Sunday, August 9, 2015

Minnesota 2015 - Lake Series #1

It's the sort of quiet you can only find in a remote location, away from the voice of cities and people. There is sound but no noise. A Chicago style window, ironic considering I am in Minnesota, looks out over a deck railing, a lake and the wooded expanse of the lake's opposite shore. Tiny birds hop along the railing picking through the sunflower seeds in the tin plates nailed to it. The ones that the chipmunks had not polished off the night before. Chipmunk leftovers, the birds don't seem to mind. 

At a quick glance the sky and the lake are the same shade of soft gray. The scene might be seen to be painted by nature in a limited palate of two colors, gray and green. But as my gaze lingers I see seemingly infinite variations of these two hues. Light pierces the sky making the gray at the treetops paler than that of the expanse above it. The green is a subtle mixture of new growth and old. A shrub filled sandbar juts out, darker growth permeates the far shore. A small bit of morning fog, appearing like a cloud of dust, rises above one section of the shoreline. The woods are a blend of shadow and light, some of it's deepest recesses almost black. 

Even the small birds are gray, black and white. I am treated to a quick shot of brown as a chipmunk darts along the deck rail. A loon calls and the tiny birds sing. I sat, a camp blanket over my legs, coffee at my side, looking out the window and experiencing this place where cell phones do not work. We have no bars, we have traded them for this beauty.

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