SUN AT DAWN AND STORKS AT DUSK

I shan’t apologise for photographing the same subject yet again. I spent years doing just that at the cottage, and now it is this view that defines my mornings. Photos are taken from the windows, in passing. There is no time for more than that most mornings. This is the view from the living room, looking across seeding zinnias and blue Browallia (read more about them here) into the Ellensgate Garden with the wisteria arbour of the Anniversary Garden beyond. Beyond that again, the Pride of Indias at The Garden Celebrating an Imperfect Universe, and the arboretum. A misty haze drifts off Freddy’s Dam, rising slowly, and often forms  a horizontal element in the composition. By the moment, sunlight drops into the valley…

What I really want to share with you though, is a dusk experience. The Woolly-Necked Storks are back often enough now that I can call them our resident storks. Most nights between sunset and darkness, five of them drop out of the sky, then circle gracefully, confirming their perch for the night in the tall gum tree before settling down. I’ve yet to see them leave, but many a morning as I arrive at school, about two km away as the stork flies, I see them pacing the dewy playing fields and taking the morning sun. I get great pleasure at the end of the day watching their arrival and knowing they too find this tree, pictured below, rather special.

 

A GARDEN, A POEM, AUTUMN

Am I a little obsessed with The Garden Celebrating an Imperfect Universe? You bet!  Am I excessively fond of autumn? You bet! So please, just accept this photo, a sort of season-of-mists-and-mellow-fruitfulness photo, which looks down the axis towards where it is all happening. Imagine a jet of water marking the centre of the axis. And imagine it falling down, not into a random collection of rocks and stones as it was going to do, but into a model of the perfect universe; or perhaps more correctly, a maquette of the imperfect one. The plan is that the spiral design will be repeated in the placement of the rocks, with a simple copper pipe spiral representing the chute of the fountain below. I’m sure that, even if you have been following all my plans, you are a little confused,. Bear with me, please! In time all will hopefully become clear.

On auction at bidorbuy I have acquired this bugle for R300 – that is about US$45 – which is to form the ‘Celestial Trumpet’ from which the water in the chute first appears. Meanwhile the concept has grown; a sort of African symbolism has been added: a brazier of red  ‘coals’ will add the element of fire to the source…

What is more I have bought a small brass abacus, a trinket really, but somehow it will make its way into the design as a symbol of Eastern mathematics and the wide foundation our understanding of the universe has. And meanwhile the wattle wall has been completed.

After a long day followed by a walk through the garden, I was sitting late this afternoon, looking out across the lawn towards the big gum  and the autumn shades. I had been in charge this morning of the hosting by our  Rotary Club of the final round of a substantial regional public speaking competition for eleventh graders, where the prize is a six week short term Rotary Exchange overseas. Always it is a humbling experience, for the young are so articulate, so passionate and so optimistic. There is an additional element which non-South Africans will understand only with difficulty. Ten years ago we were amazed at how well black students were doing, how well they spoke English, how obviously they were of a new dispensation. Now we take it for granted. And instead my thoughts today were of the many hundreds of thousands of children, still locked into rural poverty and bleakness, who could also achieve at the level these children were achieving.

It was growing dark. Suddenly five birds flew into view, circled and settled into the huge gum tree for the night. I knew they were Woolly-necked Storks, for during this last summer we have gone from seeing them occasionally to having a resident family from a nest on my neighbours’ farm. But I had never seen them coming in to roost before, nor so many – and they had chosen my tree! So moved was I that for the first time in over thirty years I attempted poetry. I hope that in the cold light of day I do not regret sharing it with you…

See more about them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly-necked_Stork 

                         Four pictures of Woolly-Necked Storks off the web

WOOLLY NECKED STORKS FLY IN Could I capture the grace - Or the size (how can such a small bird Be so big?) Or the silence As in darkening dusk They swooped in, squabbled About roosts, took off, Returned, always graceful, Turning on outspread wings, Silently observing, choosing a spot, silently landing – Could I really still see their movement As the dusk darkened, hear Their silence as the fluting Of reed frogs , even the sound Of the grass growing, the neatly Trimmed lawn in the foreground, was That wind in the gums behind them, yes, There was movement in the uppermost Leaves of the towering gum They were roosting in, dark now Against the darkness, roosting In my tree, would they return, had they Been here before, they had come So unexpectedly in the gathering Dusk, five at first, perhaps two more Later, swooping in, silently, arching wings and backs, Dropping long legs, braking, circling, perching, Disappearing in the dark, all but their White necks Disappearing In the dark Would they come again? Had they been before? These silent graceful creatures In a silent graceful dusk Unexpected symbols Of silence, perfection, grace On a perfect eve As summer Glowinged Into autumn.            Jack Holloway 16/4/2011