Schweitzer Marsh,  April Sunrise

“Schweitzer Marsh, April Sunrise”

Anticipating next month’s exquisite mornings on Schweitzer Marsh, and without rehashing an earlier riff on Eliot’s “Wasteland”, I provide further evidence that April is not the cruelest month. To the contrary, in rare and exquisite beauty an April sunrise over Schweitzer marsh displays pink and lavender light. It builds slowly, lasts about ten minutes and disappears abruptly.

The seasons each produce a distinctive light of their own, a function of the sun’s position but also the air temperature and dew point. For over 50 years, as seasons change, I’ve observed this same scene in the full color spectrum of sunrises and sunsets as well as the cool midday blues of November and December. The hues are almost palpable, the emotions evoked, sublime.

“Eagle, Morning View”

“I am the eagle this August morning. First to feel the horizon pierced, first to see morning’s marsh expand, color chasing night’s shadow before the sun, summer’s songs rising. I breathe the world.”  C.G. Baker

“Weeping Beech, Winter’s Day”

I had the good fortune today to find enough time between doctor’s appointments to detour through Gates Mills.  Many of you will recognize Chagrin Valley Nursery from the beautiful geometry of the plantings. I’m convinced whoever designed this landscape must have done so knowing it would make a remarkable painting or image. Stopping in the middle of River road I took this shot at midday. It was during a particularly heavy squall which made for perfectly diffused light. A weeping birch stands in relief in the foreground (right) providing more perspective to the scene.  I hope you can feel the wind sweeping across the landscape.

“Still Point”  16″x24″   Collector’s Edition of 10     C.G. Baker, 2020     

Is there anyone who hasn’t tired of the myriad reed and grass photos, most composed in early morning mist or afternoon fog? As a child, over 60 years ago, I recall a black and white photo from “Life” magazine featuring reeds reflecting on a smooth lake. With my mother’s hand-me-down camera I wasted lots of film and her patience trying to replicate that image in a neighbor’s pond. Amateurish would be a very generous description of those photos. Ever since, I’ve shied away from the reed pictures that have seduced infinite photographers and generated infinite images. The few I’ve attempted have been unoriginal at best.

“Rails into Autumn”

This is the scene I’ve walked into for sixty years. An arching pin oak or two have passed since my childhood but new ones rise. What has never changed are the rails, rails that take me into each season, ones that orient me through snow, morning fog, autumn hues and a lifetime of magenta mornings and afternoon shadows.

” … to hatch a crow, a black rainbow … ”  E.J. Hughes

Perhaps no one more than the poet, Ted Hughes, vested meaning and metaphor in the crow. For me, crows have been the source of childhood memories and are as beautiful and mysterious as black rainbows. Tender and cruel and brilliant, they carry their own shadow.

Yesterday (March 20) I saw a good dozen in singles and pairs returning to the Chagrin Valley, presumably their rookery along the river’s escarpment. By the end of the month small flocks will arrive to begin the mating and battle rituals. And by the first of May nests will fill with black rainbows.