Photo/Text 7: Offerings

They have brought me acorns, quinces, rose petals, catalpa pods, seashells, beads, bookmarks, broken coconut shells, folded notes the size of teeth, bluets pulled up by the roots, paper hearts, sheets of birch bark, leaves from many trees, fistfuls of dandelions, green tomatoes, chestnuts, plastic bags bursting with pine needles, branches with and without foliage, twigs, samaras, drawings, clay sculptures, sharpened pencils, unsharpened pencils, pumpkin stems, broken pens, the springs from pens, dead batteries, paintings, blocks, tiny wheels from lost cars, erasers, buttons, chalk, nailed together planks of wood, puzzle pieces, milkweed pods, hickory nuts, robin’s eggs, feathers, liquidambar seed pods, rocks, pieces of asphalt, uprooted seedlings, dead June bugs, living ladybugs, butterfly wings, speckled eggshell fragments, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, sticky candies, too-small paper crowns, snail shells, ants, paperclips, screws, washers, lengths of twine, ribbons, pen caps, twist ties, macaroni jewelry, cattails, and just last week, three crabapples. “Is it OK,” I asked them, “if I just photograph the apples, and then we’ll leave them here for the birds? By photographing them, it’s like I’m keeping them forever.” Uncertain, they acquiesced, but as we walked away, they cast regretful looks back at their offerings.