trees

I like trees. Or more specifically, I like winter trees, trees bare and naked, no leaves to hide their shape. It is only in the winter that a tree's true nature can be seen. Regal and pyramidal; slender and wispy limbed; sprawling and gangly; sparse and understated -- only when fall and the cold of winter have ruthlessly stripped the trees of their clothing can I really see them. I see the very top limbs, tiny and many fingered, grabbing for the sky. Or the neat, tidy pyramids standing firm and strong, waiting patiently and wistfully for spring to come. Best of all I like looking at those trees that have grown helter skelter, limbs twisting and turning every which-a-way, but always reaching upwards and onwards.

Only in winter do the trees show how alive they are -- the promise of the first fuzz of spring found in the last tenacious leaf holding on precariously.

It is winter trees that inspire me -- inspire me to photography, they make me wish I could draw, to capture their quiet energy and hope. Somehow, winter trees are the embodiment of hope.