Sana Tamreen Mohammed
Prologue to “The Ritual in a State Park”
He takes pictures of the wild violet flowers naturally stabilizing in fall. They look tiny against the close faces of the peering hills. Cold eyes behind the fixed cubicles overlooking the paved roads. The rock-hard stems, still green, cut deep through the wet soil. The petals are sharp. Razor blades in the dry winds.
Such is the scene of the state park that surrounds the craftily marketed byway. Those flowers growing just outside the boundary are last to be touched by fall.
The Ritual in a State Park
Brightly discoloring leaves in the dry foliage.
A woodpecker hammers its way on a tree.
Appendix I
“…On February 3, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it intends to adopt a rule holding that industries and businesses will no longer be prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for the ‘incidental take’ – or accidental killing – of migratory birds.”
Source: Haley Cohen Gilliland, Nat Geo