From the Lower Edge

From the shadow’s edge, we rise — branch and photographer — drawn by a hidden river toward the meeting of ocean and sky.

A tender shoot rises from the frame’s shadow, her tendrils reaching toward a hill — perhaps the sun — sustained by the same hidden current that keeps the photographer standing. Both draw from a secret river, flowing toward the place where river and ocean meet in the estuary.

I saw him there — not merely behind the lens, but behind years of longing. The high August sun burned without mercy, yet he stood, drawing quiet strength from an unseen reserve — a hidden source of water that sustained him. It could not be seen, but it was there, the same life-giving flow that kept the branch in her upward journey.

From the lower edge of the frame, she rises — a tender green shoot, her slender stem and curling tendrils dancing against a pale sky, the dark shoulder of a hill pressing close behind. Each curve speaks of patience; each reach, of hope.

In that moment, photographer and branch became one — both sustained by the hidden current, perhaps from a secret river in search of meaning and knowing, flowing until it becomes one with the sea, in that far-off city where river and ocean meet in the estuary.