Tag: photography

Winter Brown

Published on by annwjwhite2 Comments

Here under gray skies the colors fail.
Green has faded, yellow gone, red is only
Litter found where children’s feet played.
Brown, brown survives.

The air bites with icy teeth, bites again.
Trees hold their leaves, brown and thick
Against their chests. Dead grass rustles.
Small chirps, squeaks, then beavers sail

Along the wetlands, busy pulling brown
Branches toward their lodge. A heron steps
Out of the grasses, stabs into the water,
Retrieves a catfish. Minnows streak into

Streams from eddies, a school of gymnastics
As they flip, swirl, dance, tag and run
Toward the river. A river otter slides down
The muddy banks, brown fur coated in

Slippery red-brown clay which washes off
Creating a particulate fog of camouflage,
Nipping and biting their dinner on a water cruise.
Crows chase bard owls, who wish to nap

On shore-bound trees. Smaller birds join
The cacophony of shrieks and cries, always
One step behind the bigger birds. They are there
For the excitement, but not fools. Owl talons

Are sharp, like the cold. Sparrows pull small
Grasses to line nests, which sit abandoned
Until the temperature rises enough for eggs
To warm in the sun, the missing sun.

Cees Challenge: A Road, a Path, a Journey: poem and photographs

Published on by annwjwhite8 Comments

Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge – December 21, 2016

I've walked them all, the roads,
The paths, walking as they call out,
"Here! Here I am!"
And the twists and turns from civility
To the brash encounters
That leave you breathless 
And thinking. I've walked them all.

The journey leads you to new
Thoughts and actions, people,
Dogs, the dogs are my favorite.
They teach me to look with my ears,
My nose, then my eyes.
"Here!" they bark. "Here I am!"
Tails wag and we part, friends.

The cities bustle and blend themselves
Into mirrors of bright reflection
Of the life below the windows.
The buses roar like dragons
Belching out smoke, foul odors,
And the bystanders standing
On the curb shout, "Here! Here I am!"

The bus lurches to a stop.
"Here! Here I am. Now board and 
Use the windows to see what you miss
When you don't walk."
It snarls, winds its engine and dreams
Of standing still in the tumultuous wind
And listening to the roar.

I stand alone on the bus stop,
Indecisively making a decision
To walk down the treed streets.
Strong armed trees holding the last leaves
Of fall. Autumn calls out,
"Here you are. Look at me."
And the beauty makes me weep.

I am the bystander, taking the road.
Calling my children to let them know
To look on a map and see me.
"Here! Here I am!" But invisible,
They see only the marker of 
Where I have been. I can call,
"Here! Here am I! See me!" They don't.

I have a secret. A wood's walk,
Where the king of the forest
Strode into my path.
"Make way. Make way. This is my path,
My road. Here I am."
And I see him, towering over me.
I answer, "I am here, too."

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Sunday Trees, a poem and a photograph

Published on by annwjwhite3 Comments

https://beccagivens.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/sunday-trees-266/

There you stand, arms outstretched,
Gathering the last sun of a season
As the cold moves with infinite patience.
The crystals of frost will soon haunt you.
They spread from dawn to dusk, and infiltrate
Your woods at night to decorate with lacy
Precision, precision which creates chill and ice.
But beneath the earth, you grow and shiver
Living like ants on the stored food in your veins.
Your tenants, the squirrels follow your lead and nap.
Their nests decorating during the winter,
A barren decoration, brown, gray, but hopeful.
You create the roots of spring while waiting,
While knitting through the winter months.
Arms outstretched you gather the last rays, knitting,
Before the sunset of autumn and the dawn of winter.

 

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Cees Fun Foto Challenge: Roofs

Published on by annwjwhite2 Comments

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/11/15/cees-fun-foto-challenge-roofs/#like-20747

The covering of night, of safety,
Here a roof to hide the dark,
Here a roof to mitigate the rain,
Here a roof to believe in until belief
Is gone under a sham of nonsense,
Here a roof to hold our past,
Here a roof to lie beneath and dream
Of one last love…

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Fort Young, an inn seeking life

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Lie in paradise?

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As a roof should be, protective in the rain

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When a roof dies, communities remember who it sheltered. Bob Dylan sheltered here.

Cee’s Oddball Challenges:Looking for a Hard Day’s Knight And Ann’s an Oddball

Published on by annwjwhite3 Comments

https://ceenphotography.com/category/cees-challenges/

It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been sleeping like a log. Yes, I’m borrowing these words. After the week we’ve all had, a Knight is what we need to save the spirit, the body, the soul and to snare the sneaking dragons hiding in our cardboard boxes.

It hasn’t been easy, but the spirit of the fight is still in me. Mother dragons are like that. We always find a way to come back from the outside. Since yesterday I didn’t know where I was or when I was, I’ve come a long long way. I picked out a car that I will buy so I can go to therapy, it’s lovely. A 2017 Mint colored spark with a black interior, back up cameras and has been crashed tested by my mother so it’s safe. I’ve read all of the new material on nutrition that they gave me at the hospital. I’ve worked on healing the bruises that the hospital put on ever spot on my body and I’m looking a bit like the dragon below. I’m just a little more scaly and blinking in the bright light. Sleep all day and feel almost normal. Tomorrow is the calling of the dragons, I mean doctors, for new appointments.

I don’t think I will ever go back to an emergency room no matter what the docs recommend. The Techs were great, the nurses swarmed around non-stop, but the docs in this particular employment situation called hospitalers didn’t have the experience with me as an individual and didn’t make contact with my regular doctors. There was only one who interacted with me as if I were important enough to actually meet, the rest blew me off. “You want to go home, don’t you?” Yeah, but I’d also like to know who I am, why I’m there and what is going on. Yesterday morning I didn’t know any of that. I thought I was part of the Mars Exhibition. Either that or I was back in the US Army, or was that band camp. Never went to band camp, but it would have fit the picture. SO here’s my photo. I’m the oddball and off into a new week we go.

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Travel Photo Challenge: Playing

Published on by annwjwhiteLeave a comment

Travel theme: Playing

Studies done, time to play! My somber daughter believes in play, and she’s been playing for a long, long time.

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55183_579780219012_4626818_oPerhaps…FairyCon in Maryland?

She Sewed, Fed, and Loaded Canon

Perhaps…Role Play?

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Perhaps…A nightly nurse play? Or perhaps…Playing at a Parade?

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Play Ball?

Without the world of play, stress would grow. Without the world of play, we’d forget to laugh. Without the world of play, companionship isn’t as fun.

Thanks for today’s challenge.

 

 

 

Photo Challenge H2O

Published on by annwjwhite4 Comments

H2O

IMG_0333_1IMG_0327img_0326-1img_0337-1These were taken in Barcelona at the site of their World’s Fair with a Canon Digital Rebel. The fountains are lit at night during the summer with changing water heights and color.

Falling in Love Again

Published on by annwjwhite10 Comments

I’ve been married now for almost 36 years. For our anniversary my husband and I are going on a cruise to Mexico and Honduras with the intention of learning more about the Mayan Ruins. It was a great culture, one marked wit all of the traits that civilizations develop. I’m bringing my cameras, so there will be photos. The last time we went was in 2006, on the Grandeur of the Seas. We ended up with two photos that really showed the spirit of the people. I’m glad to be going, we’ve gone through so much in the last decade that time seems to have slipped a bit for both of us. We survived a recession when my husband gave support to those we love who lost or couldn’t find a job. We survived a mortgage that we had with Countrywide, and the change that made it a Bank of America mortgage. We kept our house, my two children married (not to each other of course), and one is now a proud homeowner. The other now has his dream job, and should soon be able to find a home for his wife and himself in the next year. But we’ve spent the last decade trying to do everything we could for family, and exhausting as it was it was worth the effort, and I think we forgot about the two of us.

Our differences have really accentuated themselves recently. We find things that prickle under the skin and have to stop and shake our heads. It never bothered us to be different before. We just had not taken the time to talk about these things. Little things wedged themselves between us, you know, the three things that most couples deal with. Children, even grown ones, money, and time. Those three things can become doom scenarios in a relationship.

We decided not to have a doom scenario. He had a week of vacation last week that we spent together.  I decided to become the romantic one. My husband decided to become the practical one. We talked about all of those prickly things. He made me dinner, I did the laundry. He pruned up the yard as I raked the magnolia leaves. He told me he liked the flowers I picked from my garden. I told him he was handsome. We went out to dinner. We walked the dogs together. All of these little bits of time spent talking. I told him I was worried that he wasn’t happy. He told me that he thought I wasn’t happy. We laughed. We made sure that as we walked or dined that we talked about each and every thought that was in our heads. In the end, it was the plain old boring things that you don’t have time to think of that made us both look at each other again. We’re partners, equal, willing to depend on each other.

Love isn’t that mad passionate wave that excludes people. Sex is nice (well, of course it is). That isn’t love either. Love is having someone there who isn’t trying to change you. Love is understanding that you will grow differently, but there will be so much to share. Music surrounds us both, and we find that our tastes have become more similar. Art surrounds us. Our families surround us. Our willingness to make a family less about love and more about the people that we surround ourselves with. Love is an adventure. It’s willing to take the wrong turn, but with a map to get it back on course. It’s the willingness to not give up. It’s the companionship of years of changes.

I’ve changed over time. I’ve kept the things that are the essential me alive though. I keep my silliness to bring a smile to his lips when he’s angry at the world. I’ve learned to understand that he needs to vent. He knows that physically I can’t keep up with the house. He doesn’t care. He wants me to be happy. He wants me to write. Dishes can wait until one or the other of us have the energy to do them. Usually it’s him these days. He said I don’t ever have to lift a hand to the house. He also likes working with me on the house when I can. We are at the point in life where we realize there is an end coming. It doesn’t frighten us. We just need the time to be together, the two of us.

A quiet room when the house is just us, and we sit and talk about the world. We read together, watch John Oliver together, and the house is tranquil. Our moral compass heading is identical. But the biggest change came this past week when he told me that he’s looking forward to the adventures we have coming. He wants to spend that time with me, exploring the world, taking a class together, being happy. I think that is what love is beyond all else.

Love is when something happens, good or bad, and you want to tell that person first, before all others. That sharing bond of excitement or sadness bring you close and then closer. I want time to be gentle enough so that we can walk to the finish line hand in hand and know that the greatest gift we ever had was each other.