Departure Delay

He looks like a frog sitting there, a pinhead with an oversized jaw.  I expect his tongue to dart out between those thin lips any moment now.  No buzzing flies to tempt his appetite, I guess.

I wonder what the woman sitting next to him sees in him.  Maybe she’s a frog princess.  In this florescent lighting, her blond hair does resemble a mat of blue-green algae.

The next thing I know I’ll be seeing sprites under the seats.  There’s one now.  He’s going through her purse. What could he possibly want with her lipstick?

I know, the windows.  Yes, he could write on them in backwards print:   Help! Trapped by the security lines.  Airplane missing.  That won’t do—too long.  Maybe just a HELP!  We’ve been kidnapped or HELP!  Incompetent terrorists.  That should attract somebody’s attention.

The sprite must be reading my mind.  He’s crawling out into the aisle.  He’s standing up, and he’s wearing a disguise,  He looks like a three-year-old in his Spiderman T-shirt and baggy cargo pants, but I know better. I can see pointy ears under all that red hair.  There’s a grin on his face and mischief in his eyes

He turns for, oops, it’s not the windows.  He goes for the lily pad.  He wants the newspaper under the frog’s ample behind.  The frog croaks.  The frog princess supervises the extraction.

Maybe the sprite is going to write a message in red lipstick on the crumpled newsprint and hold it up to the window.  I’ll bet he is.  He must know the answer to the riddle: What is black and white and red all over? It’s our bruised and bleeding patience.

This is actually a Giant Toad
by Jeter Skeet

Flowing

I am the St. Johns River.
Mother Earth gives me life,
nourishes me with streams and warm springs.

As I flow, I feel
power as my waters brush
against Cyprus knobs and piers,
cormorants and anhingas who pierce
my waters as they dive to feed,
fish who tickle me as they swim
in my currents.

As I flow, I listen to
motor boats rushing upstream and down,
mating calls of herons, osprey, and more,
rains that sustain me.

As I flow, I smell
flowers and trees,
pheromones,
the life that surrounds me.

As I flow, I watch
birds who fly with a freedom
I’ll never know,
my currents play with reflections—
such beauty.
and I watch you watching me.

I am the St. Johns River.
I flow, then merge with my own kind
in a vast sea of togetherness.

reflection in a quiet section of river
by Jeter Skeet

Trouble Right Here in River City

Bornean  Orangutan

       In Borneo, palm-oil plantations
       replace the jungle homes of
       orangutans.  Mercury and silt
       from gold mines pollute rivers.

Wildebeest

                       Plastic bags litter part of the
                       Serengeti and cattle graze on
                       grasses that the great migrating
                       herds of wildebeests have
                       depended on for centuries.

Sifica

          Madagascar has lost 85% of the
          forests, lost to farmland and for
          charcoal to cook food.  Where are
          indigenous lemurs supposed to live?

Bayou Country

Imposing cypress with
     rooted feet

Great Heron
Louisiana
by Jeter Skeet

warmed by
  marshy slippers
     knobby knees
like gnarly
           arthritic knuckles
     branching arms
draped in shawls
of Spanish moss
     sturdy trunks
sporting bonnets of
herons, egrets, bald eagles …

grandmother trees
matriarchs in a legendary land
of once upon a time—
before the drilling began.

Bayou Country
Lousiana
by Jeter Skeet

My Ovation

The doors at Barnes and Nobles are tall, tall enough for the 7-footer to pass through without any inconvenience.  The problem for me is that these double doors are heavy—burglar-proof, I guess.  With my hands full (briefcase and bag or cane), I have to lean in to push them open and then dash through them before they close automatically.

Occasionally, a man or woman may be going into the store behind me.  They often reach around me to open the door.  I say, “Thank you.”  Then they do the same for the second door.  Smiling, I say, “Thank you,” again.  We make eye contact and I notice the smile my helpers' faces.  We are both happy.  I appreciate the help, and they are feeling good about themselves for their acts of kindness.

I've witnessed this phenomena many times—an ATV driver carried my tripod with camera over tidal flats in Alaska, a guide did the same for me in a jungle in Borneo, a Mexican checked with me three times to see whether my plane had arrived so he could push my wheelchair down the ramp—just to name a few.  In all cases the helper sent me on my way with kind words and a big smile.

It’s like I can use my physical problems to make other people happy.  Isn't that strange?  I am loosing all my embarrassment.  People seem to love to help.

That’s a long introduction to what I really want to talk about.  Our last trip was a cruise around the Baja California in a sport-fishing boat.  Talk about rough seas.  The Pacific can be a roller-coaster ride at times.  I had trouble staying on my feet.  I felt safe enough while sitting (which means I spent very little time on the deck shooting killer whales and common dolphins and sea lions).  Then there were all those sea birds and much more. You can imagine my difficulties taking photographs.

With the help of some burly seamen, I did make a few excursions on skiffs and pangas. They helped me up and down the ladder into and out of the smaller boats by guiding my legs from below and pulling me up by my life-vest.  The one time I went ashore, a seaman grabbed me by my sides and lifted me up over the gunwale to get me back into the boat.  Each time their touch was firm, but gentle.

