Smooth Banana and a Barbed Wire Bath

In the filtered light after a brief summer shower some things like these aging banana leaves take on a silken smoothness. Their texture, colors and folds give the illusion of fabric hanging from the stalk. However, most plants in the dry tropical bush are prickly and sharp, not smooth and silky. A little way along this same path there was an old bathtub draped…

Labyrinth at Mt. Washington

Estate Mount Washington in the lush tropical hills of northwest St. Croix contains the ruins of an old sugar plantation and rum factory. The current owners have cleared the bush from around the ruins and invite visitors to come explore the park-like grounds. Amid the ruins is a labyrinth. All are encouraged to walk it in contemplation and thanks. A labyrinth is an ancient…

Pointers in Red and Green

If there were such a thing as compass points within the picture frame, both of these images would be pointing off to the north-northeast. But they seem to be pointing to something else, too.

Graffiti and a Crown of Thorns

There are ruins, both old and new, on the old site of Fort Louise Augusta high above the point that guards the entrance to Christiansted harbor. Some of these ruins are decorated with graffiti that are not likely to be innocent. Just to the left of the graffiti are the remains of an old building covered in the thorny cactus-like stalks of the night-blooming…

A Blood-Red Sea

Living so close to and surrounded by the sea, one develops a relationship with it — probably not unlike the relationship desert dwellers have with the desert, or forest dwellers with the forest. This awareness of place can help us be more attuned to messages from the world around us, and sometimes even feel its joys and pains.

Under the Casuarina Tree

The casuarina tree is not a native to the island, and some consider it an invasive. They are tolerant of windswept places and this large example stands along a windswept beach. Its leaves/needles are long, so when the wind blows there is a gentle soothing sound and the small branches sway like little grass skirts. When the needles fall, they form a barrier to…

A Feast of Fruit for the Eyes

Each summer, the local botanical garden hosts “Mango Melee”, a festival focused on mangoes and other tropical fruit. Many of these fruits are unusual in their texture and flavor, and unfamiliar to those of us used to the apples, grapes, peaches and pears more common in the temperate regions. Some tropical fruits are a bit sour, others cloyingly sweet, some firm and crunchy, some…

Donations

This donation box “for feeding the animals” is at a mini-zoo in the rainforest, part of the entertainment at a little stand that sells fabulous tropical fruit smoothies. The brightly hand-painted box sits on the metal base from an old Singer treadle sewing machine — somehow not out of place at all in this rustic location. In another form of donation, the local Senate…

Scent of St. Croix?

A play on words and the image of a dark haired seductress graces this sign hanging beneath a covered arcade in Christiansted town. The store advertises that it sells costumes and “accessories” such as lotions, bath products, “kama sutra” and more. A few blocks away, another female gazes forlornly from behind the bars of an abandoned storefront. Someone has placed her there among the…

Iowa Reflections

These are two images from a short visit to northeast Iowa and nearby Minnesota in June 2010. To the east of this area, the gently rolling plain gives way to steeper more wooded hills and valleys leading down to the Mississippi River. To the west, the woodlots become scarcer as the land rises imperceptibly to a higher and flatter plain ideal for wind farms…