A soft and subtle photograph of a cicada husk (the shell they emerge from) clung to a stick

“Where we come from isn’t who we are”
My father seemed to say
Little ears distilling meaning
Learning the husk was empty
Because the cicada had emerged
Green and splendid and singing

#imageandverse #eastcoastkin

Pano image of a bright winter day on the rocky coast of Maine. Light clouds float in a blue sky with the sun casting flares from behind a cloud, onto the rocks. The rocks reach out to a calm blue sea with sparkling water.

"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you." ~Anne Lamott

#Stunday
#ImageAndVerse
#SensoryArt #LightFlare
#ECK
#photography
#Seascape
#MaineCoast
#Pano

A black and white macro photo of a tulip

Life is unpredictable,
It changes with the seasons, Even your coldest winter, Happens for the best of reasons, And though it feels eternal, Like all you'll ever
do is freeze, I promise
spring is coming, And with
it, brand new leaves.
~e.h

#BNWmacro #ImageAndVerse
#ECK #ClassicMono #tulip

North Cascade Mountains from Lake Chelan. The day is overcast and drizzly. The clouds are low in the sky. Wind blowing.

Timeless mountain stands,
Forest breathes in ancient hush—
Nature knows no end.

#ECK #Nature #PhotographersUnited #Scape #PhotographersOfBluesky #photography #BNW #ImageAndVerse

No Kings boat alongside the cherry blossoms at the Portland waterfront, No Kings marchers snaking up to the bridge view from within the protest on the Steel Bridge

Power to the People

and the cherry blossoms, too

they remind us there is beauty
and everything is temporary

and we remind each other
that we are all in this one wild and precious life
together

#Portland riverfront
many more lined up behind us
the boat was with us, too

#NoKings #ImageandVerse

Two palazzi in Rome, in typical colors of sunny yellow and terracotta orange. The palace in the background has a terrace garden with potted palms and other trees and flowers. Poem: https://www.best-poems.net/giosu-carducci/rome.html

VIENNESE ESCAPES
"ROME, on thine air I cast my soul adrift,
To soar sublime; do thou, O Rome, receive
This soul of mine and flood it with thy light."
Image © Merisi Vienna
#EastCoastKin #Photography #Stunday
#ImageAndVerse "Rome" by Giosuè Carducci

www.best-poems.net/giosu-carduc...

At an intracoastal waterway shoreline, some shrubs and sand and a blue colored water.

What are dreams made of?

Questions swirling in our minds...

Questions that make us stop to think...

What are dreams made of?
Yours, mine...

Hope, love...

What are dreams made of?

#ImageAndVerse

“How swiftly move the fluffy clouds
As I look up in the sky
So many lovely shapes I see
As the clouds go drifting by”
-Katie Lazette

Out walking with my dog. Loving the sky this morning

Lee County, Kentucky

#stunday #dogsofbluesky #huskiesofbluesky #ruralgaze #ECK #EastCoastKin #imageandverse

Great egret flying directly overhead, wings outstretched in a gentle V, carrying a large twig in its beak. Shot at Kiwanis Lake, York, PA March 2026

Angels, in the early morning
May be seen the dews among,
Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying;
Do the buds to them belong?

-- Emily Dickinson

Great egret aiding building nests at the local roost, snapped yesterday at Kiwanis Lake 🐦📷🦉

#Photography #Birds #Stunday #Nature #ImageAndVerse #ECK

Macro shot of new cherry blossoms, blooming in Kiwanis Park, York, PA yesterday. Yellow stamen darkened, other petals and the tree, surrounded in bokeh, hundreds of little hands reaching out and saying sneeze, sneeze through streaming eyes. Its cherry blossom season, my nose and eyes leave that in no doubt. BlueSky and IG are away with pinks, and beautiful though they are; for some of us allergy sufferers, its delight couched in pain. Verse is from Saigyo Hoshi, a 12th-century poet and later a Buddhist monk. His travels inspired Matsuo Basho, centuries later, to undertake his famous journey to the north.

"haru kaze no
hana wo chirasu to
miru yume wa
samete mo mune no
sawagu narikeri"

(the spring wind
scattering blossoms
I saw it in a dream
but when I awoke the sound
was still rustling in my breast)

-- Saigyo Hoshi

(See alt text)

#Photography #ImageAndVerse #BloomScrolling #ECK #BNWMacro

A monkey examines his hands in front of mountains

A monkey examines his hands in front of mountains

‘Here in this moment to myself
I'm gonna vibe with no one else
There is a conversation I need to have with me
It's just a moment to myself’
Macy Gray
#imageandverse
#stunday
#eastcoastkin
Could have used for background for yesterday but didn’t 😂

Clouds, trees, crops — on the Alberta prairie.

