Prairie redux

“I haven’t been back to any of the three bluebell colonies I recently found on the prairie in northeast Austin….” So saying, I headed back to the prairie, where the bluebells have begun to go to seed. But the sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) just keep on coming in the heat: new buds and flowers mix with the rayless dark disks of predecessors that they will follow soon enough. There’s a wild energy in the randomness of a large colony, with parts of plants going every which way. How to capture that in a rectangle? Here’s one attempt.

© 2011 Steven Schwartzman, for whom the ray folded down onto the disk of the large sunflower at the left makes the picture.

– – – –

P.S. In a bit of botanical-literary synesthesia brought on by the word ray, I hope you won’t mind if I cite the famous poem by Byron:

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that ‘s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!