photolog - Olympia part 2

The day after we got back to Washington, we drove back to Seattle to pick up one of Veronica's friends.  They have been life savers, so I was trying to do all I could to repay them for their generosity of time and their care for my niece. 

This view of Mt Rainier was a bright silver lining.

And then I went for a walk and ran into some natives... I loved seeing them in their winter coats!  They were not afraid at all.

This guy was looking right at me until I snapped the picture.  Apparently he was not ready for his close up.

 I don't know if this is meant to be art or functional, but I liked it just the same. I had to try to imagine a time when it would be warm enough to sit outside.  I couldn't, really.

Did I mention that when I went out one day without a hat, I experienced brain freeze without drinking something cold.

I have been in cold weather before -- colder than this -- and never felt this before.  Perhaps I never went out without the hat?

 This series begins my fascination with the flora.

Not surprisingly, these are called snow berries.

 This is not a great picture of the lichen growing on the leaf-less trees.  I could not stop noting the way these trees were dressed.  Unfortunately, I failed utterly at capturing the beauty, the intricacy, the symbiosis.

 So much beauty in these sycamores.  It might be cruel to prune them back like this, but it makes for stunning views.  I cannot control the light when I take these pics... rather, I should say that I don't know how to control the light.  But the way the light changes here certainly made for lovely photos.

 This began my obsession with the ice ... I will have to save the rest for another post. 

And I have more trees, but they will have to wait for another post as well... 

Secret paths and/or paths to nowhere...

 Trunk magic

Someone forgot to tell the robins that it was winter and they should fly south ... I am told they hang out all winter ... hmmm... now my when is spring indicator is broken.

I got to see the moon rise several afternoons ... just lovely!

photolog - Las Vegas

We decamped for Las Vegas for the holidays -- it was my idea, but that was before I realized how hard it would be to travel with someone who had just had surgery.  But holidays are for being with the family, right?

Besides, who wouldn't want to make this happen?

There were some walks.

There were dogs.

And there was family.

photolog - Olympia part 1

I keep saying (to myself, in my head) that I will start blogging again.

I have been writing blogposts (in my head), but none of them have found their way here.

 So, here are some photos of what I have been up to for the past three weeks.

 Glorious Oakland sunrise to lead me on the first part of my cars, planes, light rail, trains, cars travel day.

 Shots out the window of the airplane ...spying tall mountains in a sea of clouds

 Almost there... I didn't snap a photo of the light rail, here I was at the Amtrak station in Portland, two more hours, and I arrived in Olympia-Lacey.

This is the reason for the travel: niece got surgery on her knee and I didn't want her to be alone on campus while recuperating.

 This is what Olympia sunsets look like ...

Olympia is a mossy place, so even though many of the trees have no leaves, they are still green, with moss and lichen.  It is like nature's holiday decorations!

Poetry Thursday

snow on oyster shells, longhouse, olympia, washington

Dusting

Marilyn Nelson, 1946

Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.

For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.

My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.

Poetry Thursday extra...

Age of Beauty

 

Emilia Phillips

This is not an age of beauty,
I say to the Rite-Aid as I pass a knee-high plastic witch
whose speaker-box laugh is tripped by my calf
breaking the invisible line cast by her motion
sensor. My heart believes it is a muscle

 

of love, so how do I tell it it is a muscle of blood?

 

This morning, I found myself
awake before my alarm & felt I’d been betrayed

 

by someone. My sleep is as thin as a paper bill
backed by black bars of coal that iridesce
indigo in the federal reserve of

 

dreams. Look, I said to the horse’s
head I saw severed & then set on the ground, the soft
tissue of the cheek & crown cleaved with a necropsy
knife until the skull was visible. You look more
horse than the horses

 

with names & quilted coats in the pasture, grazing unbothered

 

by your body in pieces, steaming

 

against the drizzle. You once had a name
that filled your ears like amphitheaters,
that caused an electrical

 

spark to bead to your brain. My grief was born
in the wrong time, my grief an old soul, grief re-
incarnate. My grief, once a black-winged

 

beetle. How I find every excuse to indulge it, like a child
given quarters. In the restaurant, eating alone,

 

instead of interrogating my own
solitude, I’m nearly undone by the old
woman on her own. The window so filthy,

 

it won’t even reflect her face, which must not be the same
face she sees when she dreams

 

of herself in the third person.

 

  Copyright © 2017 Emilia Phillips. Used with permission of the author.