Orange

One thing leads to another…

I thought I’d go walking without bringing along a camera. Who cares? I thought… I’m not a photographer.

But I kind of missed it. 

Then I thought that really, a camera is only there to assist my writing. I’m not shooting for the sake of a picture. I’m shooting for the sake of a story. 

I like seeing things over time… But accruing the observations takes a lot of time. 

Right now? 

This week I photographed trees that have been marked for removal, likely  because of Dutch Elm Disease… 

Once on a walk, I came across a plume of black smoke to discover a city worker supervising the gasoline-fed fire on the riverbank of a pile of newly cut wood from an infected tree. 

The numbers nailed to these trunks suggest these trees are inventoried on a list somewhere… a unique distinction among their tree peers of being singled out because they’re sick.

They stand out against blue skies, the white ground and the brown in between. No monarch butterfly wings, no dazzle of fall leaves. Orange is hidden away under jackets unless you’re hunting, in imported seasonal citrus protected indoors; some navel oranges set aside, if you want to bake, for a nice loaf.