Flowers

Flowers in the Hood

This afternoon I walked to school to check on our class vegetable bed and take some photos along the way.  During the school year, the morning walk takes between ten and fifteen minutes.  Avian neighbors’ songs become familiar, as do annual changes in foliage, and the comfortable smells of breakfast.   Continue the tour…

Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula

A second grade teacher from across the hall enjoys giving me a hard time for being vegan with multiple carnivorous plants in the classroom.  He also has a venus flytrap, so we decided to do a little pollinating.   See how it turns out…

White Calla Lily, Zantedeschia aethiopica

Mr. calla lily lives in the shadow of a cemetery in Valparaiso, Chile.  His name comes from an Italian botanist, Giovanni Zantedeschia.

A group of artists tend this garden on the southwestern  side of the cemetery.  Beyond the lily grows an avocado, or “palta” plant.  A sculpture dries in the sun.

Valparaiso, Chile

Mentor and Apprentice

Much of the work here involves restoration of marble headstones and statues.

After exploring the graves, we discovered a stairway leading under the cemetery.

A Friendly Host

The cavernous, open-air studio consists of subsections for a variety of creative trades, from sculpture restoration, to mosaics.

Random curiosities like this mummified cat greet visitors.

Mummified Cat Biting a Dwarf

Valparaiso’s labyrinthian escaleras are an endless canvas for local artists.

Dogs and Cat

Graffiti Porteño, Valparaiso

Rickety funiculars cut the time it takes to scale Valparaiso’s steep hills.

The old funiculars are loud and rickety, yet strangely comfortable and familiar.  Listen to audio within a Valparaiso funicular on its way down:

Strawberry Bush, Euonymus americanus

This plant is known as “hearts-a-burstin'” down south.  Here’s a quote from “Good Houses,” by Athens singer-songwriter Madeline:

Good endless surprises.
Good reasons for waking.
Good friends are good family
with hearts over flowing
from kindness from strangers.
The will to survive. Continue reading →

Red Bougainvillea, Bougainvillea glabra

St Marys, Georgia

Elqui Valley, Chile

This bougainvillea adorned balcony in Santiago’s Barrio Bellavista rests around the corner from “La Chascona,” Pablo Neruda’s home named for his lover and third wife, Matilde Urrutia.  The name means “the uncombed.”

Street art surrounds the curious homes in one of Santiago’s most bohemian enclaves.

 

In the center of Santiago, some college kids spent an afternoon of their winter break giving away free hugs, or “abrazos gratis.”  In stark contrast to the youthful positivity, the man standing next to his bike was prosthelytizing about brimstone and hellfire, and the second coming of Jesus.

At times it was safer to pull out a handheld recorder, than a bulky camera that could easily get snatched.  Listen to a stroll through the heart of Santiago:

 

Later, we came across a blind couple and their young daughter singing for change.  The girl sat on the ground between her mother’s legs.  Listen below:


Pink Wood Sorrel, Oxalis crassipes

Until now, I never associated shamrocks with flowers.

While enjoying a bowl of spicy vegan chili, I unexpectedly caught some live Irish music this afternoon at The Globe.  Around four o’clock, a group of grey haired men lugging instruments began filing in and shuffling furniture, while forming a circle of chairs around a central microphone attached to a small black monitor.  Initially there were seven: two guitars, one accordion, two violins, a mandolin, and a slight woman with a small harp. Luckily, I had my recorder with me, so I sampled their set.  I chose not to edit background noise/conversation, as it was part of the experience.  Listen to the first two songs below.

In the middle of the third song, a woman in a purple hoodie walked in carrying a soft, violet dulcimer case.  A man with a mustache and a violin followed.  Closest to the musicians sat a group of five children under three feet tall.  One fellow in Superman pajamas struggled to get situated in a rocking chair, and as the musicians played, he rocked back and forth to the rhythm. To listen to a couple songs including the dulcimer, click below.

 

Hibiscus, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis

Questions to a Grasshopper

By Janisse Ray

Grasshopper, do you have a husband

waiting for you at home, under some sumac

roof?  Or a son who yet needs you?

In the grasshopper bank, is your account

low?  Is the Times waiting on an article

that you must squeak up out of your armored

head and from what you have deciphered

with those waving wands?

Is the rent do on your leaf, and do you

have to pay somebody for the water that falls free

from the sky?  To whom do you owe your food?

Are you paying for grasshopper roads and

grasshopper schools and grasshopper hospitals

and grasshopper police and some kind of insect

library filled with wondrous leafy scrolls?

Do you have a president?  Are you asked

to fight, to kill your own?  Must you pay for it?

Or are you free, as you seem, to go

bursting through the stalks of dry grasses,

among strawberry leaves and yarrow,

curious and flippant, without direction,

unwary, obligated to nothing?