Two Daylilies, Red

The summer of 2003 was “the summer of the flower.”
It may not have shown up that way on your calendar, but it did on mine.
I was creating a video that would end up being titled
      The Art of Listening in a Healing Way.
It didn’t take many focus groups to figure out that fifty minutes is a long time
      to show a succession of pictures of
            one person listening to another person.
So I elected to use floral photography throughout,
      each image loosely illustrating the nineteen ideas presented.
What a cast I assembled!
Red tulips leaning toward each other, and yellow tulips leaning away.
Daisies paying attention, and poppies lost in thought.
Dahlias being silent, snapdragons responding, and sunflowers holding hope.
Sometimes, in order to simplify a composition,
      I photographed my subjects against an empty blue sky.
I found these two daylilies keeping company
      beside a gravestone in an old cemetery.
To photograph them this way, I was lying on my back,
      looking upside down through my viewfinder.
I liked the way each daylily was an equal, and independent,
      yet they were in touch with one another, just enough.
I have no doubt they were great listeners.