The truth lies in a state of darkness and shadow, where existence is without form.”
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, “In Praise of Shadows”
“Autumn Leaves” (11/16/24)
One of the lingering memories of my childhood was Nat King Cole singing Johnny Mercer’s nostalgic hit, “Autumn Leaves.” Towards the end of October my mother would put it on their old turntable while she cooked dinner. After Thanksgiving she would switch it out to his Christmas album. Curious how evocative certain tunes and smells can be decades later.
This scene below, a favorite sweep of the Chagrin River, also reminds me of the changing seasons, drawing me to it each fall to capture the color of the landscape and listen to the flow of the river. Many will recognize the area lying just north of Fairmount on Chagrin River Road.
Normally I visit the scene mid to late October but a hip replacement altered my timing. At any rate I hobbled out today and was surprised to find some colorful maples and splashes of green here and there. The east bank of the river north to Gates Mills is home to one of the most diverse deciduous forests in NE Ohio. A variety of maples, American sycamore, beech, oaks, American black cherry, poplar and ash grow among one another. What surprised me today was the end of season yellow maples, still deeply hued and marcescent. Perhaps a sign of climate change or an act of solidarity with the beech that hold their leaves through winter.
“Fields of Gold, Squire Valleevue Farm” (10/27/18)
A perennial frame of reference for the appearance/disappearance of late season meadow flowers (e.g. Ironweed, asters, etc.), this year’s goldenrod lasted less than two weeks, a blooming cycle that often remained active for as long as a month in year’s past.
The work Ana Locci and her staff at Squire Valleevue have accomplished in recent years has been transformative. The changes to the landscape, while subtle, belie the many extraordinary conservation and organic food programs and initiatives in progress. What a great treasure for the CWRU students who are fulfilling Andrew Squire’s vision of a working farm at the same time they are having “grounded” new learning experiences.
The photo was taken early one morning several weeks ago as I had the great fortune and great eye of Kim Bissett to accompany me.
“Red Tail Sits on an Old Gum Tree” (9/02/24)
Early Thursday afternoon this red tailed hawk, clearly injured, found a perch atop a long deceased sugar gum along the south western ridge of Squire Valleevue farm.
I first encountered him in late August, 2006, shortly after he had fledged and was learning to hunt. Six years later, on a calm July morning, I observed him in a brief aerial battle with a bald eagle. The eagle, appearing as a speck on the northwest horizon, made a slow, protracted descent, gliding silently into the farm’s 400 acres of airspace. The red tail lifted without a sound from the top of a towering honey locust on the perimeter of the east meadow, quickly gaining altitude before dropping abruptly to engage the larger bird. The eagle, rolling from impact, plummeted a few feet before continuing on beyond the farm towards the eastern ridge of the Chagrin valley. The hawk declared sovereignty through its distinctive KEE-AAH, KEE-AAH scream, a piercing first shriek descending only slightly into a savage, unholy note of domination.
Several years passed before two of the farm’s staff and I witnessed a more protracted battle moments after sunrise. A few rolls and pitches and much sound and fury evidenced the only drama as neither bird appeared injured, the eagle continuing on rapidly past the farm’s boundaries.
Spotting this familiar red tail last Thursday was particularly heartening in light of our undeclared relationship over the years. What was concerning, however, was the evidence of a fight, primary feathers on his left wing broken and tail feathers torn, he may have encountered a determined eagle or perhaps an owl.
If animals could write or choose lyrics, I suspect this red tail hawk would identify with Paul Simon’s “The Boxer.”. But few boxing fans have absorbed a nose or rib crushing blow or felt the searing pain of sutured eyelids, or the savage separation of wing and tail feathers.
“In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down.”
“End of Summer” (8/15/24)
Every August, in my memory at least, a weather front blows through and with it a short respite from northeast Ohio’s oppressive heat and humidity – little more than a tease of autumn. It always seems to coincide with the time of year I notice some plants going to seed, perhaps because these clement days lure me into the fields and meadows where I find myself among them. At any rate, about five years ago I stumbled upon garlic scapes growing randomly in our front garden. And as beautiful as these allium are in bloom, it’s the period in early-mid August when they dry that fascinates me so. The photograph below was one I took yesterday that seemed worthy of a brief description.
Suspended in first light and a gentle August morning breeze, a desiccated stalk and umbel of a garlic scape sways in a short arc, before returning to plumb. Bulbils, the individual lobes clustered here, unite in high relief against an abstract background of blurred green foliage and a distant pink cone flower. To me it appears to bow its head, not in resignation so much as reverence and possibility; reverence for its own regeneration and potential for rebirth. The notion of perpetual life notwithstanding, there is an elegiac beauty to its temporal existence.
“First View”
“First View”
Geoff Baker, Artist
September 18, 2024
This week I began a review of past photographs of Schweitzer Marsh in contemplation of a new book of stories and images dedicated exclusively to this wetland in Aurora, Ohio. As some of you already know, the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway illegally drained the area in December of 2021. The many generous letters of support imploring the railroad’s senior management to reverse their actions unfortunately has generated no response other than their disavowal of liability. The cost of litigation and the generally feckless actions to date from relevant state and Federal agencies and conservancies have weighed against the potential remediation and restoration of the marsh.
The book I envision is conceived neither with the intention nor expectation it will be any more persuasive or inciteful to change than the collective efforts already undertaken. Instead, it will be intended as homage from a friend, a lifelong beneficiary of what this consecrated place has taught me.
This wetland and the adjacent forests have been the locus for much of my own life. As I assemble images and short narratives, I’ll post them here for those who may be interested. To begin, the photograph above, “First View,” was an image featured in my exhibit at the Butler Institute in 2011, but regrettably not one I’ve really explored adequately until this evening. Hopefully the image and following commentary will convey some of the mystery and awe that sadly no longer exist.
“First View” Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The far reaches of Schweitzer Marsh are elusive, the only access a knee-deep wade through the shallows along the northern bank, then east 100 yards to a barrier of rush and reed that opens to the view pictured below. No evidence of life this last morning of March, the water flat as the thin skin of ice before the night’s thaw. Pickerel weed and water lily, dormant beneath the surface, yet to awaken to the new season. Even the small egg masses of spring peepers, normally suspended in a liminal state beneath the water were missing. Within a few weeks the chorus of redwing blackbirds and waterfowl would fill this outdoor cathedral of trees ringing the banks.
No sound, not even the subtle lapping of water against the banks, only the air of benign silence. I entered the water before daybreak, wading tentatively as the sun rose low and opacious on the horizon, its dark waters, still and lucid, reflecting the world above. Contributing to a natural cathedral of otherworldliness, this light fog and low temperatures had returned to northeast Ohio creating a crepuscular haze that rose into lucence high overhead .
A day earlier a warm front thawed all but a thin layer of ice that had bound the banks to muskrat lodges, cattails and hillocks of sedge rising above the water. The last membrane of ice had dissolved into fog late that night. In the distance, appearing as a giant fairy ring, stands a copse of long dead pin oaks, animated and haunting, their reflections plumbing the shallow waters.
And somewhere beyond, a profound sense of solitude was captured in the words of poet May Sarton who wrote, “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.”
“Canola Fields”
“Canola Fields”
Sunday morning, May 5, canola fields glisten in the early light in the small rural town (population, 611) of Frenchburg, Kentucky, home to my father-in-law. In recent years canola has supplanted much of the tobacco production that flourished in the state for three centuries. Flowering canolas are profuse for several weeks in the spring and have changed the aesthetic of the landscape, perhaps not for the better but brilliant nonetheless, almost neon-like in the first weeks of May.
