What are we doing here Aki?

A stiff wind startles the little dog when she hops out of the car. The wind carries a mix of snow and rain that makes Aki blink. She turns, anyway, into the wind and follows me up the mountain meadow trail. I snap a few pictures of the meadow-side mountains, just white from the morning’s snow. But I switch to more intimate subjects on the ground to avoid having to wipe rain off the camera lens filter.

With little more than fundamental knowledge of composition, I rely on emotion to frame a shot. Today, I’m warmed by the thin sheet of new snow bending over waves of tough yellow grass. My eyes can see the energy of movement pushing against the snow like the emerging limb of an abandoned Michelangelo sculpture. The camera can ‘t capture it.

I carry home the limb of a blueberry bush. It’s leaf buds swell even though it has been severed from the bush. In our kitchen we will watch the leaves fill and, if lucky, enjoy creamy blossoms, each a tiny Japanese lantern swing from the maroon twigs of the branch.

We have so many of these flat light days in the rain forest. Only the sharpest eyes can ferret out patterns in the gray sky. It’s even hard to see the border of white mountain and soft sky. While Aki bounces around the still frozen mountain meadow, I look down, finding small beauties in ice. With their interesting shapes and captured light, the thin sheets of ice monopolize the drama.