Writer, Photographer
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?
That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Ocean dark, ocean light What colors will the ocean give us tonight?
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Dusk is a mirage
Twilight’s but a shadow
But tides are forever
Photos by S.W. Cosgrove
Art is not a reflection of reality, it is the reality of a reflection. ~ Jean-Luc Godard
These landscapes of water and reflection are an obsession. ~ Claude Monet
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
– Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Impromptu shot from horseback on a trail in the Taunus Mountains near Wiesbaden, Land Hessen, Deutschland.
My home for over a decade.
My horse – “Chagall.” German warmblood. A sporting gentleman.
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Birches
by Robert Frost
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Photo and text by S.W. Cosgrove
Deep in the woods last week,
I found a daffodil and a tulip
placed carefully in a broken, rotted tree stump.
First flowers of spring,
symbols of rebirth, hope, love, and passion.
Thank you, whoever you are, for leaving them for me to ponder.
Text and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Evening’s ebb tide at Iron Springs
pulls the Pacific Ocean waters back into its infinite bosom,
etching paths in the dun sands
as I watch from above
Photo by SW Cosgrove
Riding horses on Rincon Valley trails under the Rincon Mountains, Tucson, Arizona. Spotted a cougar for part of the ride who was keeping an eye on us.
Home of the Jumping Cholla Cactus (Opuntia fulgida), which gets its name from spiny segments that detach so easily they seem to attack any creature that passes by. I found out the hard way.
SW COSGROVE 