Old Tree | Wenatchee Heights, WA | 2009
Strip an old tree of leaves, and you can trace its life. The paths it followed: growth spurts, droughts, fire blight, the ’68 freeze. All is revealed when naked, whether it’s wood or flesh.
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Emerald Island | Lake Wenatchee, WA | 2008
My visits to Lake Wenatchee are often marred by winds whipping up whitecaps. But one winter I high-stepped through deep snow to stand alone on a boat dock in utter stillness. Not a breeze, ripple or trembling leaf marred the calm. Until then, to my eyes, Emerald Island had been somehow camouflaged by clouds, waves, forest, light. But there it was that day — crystallized.
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Ag | Quincy, WA | 2008
Our region’s gazillion acres of agriculture — fruit, wheat, onions, potatoes, wine grapes — flourish from commercial nurseries that are those industries’ Source. Even in winter, the fecund farmland seems to celebrate its ability for abundance.
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White Mare | Twisp, WA | 2007
Stella glowed with morning light. She had turned her attention to the back field where deer or coyotes tiptoed. Ears forward, nostrils flaring, muscles tight with anticipation and — if I read her right — plain ol’ curiosity. Lucky horse. Not just sunrise, but a mystery, too.
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Bright Water | East Wenatchee, WA | 2008
Our south-facing kitchen glows some days with winter sun. Plates in the dish rack bounce light to the ceiling. The cutting board warms as it deepens in color. And the faucet stream seems alive with internal light — photons from a roiling star at play in my next glass of water.
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Feeding Time | Twisp, WA | 2007
On winter days, the cows came home just before sunset, just before the rancher spread a line of silage near the barn. We’d stand on a nearby hill fascinated by bovine instincts — sense of smell and timing — to troop every night, like clockwork, towards dinner. We commented, too, on their politeness: walking slowly, single file, no shoving, to eat (side by side) their best meal of the day.
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Island | Soap Lake, WA | 2008
Ancient volcanic humps — big ones of basalt —add interest to a long stretch of seep lakes in the Columbia Basin. At sunset, these islands of dark gray columnar rock seem to absorb light rather than reflect it — negative space in an otherwise illuminated landscape.
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Icicle | Twisp, WA | 2008Fingers white with cold, breath freezing in my nostrils, roof-melt dripping into six-foot ice horns. Morning at 10 below is like a double image offset a few millimeters from the real world — nothing is quite as it looks. Even deer are confused. Apples they’ve pulled off the old tree are hard as river rocks, branches crack like gunshots.
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3 Pears | East Wenatchee, WA | 2008
Bodies mesh together — me and you, us and them — because our bulges and curves fit just right. Spooning. Like fleshy puzzle pieces. Sometimes something similar happens with personalities. One person’s exuberance swells to fill another’s depression. Difficult to know who’s leaning on whom.
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Sunflower | Wenatchee, WA | 2008
Common, everyday things call for scrutiny. Fork tines up close, a dog’s rough foot pads, a dangling bloom. Observation begins to unfold the mystery.
IrwinFoto 