Sleek

Click for greater clarity.

Three days before I made the wide view in yesterday’s post that showed many flowers of Clematis drummondii, I did a closeup of a more advanced stage in the development of that species. It reminded me of these lines from Heinrich Heine‘s poem “Die Lorelei“:

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr gold’nes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar….

And here’s a rough translation:

The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, so wonderful, and
With her golden jewelry gleaming
She combs her golden hair….

Granted, the long and gleaming strands produced by this fertilized Clematis drummondii flower were more silvery than golden, and no maiden’s hair ever had a naturally green tinge, but the manipulators of form and light that we call photographers have as much right to claim poetic license as any shapers of words do. And speaking of words, when I saw this image through the camera’s viewfinder on the morning of June 16 on the River Trail near Hornsby Bend, not only was I reminded of “Die Lorelei,” but the English word sleek also popped into my head. It still seems to be the right word, and so I’ve used it for the title of today’s post.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman