Grackle and pigeon
Photographed by Jennifer Weber on January 17, 2010
Folly Beach, South Carolina
The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, —
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat — the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
~ from Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Push the sea
Photographed by Jennifer Weber on October 1, 2010
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
To Time it never seems that he is brave
To set himself against the peaks of snow
To lay them level with the running wave,
Nor is he overjoyed when they lie low,
But only grave, contemplative and grave.
What now is inland shall be ocean isle,
Then eddies playing round a sunken reef
Like the curl at the corner of a smile;
And I could share Time’s lack of joy or grief
At such a planetary change of style.
I could give all to Time except — except
What I myself have held. But why declare
The things forbidden that while the Customs slept
I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,
And what I would not part with I have kept.
~Robert Frost
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What now is inland
Photographed by Jennifer Weber on January 28, 2012
Folly Beach, South Carolina
Elsie: I’ll do whatever it takes to get away from here. I will work, if that’s what it takes. I’ll live in a tree to get away from you. Don’t think I won’t.
John: Where would you go?
Elsie: Myrtle Beach.
October Sky (Universal, 1999)
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Where would you go?
Photographed by Jennifer Weber on October 1, 2010
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
You traverse the dun sand out to the white-lipped edge
where taut ropes of lacy bride-white cake-piping encroach
that shell-rich strip on which eager-armed surf embraces
long-torsoed turf, throttling, soaking, caressing, dewing,
bringing gobbets of what has been claimed and stowed
beneath, here, miles away from the thin steel wire-line
that provides a lid for earth and a level floor for heaven.
Meanwhile
Seagulls swoop and hang, skimming that inch of sky
their air-road, spanning a wealth of glittering diamonds
flung with shard-like abandon onto slate-blue enamel
or, tiring, pluck their way across the coming-in wetness
at the rim, pale-strong and prissy-nimble, their beaks
pointing delicate but determined sea-faces to the wind
and catching sun-glances with their ocean-deep eyes.
Meanwhile
Crow-like bird bodies, black as sin, whirl, congregate, fall
like coarse-ground pepper, feathery flotillas of dark doubt
in their wings they carry knowledge that the sea will let you
sink, and so will the city, both in shades of impersonal gray
wearing fleshed-out dreams down to useless sand-bones
so in all contemplation there is resignation, a tide-bringing
a revelation that in sameness there is safety, but not life.
~by Jennifer Weber
copyright 2010 all rights reserved globally
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Folly sunset
Photographed by Jennifer Weber on January 15, 2010
Folly Beach, South Carolina
