The Liquid Canvas of the Fort Worth Water Gardens

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A repost from six years ago. It seemed “less autumn” than today . . .Please click on link at the end to view the entire article.

Cadence4life Imprints

Amid a major convention center, hotels, office buildings and parking garages is an anomalous yet fitting contrast to concrete and asphalt.  The Fort Worth Water Gardensis indeed an oasis. sited to intersperse business and art, active and passive, work and play.

This 4.3-acre urban park was dedicated to the City of Fort Worth by the Amon G. Carter Foundation in 1974.  Architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee juxtaposed three contrasting water canvasses woven together by tree-lined pathways. open grassy interludes and dramatic sculptures.  Collectively, the three water features engage our senses, challenge our boundaries and delight our souls.

The Active Pool is certainly no pool.  It is a series of angled waterfalls that form dizzying peaks and valleys.  Compounding this visual overload is the incessant roar of cascading water, rhythmic in tune to uneven steps and echoing in deep crevices. Brave visitors, like my husband Richard, take a broken path just a few inches above the flowing water.

Chasm!Chasm!

City waterfallUrban Waterfall

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Echoes at Twilight

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Impression, soleil levant – Claude Monet 1872

I hike beneath a conifer canopy
along a narrow cinder trail
a mosaic of pine needles and sunspots
gently descending an old mountain
that shadows a small fishing village
where the air is a confluence
of fog descending from midair clouds
and briny mist rising from the grey sea

I hear a cacophony of voices
fishermen unloading spider webs
woven from tree fibers and grass
that trap fish, crab, seaweed,
they speak in the thick Gaelic tongue
created by selkies and mermaids
who bask on rock outcroppings
near whistling dolphins
bidding me come hither and play

I yearn to heed their summons
to swim with creatures who breathe water
to forage along reefs and in seaweed forests
to suspend in stillness on a mere whim

I float on the sea under smoky quartz skies
wispy clouds above sway and shift
in reverent homage to their god Loki
master in the art of shape changing

I see twilight heralding the morning sun
I inhale one last breath of air salty and chilled
I bid farewell to creatures fabled in legends
I awaken in fractured shadows of familiar echoes