"Notice the silence. Notice your heart. It’s still beating. Still fighting. Now get back to work. Work with your mind sharp. Then take a shower, wash off the day." ― Charlotte Eriksson, You're Doing Fine
#ImageAndVerse #AlphabetChallenge #WeekLForLayers #BlueskyArtShow #ECK #Photography #Prairie

Black and white close-up of dried pampas grass with delicate curling strands against a blurred background.

around pampas grass
sprites are dancing happily
tiny troublemakers

#vss365 #Sprite #Senryu #Haiku #Poetry #Micropoetry #JustWrite #Photography #Nature #Grass #ImageAndVerse #Haiga #EastCoastKin

Recycling/“Kondo’ing”old books at the local used bookstore. I had to pay $3 (lol) for them to take the Marie Kondo book and it still didn’t bring me joy. Ironically, we still have a copy (gifted). Repeat in 1 yr to check market fidelity.
#wabisabi #Kondo #sakura #imageandverse #stunday #photography

A close-up photograph of cherry blossoms on a thin branch. In the center, two light pink flowers are in bloom, their layered petals opened wide to reveal fine, pale stamens. To the right, several small magenta flower buds are clustered together, still tightly closed. The background is blurred, showing the weathered brown shingles of a house and a hint of a white window frame.

#ImageAndVerse #Zen
#SilentSunday #Nature
#CherryBlossoms #Spring
#JustBreathe #GetOutside
#StunDay #BloomScrolling
#Flowers #Photography

Light as feathers, as fleeting
as Zephyr, one moment they
breathed pink, the next they
faded. Cherry blossoms…
— Alice Poon

📷 03/26/26 #ECK
Annapolis, MD (US)

“It's a lonesome #sundown
This is gonna be hard
I know so don't let go”
- Tom Petty

#Stunday
#EastCoastKin
#PhotographersUnited #PhotographersOfBlueSky #photography #ImageAndVerse
#ArtYear
#BlueSkyPhotography

Medusa Carol Ann Duffy, 1999 A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy grew in my mind, which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes, as though my thoughts hissed and spat on my scalp. My bride’s breath soured, stank in the grey bags of my lungs. I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued, yellow fanged. There are bullet tears in my eyes. Are you terrified? Be terrified. It’s you I love, perfect man, Greek God, my own; but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray from home. So better by far for me if you were stone. I glanced at a buzzing bee, a dull grey pebble fell to the ground. I glanced at a singing bird, a handful of dusty gravel spattered down. I looked at a ginger cat, a housebrick shattered a bowl of milk. I looked at a snuffling pig, a boulder rolled in a heap of shit. I stared in the mirror. Love gone bad showed me a Gorgon. I stared at a dragon. Fire spewed from the mouth of a mountain. And here you come with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue and your girls, your girls. Wasn’t I beautiful? Wasn’t I fragrant and young? Look at me now. [pictured: brick buildings at dusk with one in the center featuring a mural of Medusa’s face]

#Cityscape for this week’s #BlueSkyArtShow ( #background) along with a bit of Medusa by Carol Ann Duffy for #ImageAndVerse (full poem in alt text)

A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy
grew in my mind,
which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes,
as though my thoughts
hissed and spat on my scalp.

Exquisite Laurie 🤩❤️👌🏼

#OrangeSun #ImageAndVerse
Tucked within the living green,
A glass-bound world is softly seen.
A sky of fire, a petal’s grace,
Returning to its birthing place.

A black white photograph close-up photograph of a humble bumblebee standing on a painted plank. “The hum of bees is the voice of the garden” - Elizabeth Lawrence.

“The hum of bees is the voice of the garden” - Elizabeth Lawrence

#BNWmacro #bee #B&W #ImageAndVerse #ClassicMono #photography #ECK #EastCoastKin

This black-and-white photograph features a cluster of faded hydrangea flowers. The petals, once vibrant, now appear delicate and slightly wilted, capturing the transient beauty of nature’s cycle. The composition focuses on the intricate textures of the petals, with soft lighting that accentuates their paper-like quality. The background is blurred, creating a shallow depth of field that draws attention to the details of the hydrangea in the foreground. The contrast between light and shadow adds a sense of depth and nostalgia to the image. Dieses Schwarz-Weiß-Foto zeigt eine Ansammlung verblühter Hortensienblüten. Die einst lebendigen Blütenblätter wirken nun zart und leicht welk und fangen die vergängliche Schönheit des natürlichen Kreislaufs ein. Die Komposition konzentriert sich auf die feinen Texturen der Blütenblätter, die durch sanftes Licht betont werden und ihre papierartige Qualität hervorheben. Der Hintergrund ist unscharf, was eine geringe Schärfentiefe schafft und die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Details der Hortensie im Vordergrund lenkt. Der Kontrast zwischen Licht und Schatten verleiht dem Bild Tiefe und eine melancholische Note. Alt-Text generated by a LLM, supervised by a human!

Botanical Poetry, March 2026

Petals soft and wise,
Silent veins of stories told,
Time in bloom survives.

