the sun goes down –
but evening light remains
in the leaves ~ Nijo Yoshimoto*
*trans: Steven D Carter
Haiku before Haiku
initially posted on September 26, 2012


In this world
the living grow fewer,
the dead increase–
how much longer must I
carry this body of grief?
Ono no Komachi (J Hirshfield & M AratanI, The Ink Dark Moon)

Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/400s 300mm 200 ISO

A + J

Sony RX100 III f/5 1/2000s 9.7mm 800 ISO
This week Patti at P.A. Moed invited photographers to “look up” and share what we see..I saw a smiling face. What do you see?

contemplative photography…Nikon D750 f/5.3 1/80s 112mm 100 ISO
Standing at this Threshold
With uncertainty, I question:
What is it that I seek?
Protection? Compassion? Acceptance? Forgiveness? Completion?
Who is it that I beckon?
A father? A mother? A sister? A brother? A companion? A child? A god?
To be? To endure? To offer? To embrace? To validate?
An intentional presence that is drawn upon
A place and time of shadows, myths, and dreams?
Birthed within a family?
Matured within a relationship?
Nourished within a community?
Where the Stillness within Silence,
Affirms the exchange of life’s giving and taking,
Embraces the connection of life’s emotional threads, and
Observes the interdependence of life with non-judgmental awareness,
Yet, knows of a united oneness with another that can not be?
Since it can not be, do I yearn
To know integration through the formation of thought;
To see clarity through the flowing of ink; and
To feel completion through the act of creating?
And then, finally, within the stillness of silence,
I befriend
An internal companion with whom
There is an honoring of the who and what of which I am;
A woman, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a great-grandmother.
I touch
With reverence the presence of all that was, is, and will be.
I release
The seeking, the beckoning, the yearning to the Winds of Change.
I with uncertainty, Step over this Threshold
Foreseeing a return
~bckofford
Oh leaves, ask the wind which of you
Will be the first to fall. ~Soseki*

Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/400 200m 100 ISO
*cited in Jonathan Clements, The Moon in the Pines

…a group of children were crying. An adult came along with a handful of yellow leaves and said, “Don’t cry anymore. I’ll give you a pile of gold.” So the person gave the children a handful of yellow leaves, and the children thought they were real pieces of gold. They were happy and they stopped crying. ~Thich Nhát Hanh (Zen Battles)

Nikon D50 f/10 1/50 s 24 mm 100 ISO
Memory bridges our past with the present and awakens us to an awareness that life is created by minute moments that often go unnoticed as our minds are frequently elsewhere. Photography offers us a means to awaken to these temporary moments and to create priceless keepsakes of our yesterdays.
Who speaks the sound of an echo?
Who paints the image in a mirror?
Where are the spectacles in a dream?
Nowhere at all–that’s the nature of the mind!
~Tree-leaf Woman (J. Hirshfield, Women in Praise of the Sacred)

Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/50s 170mm ISO 100
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