Garland Lads, Poetic Lasses

by john clare

We know their part within the play is often small,
And they do not seek the encore as the curtains fall,
But that keeps them not from doing their best,
To say their single line when comes the time.
And well we know when upon that starting line,
Though valiant they run, the garland crown they seldom wear,
Yet it quenches not the hope in every lad of flowing hair.
In tears they run to our side as to other victor's go the crown,
We cheer the brave effort for the forgotten line not found.
The sun soon sets, the night finds them still upon the stage,
We yield the field before the reading of the final page.
What of the lads rounding the turn of the cinder way?
What of the lasses in the wings waiting to close the play?
Have we brought these little ones this far to falter?
Do we offer them the consolation of an empty altar?
Pray the fair haired lads run to the Lord's finish line,
Pray the lasses find the practiced, poetic lines so divine.
Quench not the hope in the young hearts first gleam,
Give them His holy victor's stand for their dream.
And together we shall build for them a step to God,
And to God the lads shall run with armor fully shod,
And to God the lasses shall speak the grand gospel lines,
Bearing the good news marching onward toward Zion.

Micco Leaf

This is what keeps me excited every day that I am blessed to be able and get out and photograph what lies before me. There are certain areas I like to return to time and time again, each time is as if I was there for the first time. Nothing is ever the same, never boring, which does not register in my vocabulary. I have been plugging away with photography over forty years, beginning back in high school with my high school physics teacher selling me his Yashica JP 35mm camera with a 135mm screw mount lens and a Sekonic meter.
There is a facebook friend who said he has been in landscape photography three years now and his new website was about to take off. I quipped, you must be using rocket fuel, for after forty years, I have yet to take off, I must be using diesel. Experts are not measured in the number of years, often by the breaks they get, or the money, but mostly, the talent. This particular photographer seems to possess all.
But, back to the blessed. When I was out at Alligator Lake the wind was strong and the clouds were rolling rapidly past, a constantly changing sky, light and shadow. I spotted this particular cloud sailing through past that resembled a leaf. It was fortunate I was near this tree of dried leaves that mimicked the cloud. I rapidly set the camera and took several exposures. It was not until reviewing that I noticed the pattern of the cloud and how it looked as if it was coming out of the tree.
I titled it Micco Leaf after much thinking what to call it. Micco is chief in Seminole. Thus, the chief leaf. These are the unexpected surprises I look forward to when I go out.

Of One Prey

by john clare

In the pursuit of that which lives to elude and blend
We must take on the mantle of the prey
To know the wakening movement come breaking day
The tabernacle where the silent vespers begin.

 Thinking I've become one within the reeds
I feebly focus on the frost covered lines
Shivering not from a cold down the spine
But the form of an unseen one that heeds.

Peering I touch the shutter and say it is so
As I prepare to become one with this prey
The journey long consummating here this day
She draws near from the mists rising slow.

 So slow I slip the misty veil over my eyes,
Too late, she knows my intention and off she flies.

Orchids for my Love

by john clare

Impassioned in the wild excess of youthful love
What was it for us to jump upon the moon?
To live beneath nothing but the stars above
Make watery sandbars our spaciously unswept rooms.

You told how as a girl you loved the scent of the orchid rose
The taste of the wild honey from this rare beauty
How you spent a lifetime searching where they grew
How it would please you to once again taste their dew.

In all my travels throughout the land I searched in vain
The months turned to years and the scent no longer drew
Our flame faded to at last go out with the winter rain
Leaving rivulets of the memory trickling few.


It was on a January day after a burn along the trail
That I caught the faint aroma of the orchid rose
So many years, was this the long remembered smell?
Was this which stirred such passion in the girl?

Parting the charred palmettos along the path
There, in a blackened clearing were the rosebuds
Not rain, but fire nourishing them into life!
A welling not from water, but love within flowing.

Marking the place I made a leaping start
Rushing to tell my love the orchids were found!
Breathe the scent deeply my impassioned heart
Tomorrow our youthful joys will abound!

If you are in desperate search of the orchid rose
Ask of me and I shall tell you where it grows.

mockingbird outing

The photographs are from today's outing to Alligator Lake. I usually give the scientific name to the creatures, but am lazy today in the titles and the naming. I took the 180mm 2.8 with the tele-extender TC-201 along with the S95 for wide angles. I shot mostly with the telephoto combo.

King of the tree

mockingbird

Red-Bellied Woodpecker

Anhinga

Myrtle Warbler

A common shot

segregated