Dante and I started our sweet Sunday having a breakfast picnic at dawn downstairs beneath the palms... We ate watermelon, blueberries and grapes as a gentle breeze blew and our eyes travelled with the silent journeys of falling leaves...
the golden leaf that fell near my feet...
Photographing leaves as they fell around us and thinking of ee cummings and that poem that so delighted me when I first discovered it years ago at the age of sixteen. I still think to it every time I see a falling leaf - so perfectly does the structure of the text echo the gentle downwards spiral as it falls...
ee cummings 1(a (a leaf falls on loneliness)
1(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
early afternoon Mission Bay
a solitary red leaf glowing on the sand
an exclamation mark
high afternoon light
low tide at Mission Bay
water slips away
to where does the ocean go ...
I am thinking of a film that I saw some years ago in Alice Springs as part of the Sydney Travelling Film Festival - In My Father's Den, by Brad McGann. The dialogue and voiceovers spoken throughout the film were at times so evocative and haunting I found myself scribbling quotes in the dark of the theatre and saw the film twice during the festival...
excerpts from a story by Celia Steimer featured in the film...
'One day, in a town at the edge of the world, the tide went out and never returned. The sea just left without warning.
As the days went on, more and more people went looking. The people searched far and wide, but the ocean had vanished without a trace... But then no one, not even for a moment, had stopped to question why the ocean had left in the first place.
... the ocean had disappeared for good. And the people, together, alone, had no choice but to face each other in their loss. They made a home for themselves in a new environment, although one that had changed forever. They learnt to live in the space the ocean had left — although it lingered in their dreams...'
As the days went on, more and more people went looking. The people searched far and wide, but the ocean had vanished without a trace... But then no one, not even for a moment, had stopped to question why the ocean had left in the first place.
... the ocean had disappeared for good. And the people, together, alone, had no choice but to face each other in their loss. They made a home for themselves in a new environment, although one that had changed forever. They learnt to live in the space the ocean had left — although it lingered in their dreams...'
...
making a practice
to document at dawn and dusk
the earth beneath me
and the sky above me
'present moment - wonderful moment'
Thich Nhat Hanh
the curlews are calling out to sea
the moon at my window - silent - white
wholly night
