Prairie Light

I wandered campus this afternoon, searching for sparks of light. At first I thought I wasn’t going to find anything – a dry, overcast day doesn’t tend towards the same interplay of light and shadow, or of light on water, as a sunshiny day or a wet day. As I looked more closely, I enjoyed the interplay of two different sorts of moments of light: interactions with people, and the light in the plants.

Usually when I walk on campus it is early morning, or early evening, and there aren’t many people around. Today students and profs were scurrying between classes, and I exchanged greetings with six or seven people I knew. One, seeing that I was prowling with my camera, directed me to this tree on the southeast corner of the Ad building which she described as “practically iridescent, even in this light.”

Another was checking the progress of the prairie plantings on campus. We stopped to chat about how well they are doing – even the section by the tracks that the train company had sprayed just after the college seeded that area. The black eyed susans, mulleins, cone flowers and grasses had already been catching my eye. Here’s a medley, along with a tree branch or two. The sun even came out towards the end of my stroll, bringing out the light of the plants.