#Stunday #BNWmacro #ImageAndVerse #Haiku #AlphabetChallenge #WeekLForLayers #blackandwhitephotography #ClassicMono #BotanicalArt #ShadowAndLight #EastCoastKin #ECK

‘Prismatic Points'

Heather,
Tapered, vibrant,
Stretching toward the sun,
Emerald stems tipped with fire,
Glowing.

Our garden's latest Calluna vulgaris.

Sparty 🙏🏼💚🧡

#EastCoastKin #ECK #Photography #ColorADay #OrangeSun #StunDay #Nature #Art #ArtYear #PhotographersofBluesky #ImageandVerse #Cinquain

This macro photograph showcases the intricate, scale-like foliage of a vibrant heather plant, a cultivar of Calluna vulgaris. The image is a study in shallow depth of field, with the central stalks rendered in tactile detail while the background dissolves into a soft, impressionistic blur. Each tiny, upward-reaching branch is densely packed with minute, overlapping leaves that exhibit a beautiful colour transition. At the base, the foliage is a deep, rich forest green, shifting dramatically toward the tips into a luminous lime green and finally culminating in fiery shades of peach, coral, and sunset orange. The morning's light is soft and directional, coming from the upper left, causing the translucent orange tips to glow as if lit from within. This backlighting emphasises the rhythmic, mathematical precision of the leaf arrangement. Each stem reaches toward the sky with a textured, needle-like quality that is crisp against the hazy backdrop. The contrast between the needle-sharp orange points and the ethereal surroundings creates a profound sense of intimacy, drawing the eye to the secret, miniature architecture of the plant. In the blurred background, soft "bokeh" circles of light dance across a muted palette - a horizontal band of out-of-focus chartreuse from a sunlit lawn disappearing into the distance, while darker, vertical shapes above it hint at a dividing garden fence. The composition celebrates the vivid transitions of nature, focusing purely on the plant's structural beauty and vibrant pigments. The overall atmosphere is one of quiet, serene beauty, highlighting how the plant's tips capture and hold the morning light, creating a sunset-like gradient across the tiny, scale-covered branches. This detailed perspective captures the silent, sculptural elegance of the plant’s growth, highlighting the sheer variety of hues that can exist on a single stem. The interplay of shadow and light defines every individual leaf, revealing a hidden, complex geometry.

'Prismatic Points'

Heather,
Tapered, vibrant,
Stretching toward the sun,
Emerald stems tipped with fire,
Glowing.

Our garden's latest Calluna vulgaris.

Sparty 🙏🏼💚🧡

#EastCoastKin #ECK #Photography #ColorADay #OrangeSun #StunDay #Nature #Art #ArtYear #PhotographersofBluesky #ImageandVerse #Cinquain

Framed mosaic of purple iris under bright orange sky. The painting is sitting in a bed of green under amidst irises. Experimenting with art imitating life, art returning to its source.

#OrangeSun #ImageAndVerse
Tucked within the living green,
A glass-bound world is softly seen.
A sky of fire, a petal’s grace,
Returning to its birthing place.

The door is open
The lock it’s long since broken
Enter with kindness

#haiku
#poetry
#photography
#eastcoastkin
#ShowHeart
#ImageAndVerse
#secretgarden

Photo courtesy of Lola Jovan @lolajovan.com

#ImageAndVerse

This morning while cleaning the bathroom I wanted to warn you,

"Don't mix Clorox with antibacterial soap because it causes a toxic gas & you could pass out"

but you're dead & can't hear me & even if you can you have no use for such advice except to know that I love you very much. 💔

The orb of the sun hovers above the horizon of the ocean, tinging everything. A bird is in the foregroud.

“You may forever, child,
feel a type of way, but you
must get up every morning and watch
the sun rise from the ocean.”
― Kwame Opoku-Duku
#ImageandVerse #Photography #Sunrise

a cup of coffee is being poured into a bowl on a table . Alt: Coffee is being poured continuously into a white bottomless cup

Hello friends! Happy #StunDay, #ImageAndVerse, & #BlueBrewBooks Sunday! How are you? 🙋‍♂️

It’s about 6:30am 🕡 EDST here, and ☀️. I’m making our rich & aromatic #BlueBrew in the coffeehouse. Who’d like a cup? ☕️

Please do stop by & say hello! 👋

We close at 10:30am 🕥 EDST 😊

#EastCoastKin #ECK

#imageandverse #selfportrait #eastcoastkin

My roots go down to the depths of the world, through earth dry with brick, and damp earth, through veins of lead and silver. I am all fibre. All tremors shake me, and the weight of the earth is pressed to my ribs. Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing

Who doesn’t #love a little #Shakespeare ?

For #imageandverse here is a #rose and a #sonnet

#poem #bloom #flower #poetry #eastcoastkin #orangesun #coloraday #stunday

Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom

That is absolutely beautiful Sabine! & wonderfully taken as well my friend 🤩💚👌🏼 Love the Proverb as well!

“Evening gray and morning red, put on your hat or you'll wet your head" (Proverb)
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekLForLayers #ImageAndVerse #macrophotography #photography
#PhotographersOfBluesky #ECK