Moonrise over Meeman-Shelby Forest
The moon rises over the forested horizon as we witness its appearance from the lake shore. How many moonrises have we seen across these waters?
The moon rises over the forested horizon as we witness its appearance from the lake shore. How many moonrises have we seen across these waters?
Spider rock stands as a two-headed spire that rests motionless on its ancient pedestal, like petrified arms stretching upward toward the canyon’s rim. Inside Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Nation, the lithic monument figures into Diné mythic history. ♨
On a winter visit to the Fernhill Wetlands in Forest Grove, Oregon, ice covered the lake, thick enough to support a crowd of Canada geese. The breeze did not allow a leisurely contemplation of the scene; the morning blew hard through me and left me empty of thought or feeling or desire. I moved quickly through the landscape, leaning like the cattails bent by wind. ♨
In the coolness of dawn, before the heat melts night’s calm, the superlative colors of sky break across morning as the marshes embrace another day.
A black-billed magpie crosses the barbed boundaries of a wire fence to defend its winged playfulness in a big sky landscape. Perched upon a wooden post, it scouts its next move. More elegant than its cousin crow, the black-and-white formalwear of the magpie obscures its irreverent posturing above the sagebrush plain. ♨
A highlight of Forest Grove, Oregon, is a visit to the water treatment plant, where sewage feeds the Fernhill Wetlands. Before dawn the wetlands bustle with waterfowl and songbird activity as treated waters become the source of life for the thriving chaos of nature. In the aftermath of human waste, a natural place becomes possible.