Writer, Photographer
Photos by S.W. Cosgrove
We were amongst the rhododendrons. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery. The woods had not prepared me for them. They startled me with their crimson faces, massed one upon the other in incredible profusion, showing no leaf, no twig, nothing but the slaughterhouse red, luscious and fantastic, unlike any rhododendron plant I had seen before.
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool.
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.
~ Rachel Carson
Marine air moving to shore from the mighty Pacific Ocean at Moclips Beach, Washington, USA.
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
When anxious, uneasy, and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
We return to the sea, from whence we came
It is our primordial home
Photos by S.W. Cosgrove
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
These landscapes of water and reflection are an obsession.
– Claude Monet
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Cattails in the snow on a frozen pond
Photos by S.W. Cosgrove
Jervis Inlet runs 55 mi (89 km) from its head at the mouth of the Skwawka River to its opening into the Strait of Georgia near Texada Island. It is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast, about 59 mi (95 km) northwest of Vancouver, and the third of such inlets north of the 49th parallel, the first of which is Burrard Inlet, Vancouver’s harbor.
It is the deepest fjord on the British Columbia coast with a maximum depth of 670 m (2,200 ft).
The inlet is made up of three arms or reaches:
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
While some men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.
~Henry David Thoreau
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Words and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Darkness comes early
The sun struggles to break through
Obscured by sea clouds
Words and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Wind and sand create waves
erasing the footprints we leave
and the castles we build with our lives.
Only memories remain
until they, too…vanish.
Words and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
When we go to the western edge,
my dog Jack and me
We walk the tide line for miles
of only sky, sand and sea
Our footprints will soon be erased
As in time will we
Words and image by S.W. Cosgrove
Slept with my Window open
Dreamed of The Wind
Blowing White Snow
Through the Woods
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Upward facing dog sun salutation with Jack on International Dog Day
May The Dog be with you today!
Photo and poem by S.W. Cosgrove
alone
together
watching our footprints
vanishing
into the eternal sea
with each receding wave
Sometimes when I think of life, I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up on shore.
~ Haruki Murakami
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
If Dogs Run Free ~ Written by Bob Dylan
If dogs run free, then why not we
Across the swooping plain?
My ears hear a symphony
Of two mules, trains and rain
The best is always yet to come
That’s what they explain to me
Just do your thing, you’ll be king
If dogs run free
If dogs run free, why not me
Across the swamp of time?
My mind weaves a symphony
And tapestry of rhyme
Oh, winds which rush my tale to thee
So it may flow and be
To each his own, it’s all unknown
If dogs run free
If dogs run free, then what must be
Must be, and that is all
True love can make a blade of grass
Stand up straight and tall
In harmony with the cosmic sea
True love needs no company
It can cure the soul, it can make it whole
If dogs run free
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
“I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Farthest Shore”
SW COSGROVE 