Music in the Trees in Wintertime

   Music in the Trees  in Wintertime

Brisbane, Australia 

Each leaf a note with the wind and in falling to the ground, a firefly beams with flashes of notes, crawlers in cadence of their own, and the treetops like the grass sway in cantabile, the winter wind chills in vibration, the germinating seeds whisper - all in keeping with the baton of Nature.

Dr Abe V Rotor

The Woods in Brisbane in Wintertime, Painting in acrylic 

by the author. July 2023

How I love to paint the trees on the backyard of my daughter's family house in Brisbane, just across a railing to a park, kept in its natural state which I call "woods", reminiscent of Robert Frost's description of woods in his poem, to quote, "the woods are lovely dark and deep."

But the woods here are sparse as they undergo hibernation in winter, because in the Southern hemisphere the seasons are exactly the opposite of ours in the northern hemisphere, when summer to us is winter in Australia, owing to the inclination of the earth's axis.

When I, my wife and son, took a vacation in Brisbane the temperature was less than 10 degrees Celsius on the average, with occasional gusts of wind and drizzle, and fog that would shroud the trees, rivers and lakes, yet as a whole the climate was invigoratingly fresh, though quite cool.

There with paintbrush and acrylic colors, half lying on the lawn, I tried to capture the scene on canvas, the sun overcast revealing the undergrowth as temperate trees are  mainly deciduous, save the evergreens mainly gymnosperms -  cypresses, and pines, like agoho that we know.

The birds came to greet us, I supposed, or they were attracted by the music of my violin as I played some popular and semi-classical tunes, including our Kundiman.  Isn't music universal, understood differently by all creatures, not only man but animals and plants - and the minutiae, as well?

Each leaf a note with the wind and in falling to the ground, a firefly beams with flashes of notes, crawlers in cadence of their own, and the treetops like the grass sway in cantabile, the winter wind chills in vibration, the germinating seeds whisper - all in keeping with the baton of Nature. 

I viewed my painting for a long time, long enough to meditate on its rendition, not for its incompleteness or simplicity, for after all, there's no end at aiming perfection, and it is the viewer who completes what the artist may have missed.  Such is the mystery of art, it reflects upon us beyond our comprehension in awe and reverence.  

* The earth's vertical axis tilts by 23.5 degrees, equivalent to an angle of 66.5 from the orbital plane. The earth maintains this tilt throughout its revolution. This is known as the parallelism of the earth's axis which explains the reason for the occurrence of seasons alternately occurring in opposite phases between the northern and southern hemispheres.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The painting hangs at the sala of the home of my daughter, her husband, and their two young children who joined me, their Lolo, in this rare adventure with nature.~