Floating

We ended last week in a tempest, searching the horizon for offshore birds blown closer in heavy weather. It’s time to enjoy calm waters. We’ll draw our eyes down from panoramas to tableaux floating at our feet.

In late summer the yellow pond lilies began to tire. Delicate currents experimented with pollen patterns around their pads. Was there a breath of movement in the air, or were the swirls transmitted from the waterfall that freshened the reservoir at the far wall?

Birch leaves and gull feathers, having finished their job, detached and realigned en route to the mud. Are we the only sentimental creatures? Is all beauty rooted in utility, in the respiration of life and death?

 

The sea reabsorbed its waves as they flicked bits of foam over the turmoil. It required the audience to show up promptly before these confections could be dispersed by the busy wind that sent the waves crashing to shore.

 

In a quiet corner of Folly Cove a grebe relaxed from its exertions. A flier, a floater, a deep-water swimmer. Look at the massive propellers that counter its buoyancy to give chase to fish! A speck on the sea, a masterwork of proportion.

 

This is an advent photo, a change of state from water to ice and from fall to winter. In solidifying the water lightens and floats on itself. The accomplishment prods it to self-adornment with a crystal fringe. Same chemistry, different physics, a tease for science and art alike.

 

In Halibut Point recreation we experience the continuous re-creation of its constituent parts, including the visitors.