Through the Veil

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:24:20 -0400

"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'"

- Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849

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Photograph: Bear Branch Nature Center, Westminster, Maryland

Must Have Been the Sun

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:42:21 -0400

Excerpt from I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose
by Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, -
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
"That must have been the sun!"

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Photograph: Bear Branch Nature Center, Westminster, Maryland

Flying Flower

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:55:53 -0400

"The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly."

- Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun, 1729-1807
French Poet

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Photograph: Bear Branch Nature Center, Westminster, Maryland

Stars in White

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:33:43 -0400

"For the Infinite has sowed his name in the heavens in burning stars, but on the earth he has sowed his name in tender flowers."

- Jean Paul Richter

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Photograph:
Daucus carota, known as Queen Anne's lace
Bear Branch Nature Center, Westminster, Maryland

Lace

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:32:57 -0400

Queen Anne's lace, properly known as Daucus carrot, is related to our common carrot. It works well as a companion crop to small flowers, tomatoes and lettuce.

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Textured, tritone photograph
Bear Branch Nature Center, Westminster, Maryland

Contracting

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:50:18 -0400

The Flower
by Alfred Tennyson, 1809–92

Once in a golden hour
  I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
  The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
  Thro’ my garden-bower,
And muttering discontent
  Cur’d me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
  It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o’er the wall
  Stole the seed by night.

Sow’d it far and wide
  By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
  “Splendid is the flower.”

Read my little fable:
  He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
  For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
  And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
  Call it but a weed.

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Photograph:
Daucus carota, known as Queen Anne's lace
Bear Branch Nature Center, Westminster, Maryland

Fish Before Their Eyes

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:50:22 -0400

Excerpt from Travel
by Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850–1894

Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes...

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Textured photograph: Smithsonian Zoological Park

Sacred Flamingo

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:23:16 -0400

“See how the sacred old flamingoes come,
Painting with shadow all the marble steps:
Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perches
Within the temple, devious walking, made
To wander by their melancholy minds.”

- William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939
Writer, Dramatist and Poet

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Photograph: Smithsonian Zoological Park

Burmese Python

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:22:23 -0400

The Asian snakes known as burmese pythons average twelve feet in length, but sometimes reach a length of nineteen feet.

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Photograph: Smithsonian Zoological Park