Tuesday, March 20,
5:00-6:15 p.m.
The spring equinox arrived in
the night, and today will be as long as that night, but the temperature is more
that of a summer day, almost that of the summer solstice. Out in the relatively open
ground of yard, meadow and orchard the birds vocalize and flit and feed and
preen: robins, bluebirds, woodpeckers, sparrows, red-wing blackbirds and
crows. The gurgling melody of the song sparrow rises above the crows’ rusty
calls, but inside the edge of the Eastern Woods, where the descending afternoon light reaches in through leafless branches, a quiet calm prevails, disturbed only by the buzzing of large summery flies. The flies heard the call of a small, freshly broken branch, oozing fresh sap, and first came one, crawling quickly and greedily about the sapling’s trunk, shortly joined by two more. From how far away did they sense the banquet, and how?
Below the tree with the flies
spreads a perfect jumble of human refuse, the smallest corner a confusion of
broken lines and rust, objects half buried and parts of other objects thrown on
top of the heap. It is an unofficial farm dump, a tradition of country living.
The pile includes wood of all kinds—broken crates, pallets, boards, an old
wooden soft drink crate and discarded chairs, with one large fallen tree and
many branches mixed in. There are also sheets of metal, sections of old furnace
ducting, a kettle, an old charcoal grill or two, rusty appliances and more than
one old sugaring pail. There are concrete blocks and wheels, bits of screen and
old doors. It’s hard to find anything that is whole and unblemished. Maybe
impossible. One old wooden trunk has so rotted out that the old leather handles
hang in black, twisted scraps, and light penetrates into the formerly secret
interior.
Man is part of nature, too.
There is no separation between the branches and the boards, all tumbled
together, and the wild leeks and spring beauties are undeterred by the presence
of manufactured refuse. An old alarm clock, missing its hands, crawls with tiny
ants. This place is as peaceful as a cemetery. Through the trees, in the west, Lake Michigan is bright blue.
4 comments:
I expect all those things were pretty well used up before being discarded there. Figuring out how to recycle a trash heap/treasure pile like that is an interesting challenge all by itself. Hmmm.
I confess I've dragged home a treasure or two, For instance, there is the old watering can with the leaky bottom and a old, handmade short ladder. I was tempted by the sugaring buckets but resisted. They were past their prime, full of holes.
I THOUGHT there'd be something good in there! Certainly something photogenic..but I like the drawings just as well, maybe more.
The expedition with the camera (on "A Shot in the Light") and the session with sketchbook were on two different days and at different times of day. The first sketch here is my attempt at a contour drawing. The idea with a contour drawing is to keep the pen (or pencil) on the paper and not lift it in going from one object line to another. Something to work on further.
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