On our last night everyone gathered together in the dinning area.  The Captain wanted us each to list the two experiences we liked the best.  When it was time for me to speak, I used my arms to illustrate my trip over the gunwale.  Before I could name my second choice, an ovation broke out.  Everyone was clapping.  When they stopped, I said "and gray whales."

Why?  Why did those wonderful people—amateur and professional photographers and British tourists—clap?  Was the ovation for me, for not letting my heath problems stop me?  I prefer to believe it was for the crew because they did most of the work.  But maybe it was for both me and the crew.  Maybe those people understood the relationship between the helped and helper and were enjoying that love too.

Galapagos Penguins
Galapagos
by Jeter Skeet

Photographic Experiences

• A lion cub roars at us with his baby voice.   He’s protecting his family from metallic monsters with big camera eyes.  
• A young orangutan runs his finger around inside a jar he stole from a boat ferrying photographers upriver. He licks tasty peanut butter from his finger.  
• A gray whale and her calf play with a panga blowing spray on the people aboard, pushing the small boat side-wards, edging close enough to be touched and spyhopping to get a better look at their new friends.

We, my husband and I, are amateur nature photographers.  We try to go on about three photo-shoots a year with other amateurs.  One or two professionals accompany us.

The pros are in charge, and one is young enough to be my daughter.  She’s in the habit of telling me ‘No” like I’m a spoiled child.  “No, you cannot go out to the vulture blind.”  “No, you cannot do the trail to the bats.”  “No, you can’t go to Australia, but your husband is welcome.”

On our first trip with her, she discovered that I was having problems with heat and fatigue.  I was using a cane to help me avoid falls.  I was so exhausted once that by the time I made it back to the boat (an act of will) I collapsed.

The pros always know about my physical problems before they accept our down payments, and we always have travel insurance in case I need a medical evacuation.  I understand the bind that I put them in when we travel to foreign lands.  I've asked them all to tell me “No” if they think I can’t do something.  Sometimes I tell myself  “No.”  I can’t climb a hill let alone a mountain.

I hate it.  I hate my physical limitations, but I don’t let them stop me.  My SLR cameras with attachable lenses are too heavy for me now.  So I’m using a POWERSHOT.  I do the best I can while enjoying the various environments and animals and the company of photographers.  I wonder if I’ll be able to take quality photographs from a wheelchair when the time comes.  If not, I’ll still have my pen.

Lakeside

I want to get up early one morning
Before sunrise, before the howlers howl.
I want to go down to the lake and bathe before
women come down to scrub clean the day.

After I shed the baptizing water and dress,
I’ll sit upon the bank to let the sun warm
the notebook on my thigh. With pen in hand,
I’ll watch the sky take on soft tints of dawn.

Perched on branches of a tree uprooted and
submerged by some violent, forgotten storm
neotropic cormorants will shake themselves awake
to dive and spear a breakfast of luckless fish.

Roosting on a small island, great white egrets
will preen silhouetted against pink clouds.
Nearby clinging to ceiba and mahogany, wild
orchids will inspire my mood as well as my words.

I want to watch dugout canoes ply quiet waters
paddled by children on their way to school
or to work hoisting handmade fishing nets
while I remember that once I was one of them.

I want to spend the day listening to the jungle
behind me come awake as I paint the sounds
and scents with foreign words and remember
the countless brothers and sisters I never knew.

Cormorant Taking Flight
Guatemala-2002
by Jeter Skeet

Brainstorming

But everyone doesn't have to be a writer or photographer to help them cope.  Almost any pain-numbing distraction might work. I’m going to ask Trixsay to see how many she can list in five minutes after I take a restroom break—

• bake an rum upside-down pie

• read Dr. Suess to toddlers without getting tongue-tied

• sketch an ATV taking a dirt bath under a palm tree

• walk through a ghost town with museums

• play air-violin to Brahms’ Symphony #1 in C-minor

• work a 2000-piece puzzle of a picture of tadpoles

• talk to God like Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof )

• bathe this orphan orangutan--

Borneo-2011                                          by Jeter Skeet

Finding Moments

My moments occur most often when I'm watching people or animals.  Then I stretch those inspirations into hours or even days by writing in a journal or processing photographs on Lightroom.

There are many places to people-watch--restaurants, pocket parks, or even box stores that provides benches near the exits.  When I can't keep up with my family at Wal-Mart, I make a snake-line to a bench.

A slim white-haired woman came by with a wagon atop her shopping cart.  We made eye-contact and I asked if the wagon was for a grandchild.  She said, "No" and proceeded to tell me that the wagon was cheaper than a wheelbarrow.  I could just see her leaning over to one side trying to pull on the short handle during her gardening.

Another woman was wearing a drab homemade dress typical of Amish attire, but she had no hair covering.  She was wearing pumpkin-orange and coal-black striped knee-length socks. She may have been going to a quilting bee at her church that afternoon to brag about the dress she'd just finished and the new socks her granddaughter had given her for her birthday.

A couple were walking side by side. She was delicate weighing at most a petite hundred pounds.  He was a three-hundred pound cousin of a grizzly bear, complete with fur on his chin, arms, and a tuft peaking out of the neck of his shirt. I couldn't help but speculate about the hair on the rest of his body and imagined her snuggling into a warm fur coat.

Anhinga looking backwards
Brazil-2010
by Jeter Skeet