Photography, Poetry

Heaven’s Misty Breath

Garden macrophotography in the rain

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this — some strengthening throb of amazement — some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” — Mary Oliver, Upstream

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” ―Mary Oliver, Sometimes

I slept with the windows open last night, and I heard it come in at dawn — a soft winter storm.

First came the tinkle of wind chimes, then the dancing trees.

Then came the soft patter of heaven’s misty breath kissing every auburn leaf, coaxing them down to the fecund ground, enfolding them in her lusty embrace in those thick, compressed layers of earth, where she knew, together, they would birth future dancers of the storms.

At dawn, the birds flicked open their wings. The tiny finches were the first to sing of the constancy of sunrise.

Then the crows began to fly into the pinkening, flapping like wet laundry on the line, crying like raspy old men complaining about the night.

And then the light crept into my room, too soon, slanting across my pillow, dithering on about the necessity of the day.

But I closed my eyes again, still listening to the softest of raindrops, playing with the leaves.

— Erika Burkhalter (2020. A first version of this appeared in P.S. I Love You)

Sometimes, after the rain, I swear that I can hear the fairies giggling, teasing, hiding beneath the leaves and ferns and using the Ibiris Umbellata as cover from the misty breath of the sky.

As if the sky wore a skirt woven of dewdrops and air, a fabric made of mist lifted and rippled through the morning chill, swirling and pirouetting through the roses and ferns, drifting through the tips of the pines, and slicking the new green leaves of the eucalyptus trees.

Mother Earth was dancing, exhaling her relief for this moment of respite.

Her sodden breath, redolent with soft sage fuzzed with dewdrops, and wet dust and tuberose engulfed me.

I drew her deep into my lungs, thrilling at the quiet wildness of the morning, falling into the mystery of the mystics of the ages.

The cycle is eternal.

Life, death, re-seeding.

And it is so much vaster than we will ever know.

But for now, I, too, can dance, naked in the fog, clothed only in Mother Nature’s robes, her tears clinging to my hair, like tiny diamonds, her breath pebbling my skin.

I can drink it all in tasting her very essence, sipping, imbibing of the vessel of her eternal being.

— Erika Burkhalter (2019)

It is in these moments that my hands reach, by their own volition, for my camera and I find myself wandering, barefoot and astonished through the tiny world of my garden.

Nature reveals herself in miniature bursts of beauty, reflected in the skin of a raindrop.

Or in the darkened hush of the dawn rising behind the milkweed.

And the Angel’s Trumpets bellow a wordless song of awe.

And the tongues of blossoms reach their fuzzy lips and silkened tongues to the sky, longing to be quenched by the ephemeral beauty of the rain.

All Photos were taken with a Nikon Z9 and a NIKKOR Z MC 105mm ƒ2.8 VR S macro lens.

You might notice that this piece has been published in Full Frame, the new “Fine Art of Photography” dream child of Rodrigo S-C, GE McKerrihan and Duvy McGirr. Thank you for creating such a wonderful space for photography on medium.

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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Photos, poems and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.