Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)
The delightfully complex shape of columbines always reminds me of a harlequin's chapeau or a medieval court jester's cap. The architecture is splendid stuff, and there is a blithely capering choreography to the columbine's dancing "to and fro" movement on gracefully arching and swaying stems. With sunlight shining through them, the petals and sepals of the flower seem to be made of stained glass.
The stained glass analogy is apt, for the flowers dwell in woodland cathedrals of flickering sunlight and deep green shadows. The ceilings of the structures are way up in the sky, and the soaring green arches disappear into the clouds. The leafy chapels seem to go on and on forever, and the clerestories, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses would make any architect proud. Such places hum with enchantment.
As I often do at this time of the year, I am reading (again) John Crowley's fabulous Little, Big, and a sentence about the forest at the heart of the book comes to mind: “The further in you go, the bigger it gets.”
Columbines often seem to be wearing at least one spider web, along with bits of fluff from nearby cottonwood trees and slender filaments of milkweed silk. I am always astonished by what my macro lens "sees" and records in its ramblings. At times, its loving eye seems to linger and caress everything it encounters, and that is particularly so when columbines are in bloom.
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