Face to Face with an Orchid

The orchid show at The New York Botanical Garden in Bronx, New York is a mesmerizing splash of colors, patterns, and textures. During these bleak early spring days, it's a spectacular feast for the eyes. We traveled there in Friday's drizzle and were delighted to step into the contrasting lush kingdom of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Reviewing the photos this morning, the blooms still dazzle. I loved getting face to face with each variety, but the slipper orchids (Paphiopedilum) were my favorites. That's the one in the photo above. Unfortunately, today is the last day of the exhibit. If you live close enough, find a way to get there.

Click on the photo to enlarge and see amazing details!

Ghost Doll

You're right. It was WAY too beautiful to stay inside.

(Just click on the photos to enlarge the images.)

The Devil's Needle: Photographer Stu Jenks

Artists seem to resist strict classification. The creative force wants to express itself regardless of what form it takes. Stu Jenks, a photographer based in Tucson, is also a musician and now a writer. It's fascinating to read what he writes on his blog about his creative process, to follow his evolving methods, to witness his discoveries about the landscape, the people, and himself. He places himself at the intersection of planned location and beautiful accident. He's open to what arrives and captures it on film. Here's a link to his blog post about his visit to The Devil's Needle, Arbroath, Scotland.

Photo by Stu Jenks, used with permission.

Secrets of Blood

Blood loves its caverns of blue and orchid silk,
its slippery tunnels, pink cushions,
fringes and ruffles of flesh.
Red is the color that worships the body,
knocking at your temples,
announcing its ownership proudly.
Amazed at what it holds,
it purrs as it circulates,
touching your inner heart from time to time,
lingering in those velvet chambers,
saying MINE.
Over and over,
deep in your marrow,
it whispers its mantra.

Excerpt (first stanza) from "Secrets of Blood," the first poem in Teaching Bones to Fly, my first book of poetry from Bitter Oleander Press.

Sinister Tulip

The tulip bends under the weight of its red-black thoughts, its dark head heavy as a tarnished bell. In sympathy, the chair casts ominous de Chirico shadows.

Tricking Gravity

When the breeze first lifted me, I felt dangerously buoyant. I trembled like a baffled nestling. But then I relaxed into the air, let the sky embrace me. For the first time, sunrise painted me on all sides – pink, everywhere. I was weightless. Disguised as inconsequential, like a dust mote, I tricked gravity into ignoring me. I inhaled the fragrance rising from the world. I began to hear the silence that precedes blossoming, that blank space before the almost inaudible velvet-slip of petals unfurling. I held my future, all possibilities, locked safe inside me. I was a speck of pollen floating in the rosy throat of a tulip. Suspended above its secret black pinwheel, I waited for a gust of wind.

Excerpt from "Tricking Gravity" a prose poem from Stirring the Mirror, first published in The Bitter Oleander.

Trapped

Poor Olga, trapped in a painting with two conniving cardsharps from another century...