Saturday, July 11, 2009











"Centaurea macrocephala, Great Golden Knapweed, Armenian Basketflower"
John Bonanno photograph, Hiram, Maine, July 11, 2009

Helios finally deigned to shine on Maine this morning displaying flora to great effect. Centaurea was the herb of Chiron, the centaur. This specimen is about to peak. The big flower heads of this species, hence macrocephala, can be seen here in all states of bud and bloom.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

"Chloë the Flying Cat" Early 1990's photograph by Beth Bonanno

Chloë was an extremely slight and very furry cat with a tiny head. My former wife gave her to me after some unspecified outrage she had committed in her house. She (the cat) loved it when I tossed her in the air and caught her. Eventually I began to fling her up in the air higher and higher. I used to sing the Jackie Wilson song about that to her. Her light weight and fluffy long fur allowed her to glide like a flying squirrel back down to me. She was a sweet but very dimwitted cat and this was her only talent. She also exceeded in catching me by surprise when she had kittens at an absurdly young age before I could arrange to have her ovaries removed. (One night she ripped out a hole in the bottom of my box spring and gave birth inside it while I slept.) She was never harmed by her aerial antics and she died of old age, her flying days well behind her.
This picture is cropped from an old print. Some dirt was retouched out of the sky but the cat is really up there.


Higher and Higher

Your love, lifting me higher
Than I've ever been lifted before
So keep it it up
Quench my desire
And I'll be at your side, forever more

You know your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)
Higher (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on (love keeps lifting me)
Lifting me (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)

Now once I was down hearted
Disappointment was my closest friend
But then you came and it soon departed
And you know he never
Showed his face again

That's why
You know your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)
Higher (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on (love keeps lifting me)
Lifting me (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)

[Instrumental Interlude]

I'm so glad, I've finally found you
Yes, that one, in a million girl
And now with my loving arms around you
Honey, I can stand up and face the world

You know your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)
Higher (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on (love keeps lifting me)
Lifting me (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)

Now sock it me

Lyrics: First claimed by Gary Jackson and Carl Smith
later, Billy Davis and Raynard Miner of Motown claimed Jackson and Smith stole it from a briefcase there and successfully sued them for damages.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

"Emma K II, Dismal Swamp Canal" 1980, John Bonanno photograph


"Lake Drummond, The Great Dismal Swamp" 1980, John Bonanno photograph

Swamp-1624 (first used by Capt. John Smith, in reference to Virginia), perhaps a dial. survival from an O.E. cognate of O.N. svoppr "sponge, fungus," from P.Gmc. *swampuz; but traditionally connected with M.E. sompe "morass, swamp," probably from M.Du. somp or M.L.G. sump "swamp." Related to O.N. svöppr "sponge." The verb sense of "overwhelm, sink (as if in a swamp)" is first recorded 1772; fig. sense is from 1818. Swamp Yankee "rural, rustic New Englander" is attested from 1941.-Online Etymology Dictionary

This is one of the fantastic places of the Earth. It straddles southeast Virginia into northeast North Carolina. The oval-shaped Lake Drummond may have been formed by a crashing meteoroid or a peat burn or a fire bird. The water of the swamp is unique in that the chemicals (primarily tannic acid) leached from decaying trees act as a germicide. Barrels of this amber water were once upon a time loaded on ships to take advantage of its famously persistent freshness. The dark color of the water is evident in the "Emma K" photograph above.
George Washington owned a 1/12 share in two syndicates called The Dismal Swamp Land Company and The Adventurers For Draining The Great Dismal Swamp to (obviously) drain it and build a canal from Chesapeake Bay to Albemarle Sound. Fortunately Washington and his successors failed in most of their efforts; a canal to Lake Drummond was dug but the great swamp could not be drained. It survives, less magnificently, today, as most of the original white cedar, cypress and gum has been logged. About half of the original swamp comprises the 107,000 acre Great Dismal Swamp National Refuge. Much was donated or sold by logging companies to the Nature Conservancy and transferred to the Department of the Interior after the last virgin forests were finally harvested by the 1950's and logging was discontinued in the early 1970's.
Runaway slaves hid here. There are bigfoot, ghost and ufo stories in a place like this, of course. One may see the eerie foxfire in the night. But it is not necessary to have heard the strange tales people tell to feel the magic when paddling utterly alone in its depths.

The Slave In The Dismal Swamp
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The hunted Negro lay;
He saw the fire of the midnight camp,
And heard at times a horse's tramp
And a bloodhound's distant bay.

Where will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,
In bulrush and in brake;
Where waving mosses shroud the pine,
And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine
Is spotted like the snake;

Where hardly a human foot could pass,
Or a human heart would dare,
On the quaking turf of the green morass
He crouched in the rank and tangled grass,
Like a wild beast in his lair.

A poor old slave, infirm and lame;
Great scars deformed his face;
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,
And the rags, that hid his mangled frame,
Were the livery of disgrace.

All things above were bright and fair,
All things were glad and free;
Lithe squirrels darted here and there,
And wild birds filled the echoing air
With songs of Liberty!

On him alone was the doom of pain,
From the morning of his birth;
On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth!