is no way one can anticipate accurately such wreathing vapors
The clouds were swift-moving, and I made a series of exposures.
There is no way one can anticipate accurately the positions of such wreathing vapors;
one situation appears worthy of an exposure —
and then appears another situation that seems even better.
From El Capitan, Winter Sunrise in Examples : the making of 40 photographs by Ansel Adams (Little, Brown: Boston, 1983).
This are images of a storm front over Port Royal Sound as viewed from Fish Haul Beach on the northern most edge Hilton Head Island on Saturday, May 30, 2026.
The clouds were swift-moving, and I made a series of exposures.
One situation appeared worthy of an exposure.
And then appeared another situation that seemed even better.
There is no way one can anticipate accurately the positions of such wreathing vapors.
And let me saw (and I have said this before) in NO WAY can I or DO I compare or imagine that my shots with an iPhone could be included in any honest discussion of the work of Mr. Adams … but, be that as it may, I am also the guy who edits Shakespeare into my definition of Haiku … so there you are.
But I get the girl in the end so all’s well that ends well.
For some reason, I just discovered the simple majesty of that phrase.
the running water home of living fish and silver of the sun
The mountains stand up around the main street m Harper’s Ferry Shadows stand around the town, and mist creeps up the flanks of tall rocks
A terrible push of waters sometime made a cloven way for their flood here
On the main street the houses huddle, the walls crouch for cover And yet— up at Hilltop House, or up on Jefferson’s Rock, there are lookouts.
There are the long curves of the meeting of the Potomac and the Shenandoah,
There is the running water home of living fish and silver of the sun The lazy flat rocks spread out browns for green and blue silver to run over
Mascots of silver circles move around Harper’s Ferry No wonder John Brown came here to fight and be hanged No wonder Thomas Jefferson came here to sit with his proud red head writing notes on the great State of Virginia Borders hem the town, borders of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Be absent minded a minute or two and you guess at what state you are in
Harper’s Ferry is a meeting place of winds and waters, rocks and ranges
Landscapes Including States of the Union by Carl Sandburg as publishing Good Morning America in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950).
Yes I went for the one line, There is the running water home of living fish and silver of the sun, to go with my photograph of Horse Creek on Hilton Head Island.
It is not Harper’s Ferry.
This is Harper’s Ferry with me on Jefferson’s Rock and my brother Eddie standing in front of me.
As Mr. Sandburg writes:
or up on Jefferson’s Rock, there are lookouts.
No wonder Thomas Jefferson came here to sit with his proud red head writing notes on the great State of Virginia.
I have to point out that visitiors are no longer allowed to sit of stand on Jefferson’s rock.
Today there are guard rails to protect the rock.
In Jefferson’s day there were no were upright stone post to keep the rock in place.
BUT I DIGRESS.
My photo is of the sun over Horse Creek in the center of Hilton Head Island.
Miles from anywhere and miles from anywhere.
Be absent minded a minute or two and you guess at what state you are in.
little time we live learn painfully to practice for eternity
The oaks, how subtle and marine! Bearded, and all the layered light Above them swims; and thus the scene, Recessed, awaits the positive night.
So, waiting, we in the grass now lie Beneath the languorous tread of light; The grassed, kelp-like, satisfy The nameless motions of the air.
Upon the floor of light, and time, Unmurmuring, of polyp made, We rest; we are, as light withdraws, Twin atolls on a shelf of shade.
Ages to our construction went, Dim architecture, hour by hour; And violence, forgot now, lent The present stillness all its power.
The storm of noon above us rolled, Of light the fury, furious gold, The long drag troubling us, the depth: Unrocked is dark, unrippling, still.
Passion and slaughter, ruth, decay Descended, whispered grain by grain, Silted down swaying streams, to lay Foundation for our voicelessness.
All our debate is voiceless here, As all our rage is rage of stone; If hopeless hope, fearless is fear, And history is thus undone.
(Our feet once wrought the hollow street With echo when the lamps were dead All windows; once our headlight glare Disturbed the doe that, leaping fled.)
The caged hearts make iron stroke, I do not love you now the less, Or less that all that light once gave The graduate dark should now revoke
So little time we live in Time, And we learn all so painfully, That we may spare this hour’s term To practice for Eternity.
Bearded Oaks by Robert Penn Warren as published in The collected poems of Robert Penn Warren by Robert Penn Warren (Louisiana State University Press: Baton Rouge, 1998).
Massive … MASSIVE live oak on the grounds of the Coastal Carolina Museum on Hilton Head Island
The oaks, how subtle and marine!
Bearded, and all the layered light
Above them swims; and thus the scene,
Recessed, awaits the positive night.
The south is different.
It has a lot less snow.
It has a lot less cold.
It has a lot more sun.
It has lot more good smells.
It had lot more bad smells.
And it has live oaks.
Ages to our construction went,
Dim architecture, hour by hour;
And violence, forgot now, lent
The present stillness all its power.
Here before we were born.
Here after we will die.
The present stillness all its power.
So little time we live in Time,
And we learn all so painfully,
That we may spare this hour’s term
To practice for Eternity.
According to Wikipedia, Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic and professor at Yale University. He was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King’s Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry. Yale awarded Warren an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 1973.
