“Blackbird and Black Willows, Close of Day” C.G. Baker, 2022
“The Blackbird”, (last stanza)
“Two golden stars, like tokens from the Blest,
Strike on his dim orbs from the setting sun;
His sinking hands seem pointing to the West;
He smiles as though he said—”Thy will be done”:
His eyes, they see not those illuminings;
His ears, they hear not what the Blackbird sings.” Frederick Tennyson
“Starlings on the Run”
This image, a companion to my previous post of starlings perched pensively in this weeping birch, illustrates a sense of unity, even in their urgent departure pictured here. Seemingly unperturbed at first by my conspicuous approach and maladroit struggle with camera and tripod in freezing snow, they struck me more as amused than frightened. For a brief moment I had deluded myself into believing I might be a “bird whisperer”; otherwise why had they remained affixed so calmly to the branches? Looking at this second image, however, their alacritous exodus disabused me of any such notion.
That day’s brief encounter and these images have occasioned further reflection on these beautiful yet pernicious birds. Their destruction of property is legendary, replete with stories of farmers losing entire crops in an afternoon as starlings descended in locust-like waves. Even our own experience in a small suburban setting underscores those stories as we’ve watched small flocks drop into the yard this week, emptying the feeder in less than an hour. Moreover, we’ve seen them in the spring raiding robin’s nests, devouring newly hatched chicks – a practical though disturbing means of ethnic cleansing and sating hunger.
“Kate” A Walk into a New Year
“Toward Heaven Still”
In a couple of his poems (“After Apple Picking and “Birches”), Robert Frost summoned both imagery and metaphor through the phrase, “toward heaven” and “toward heaven still.” I’ve often thought this towering pin oak, anchored in less than three feet of water at the north end of Schweitzer marsh, was “pointed toward heaven still”; ascending from its base, reaching into the firmament.
Exploring the marsh, beech groves and hawthorn gauntlets as young boys of ten or eleven, my friends and I could always spot this tree above the others and orient ourselves. The pin oaks pictured here were already dead and ghostly by the mid 50’s, almost seventy years ago, yet the grove “still” stands. More than I can say for myself at times.
“Untitled”
“Untitled II”
My preoccupation with geese traces to childhood and the scarcity of what now has become abundant. This is the second in a series. Note, the gander trails the female always protecting his territory.
What works (I think) about this image is the context (marsh sedge in the foreground) and the center focused composition.
Outbuilding, Leelanau County, MI
“Outbuilding, Leelanau County, Michigan”
After printing this image I tried to imagine whether the scene would have appealed to three of my favorite artists, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood and Andrew Wyeth, each whose work may be considered an example of modern American realism. I think the almost surreal landscape would have attracted Wyeth; the nostalgic throwback, Wood; and the solitude of the scene, (especially the isolation of the towering outbuilding), Hopper. I mention these artists because, for many years I’ve been drawn to their work and suspect it has influenced the way I see landscapes and architecture.
This outbuilding resides on the property of Carsten Burfiend, the first settler of Leelanau County. Mr. Burfiend built two farms in the late 19th century just north of Glen Arbor. The farm is closed though restored and sits between a spine of dunes to the east and Lake Michigan less than a mile west.
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