I for beauty, they for food, we both ended up in the garden, the chickadees and I, in this little patch above the stone wall where burgundy bush beans and basil shared their bed all summer with a trio of sunflowers, a row of marigolds and some aphid-ridden calendula.
The joy of distraction was the story of my morning—there at my newly appointed writing desk I sat looking out the window alternately with writing. A glorious bough of oak leaves translucent with morning sun hangs just above my head,
letting loose every so often, a leaf to catch my eye in its sashaying descent.
Have you ever caught a picture of a falling leaf?
Me either. But I’ve been wanting to! Perhaps today? But no, must…sit…still…and…write…
Then came the chickadee.
The rest of the morning is history, spent with the warm sun at my back, my camera poised, chickadee calls in my ears…taking pictures, lots of pictures…of distant blobs barely detectable as birds, of dead sunflowers, of dead airspace where once there was a bird (or a falling leaf), of green and gold backdrops and drooping sunflowers…of the blur of wingbeats…
and finally of actual chickadees, who let me approach to within a couple arm lengths 
and who turned out to be quite the saucy posers, as curious of me as I of them.
We both went about our business in the end.
They got my seeds, I their pictures.
A morning well spent ( :
(I even caught some leaves in free-fall!)
So glad am I for the digital age where literally hundreds of shots can be taken and discarded in pursuit of the one that captures what the eye sees…For I am no photographer, only a poser who persists out of hunger to capture the beauty…
And I’m so glad I planted sunflowers! ( :
–LS
This chorale piece seems fitting…
