never can make those trespasses right.
And so, great Trinity, you part of me,
Our intimacy is my greatest shame.
Though I cannot imagine being free,
The emptiness in me Is not your blame.
As with others of your wretched kind,
You dance eccentric waltzes with my heart.
I lately tasted of your apogee,
With your retreat to cold and distant parts.
Days of warming hope, redefined,
Stitched with fragile threads into my mind.
But then, you bound me with your gravity.
The second crocus from the right
appeared with morning splendor, bright.
Its flower, a purple filigree
On pale blue petals three and three.
It rose from winter’s faint remains
And pierced the meadow’s snowy stains.
I saw the field aglow with light
Of gold and lavender and white.
And darkness from the evening letting
Starlight from Orion’s setting
Glitter off each iridescence
Marking winter’s obsolescence.
How proud it was to be so clear
So sure that it outshone its peer
It looked around and saw its glow,
Was casting color on the snow.
But then its pride was interrupted,
A sea of other flowers erupted,
Making it just one of dozens
A sibling in a pack of cousins.
Within a week, I wasn’t sure
Which ones I’d seen the day before.
But I know that it caught my sight,
The second crocus on the right.
Feathers were strong and heaven sent
The sun, its golden luster lent
Perhaps, a bit too high I went
Perhaps, those words not what I meant,
The wax grows soft and slightly bent.
Now Icarus prays for a soft descent
As I drove toward the work I do
I came upon a stunning view
The valley’s clouds cast morning light,
On rows of dragons taking flight
From darkness just around the hill,
Where waves of magic horses spill.
They flowed and bent with thermals, stormed.
Until a new tableau was formed.
And mythic creatures gathered there,
All dancing in the solar glare.
The Sun, which lit this universe,
Then bade that vap’rous crowd disperse
And as I drove into that field,
the last of misty phantoms yield.
I’ll pass this way each day, and then,
The scene will charm my heart, again.
The weathered tree has seen the light of half a century’s Springs.
With warming breeze, or icy winds its wide canopy sings.
Summer brought a blessed growth of branch and leaf and core.
The trunk forged strong, the roots bore deep, the branches grew to soar.
And after many seasons, plain, the hopeful sylvan flowered.
And on the forest’s to needled bed the fragrant petals showered
Many thought the flowers brash, the fragrance overbloomed
Perhaps, it seemed, the tree had not been well and truly pruned.
The joy those days bequeathed to it, a height it had not known,
Was drawn into and scattered round with seed that it had sown.
But seasons change and Autumn’s cold reality intruded,
And every branch of its bright cloak, summarily denuded.
Then, with Winter’s sharp descent, the mirthless dark takes hold.
This taller mast, once bathed in light, is battered by the cold.
But even then, in bitter snow, when branches bend and hew,
The hope still holds a sacred place, that Summer springs anew.
Barefoot on the wooded trail, two almost strangers ambled.
The thoughts escaped their daily rail, the conversation rambled.
The dappled sun on forest floor alit the gentle pair.
Each unforced topic begging more, new ideas yet to share.
A bed of moss as soft as air
They sat upon the ground
And circumnavigating there,
A joyous, barking hound.
And as is true of all grand days
there had to come an end
The strangers long had parted ways,
They said goodbye as friends.
On the way back from the art museum, from a day of vivid artistic expression in oil and ceramic and gold and ink and celluloid and marble and acrylic, I dream of a world of bright colored canvas scenes in Italian and Flemish and French.
As we drive, the streets tick by, with exquisite regularity. We could be going east or south or some direction just invented to allow identically trained developers to create neighborhoods named for trees, shopping centers named for woodland geography, and cul de sacs named after their children.
The lawns are manicured with micrometer precision and the pin oaks are aligned with an accuracy that would have made those who were first living on this continent retreat in fear from the dark magic of its symmetry.
There are two shades of each of the 4 primary colors of the houses. Taupe, flint, moss, and clay, each in light or dark and the yews and junipers in every yard flash by, like suburban camo, dotted by the occasional basketball hoop or bird feeder.
Rarely, there is a bright blue or pink house, that the neighborhood association is drawing up plans to protest. Other, less ambitious, neighbors discuss it, instead, over a gas grill barbecue On the wooden deck, while a ball game plays on the tv in the living room, and the kids are downstairs playing wii, except the two mismatched teenagers, trying to pick a Playstation game they can both agree on, and wondering if the other one is secretly gay, too.
Every six blocks, there is a church of no particular denomination, but with some redemptive description, and the name of a saint or Jesus, Himself, on the sign. Children are always welcome, and there is a family social on the calendar. Services are at 9.
Seven restaurant chains have alternating outlets in the shopping center lots, near the street, with plenty of parking, and weekday lunch specials. Gluten free options are available and there is a small fee for sharing plates, except with children under 3.
Long stretches of strip malls advertise fresh and savings-oriented franchise grocers, clip-snip-shears salons, painless, new-smile dental offices and happy, lucky and golden Chinese take outs, who use no msg, but ask that you report any allergies to the server, before ordering. Every third store front is “coming soon.”
Small clusters of single story executive/professional offices spill out around the major mile intersections with easy access, and well maintained hedges, and have names like Executive and Professional, and deliveries use the 109th street entrance, please.
Along the interstate, cubic mirrored buildings in bold, cubic geometric designs, with cryptic, modern logos stand side by side with chain hotels of similar design, distinguishable by the faint scent of chlorine from the properly treated, family friendly pool, with no lifeguard on duty, use at your own risk.
Next week, according to signs stuck into the ground at shopping mall entrances, there is a cultural festival that will highlight a well regarded minority of the community, were there actually one. Crafts will be sold, dances will be performed, children’s activities will be available and prizes will be awarded. Tickets are for sale at all Price Smasher discount food and liquor stores, 8 dollars in advance, 10 at the gate, no refunds, but tickets are transferrable. If you buy 5 tickets, you get a free family sized box of their very best chocolate chip cookies, made fresh, daily.
Just in case I need to get back to that bright and colorful place, I try to make sure I can retrace my steps, like rows and columns in a crossword, without a clue. Fifteenth century Flemish painter. Seventeen letters. Ends with ‘r’.
We spent some time together going camping on a hill
The birdsong sweet, the daytime warm, and evening crickets shrill.
We talked all day and walked the fields and drank wine from a box.
We shared our thoughts about the world and gathered flowers and rocks.
The sun was hot, that afternoon, and hazy clouds had formed.
The evening air grew chilly, then, the sky blustered and stormed.
At first we thought the rain would stay outside the tent all night.
But well before the break of day, something wasn’t right.
The sound of rain, when gently falls, is steady, smooth and sweet.
Instead, a heavy dripping calls, with a slower threatening beat.
And soon, the drops upon my face, no longer just cool breeze.
The fall of tears from icy space, has caused my heart to freeze.
The rivulets of trespassed rain went into bed and clothes.
The dams of towels could not restrain the multitudinous flows.
Finally we were conquered there, and sought some refuge fit.
So underneath the mattress where the raindrops could not hit.
Sadly, though the shallow flood and the deluge did not stop.
The standing water chilled our blood, and made our beds a sop.
And there across the misty house, my fellow drowned soul
Was looking like a woodland mouse, just peeking from his hole.
His mood had never lost its cheer, not handsome face its smile.
And this is why I’ll keep this guy, my friend, for quite a while.
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