These photographs are a small sample of the fine-quality photographic art prints that will be available for sale in time for the holiday season. To view all photo art for sale, along with pricing/framing/shipping info, please click this link: http://ducksleevephotos.blogspot.com/

09/26/2009 AUTUMN EVENING PLEASURE

I want to share here a poem I just love. My sister found this way back in 1980-something and wrote it down to show me. It's ee cummings' poetry and there is something about his use of words, his rhythms and the pictures he paints on my heart and in my mind, that have endeared this work to me all these years. I highly recommend that you enjoy this poem alone, curled up in a big chair with a cup of tea or cocoa, fireplace lit, while softly playing Respighi's Ancient Aires and Dances, the best selection being "Siciliana". Enjoy! Let me know if you liked the poetry and the music. It absolutely took my breath away. Also explore Sibelius' work, "Finlandia". Just beautiful. And for those of you who happen to like baroque music, there is a little-known piece by (of all things!) a bluegrass/rock/jazz band called Dixie Dregs...it's called "Go For Baroque" and is a beautiful baroque piece played by fiddlers and guitarists. Awesome.

Somewhere I Have Never Travelled

somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

ee cummings

09/24/2009

This is how my corner garden looks right now. It's sort of sad to see all the beautiful flowers beginning to fade. All spring and summer, they've been so lovely to watch, waving and nodding in the breeze, scenting the air with lavender, bending low with heavy blooms. The vegetable garden's pretty much done now, too. Got the last of the cukes and the tomatoes are nearly done, but there are a few peppers left to pick.

All this said, I look forward very much to fall. Autumn is so filled with new and familiar scents and sounds. The air grows crisp, and heavy with the promise of coming rain and cold weather; it even smells of winter to come. Now and again one gets a whiff of burning leaves, and although there is nowhere near the fall "color" here in the Pacific Northwest that there is in my home state of Michigan, fall is a wonderful time.

Soon it will be truly fall. This is when instead of looking at my garden, I come sit near my window with my hot tea and watch the birds at the feeders. It is time for them to return... it is a time of going to get freshly-made cider in gallon jugs, spicing it and drinking it with a group of good friends. It's a time of raking leaves and putting them onto the plants as natural mulch. It's home-baked whole-grain breads, home-made soups and stews and casseroles, pears in place of peaches, cranberries replacing raspberries; a shift in mood, a time of cozying one's home and hunkering down with old soft quilts and good books. It's when we gradually cycle back indoors because we know soon it'll be raining almost every day. It's a time of listening for the honking song of low-flying geese heading south, of beginning to plan the holiday season, of "nesting" more closely, not being quite so on-the-go and spread-out as we were in summertime. It's a time of putting away flowery summer curtains and getting out the heavy winter plaids...of packing away summer and shaking the wrinkles out of autumn to put it all on display and to good use. It's family time. I love it. I love how crisp and clean the air smells, as I fall asleep with my window open just a bit; how the night skies light up as if on fire when the sun sets.

This is the first entry on my new blog. Its purpose is to allow me to express myself, and to get feedback from visitors and friends. One way to express myself is to write, another is to showcase some of my "creations"...some may be old dying chairs or tables I've found and brought back in a new incarnation, others may be drawings, still more may be decoupage, wall art, folk art, short stories and poetry - so please, come often and I know you'll see things you really love, because they're from my love of creating and that can't be anything but WONDERFUL! Be sure to let me know you were here and feel free to leave comments. Thanks for coming. Photos to come ASAP. Stay tuned.....