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04 January 2016

Of Bird And Tree Shapes - East Missoula, Montana

"Yet farther up the road, near a hole in the river where people were sometimes dipped in baptism, a cloud of martins erupted out of a maple tree nearing the peak of its color.  The sun's bottom limb was just touching the ridge and the sky was the color of hammered pewter. The martins flew from the tree as one body, still in the shape of the round maple they had filled. Then they banked into the wind, slipped sideways int he moving air on extended wings for two heartbeats, so that Ada viewed them in thin profile and saw much silver space between the individual birds.  Immediately, as if on signal, they swept into a steep climb and the fullness of their wings turned toward her and closed the bright gaps between the birds so that the flock looked like the black image of the red maple projected into the sky.  The bird shadows across the long field grass beyond the road flickered." - From Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

4 comments:

  1. Love this picture and loved that book--thanks for the magical moment, Cyndy.

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    1. Thanks, and agreed on the book love! The phrasings throughout the entire book are so exquisite that I slowed down and thoroughly chewed every bite before swallowing. I've been hoarding this quote since finished the book months and months ago, just waiting for a worthy-ish pic.

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  2. Not sure how you got them to pose so perfectly. Love the combination of visual and verbal imagery.

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    1. I paid them, of course! Seriously, tho', they were chattering en masse in the bush right by my car - I am always enamoured of a tree full of wee busy birds and was delighted when they didn't wheel away in a tight tree pattern. Perhaps they couldn't all agree on when to depart: 'wait - do we launch ON 3, or right AFTER you say 3?'

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