CLIFF CEGO | Alpine Fleeceflower at Pop Creek Pass (Polygonum phytolaccaefolium)


Alpine Fleeceflower at Pop Creek Pass [ click photo for next . . . ]


Member of the Buckwheat family——notice the knot-like swellings
giving the clan its other somewhat less charming common name,
Knotweed——after the first frost of highcountry autumn, the entire
plant loses its moisture, becomes paper-like in texture, and then
turns a stunning fiery orange to rusty red. With parboiling and
stirfying, much like, say, Burdock, the finger-thick roots
of Fleeceflower are not only edible but in my opinion a real
delicacy. If there is one plant to know in the Wallowas come
fall, this is it!

Here's is an autumn trio of Alpine Fleeceflower images growing
in diverse situations varying in altitude from about 2000 to 2400 m.,
and mostly seeming to prefer a granite (gray background!)
substrate. This is THE color of the Wallowas in September
and October:

Horesemen
Crossing
Fleeceflower
Meadow
Fleeceflower
At Glacier
Lake

Eagle Cap Wilderness . . .








ON THE NECESSITY OF POETRY


(i)

Walking from spring to spring,

one tires quickly of all

the intellectual bush-beating,

telling me I’m not thirsty

when I’m thirsty.


(ii)

Let’s be simple:

A house without a hearth

is a home without a center.


After somebody lets the fire

go out, they always like to tell

you it wasn’t important.


(iii)

Have you ever noticed that

bird calls are often answered

by silences of equal duration?

Who is to say which one—

the sound or the silence—

is more important?


(iv)

We are born naked; we make

love naked; and we die

naked;


Though not strictly necessary,

doing poetry naked seems to work

just fine, too.


(v)

Once the commons

are fenced in and sold,

on that very same ground

we’ll argue incessantly about—

the necessity of poetry.




Camp Lost & Found,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, IX.15.2008



ON THE NECESSITY OF POETRY
is part of THE LITTLE CLAVIER
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Featured gallery, 100 MINIATURES, a set of 100 black & white photographs. ONE image. ONE idea. ONE new way of looking . . .
100 MINIATURES—online gallery

Each miniature is a kind of meditation on one idea & one image;
Each lasts 30 seconds; They play in random order;
The music is my BOREA Mix,
for hand-played ePecussion Orchestra.
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All Photographs & texts by Cliff Crego © 1999-2015 picture-poems.com
(created: X.11.2008)