Small Worlds

For the late Zen master and renowned photographer, John Daido Loori, I suspect it was tide pools, beaches and heron spiced estuaries - they drew him like a magnet to faraway shorelines, carrying his camera, tripod and lenses. He loved the shapes and the colors, the contrasts, and he could stand for hours, watching the play of wind across waves and rock, rippled sand and seawashed kelp.

Far from such salty places, I have eloquent expanses of my own, an inland sea shaped of foothills, gorges and quiet grassy coves, winding rivers and gnarled old trees, flowing fens and dancing reeds. Not for me, at present anyway, are the pacific bays and beaches near Point Lobos which Daido loved so much, the fog wrapped headlands and promontories graced by weathered stones.

My earthy inland sea sings like the sirens of old, and it holds beauties beyond measure in every season. In November, there are fields of blowing silky milkweed as far as the eye can see here, and they beguile the eye in perfect panoplies of cream and taupe and gray. In sere and austere arrays, they draw like a magnet, and I dissolve in their midst like a contented and wind tossed leaf.