"Oh!"

Recently I drove alone down the coast of the Pacific Northwest.
Among other things, I was looking for a cover photograph
   for my 2007 Willowgreen catalog.
I knew exactly what I wanted:
    stately redwood trees enveloped by fog.
Near the end of my trip I found what I was looking for.
Hour after hour I composed image after image.
Yet when it came time for Katherine, my graphic artist,
    to do the artwork, none of these images quite worked.
Her design was just right,
    but my photographs looked ever so commonplace within it.
Now what?
“Oh!” she said as I scrolled quickly past other images
    from that trip.
She was responding to a simple photograph—
   some flowers at a lavender farm
        where I had stopped for a few minutes
            on my way to a rainforest in northern Washington.
A breeze kept blowing when I wished it wouldn’t,
    creating a blurred effect.
I thought of these images as throwaways
    until the moment Katherine said, “Oh!”
The catalog is now printed.
On the cover is a square image of three angled rows of lavender.
One of the rows is disturbed by the gust that blew through.
A couple of errant weeds stick up where they’re not supposed to.
No majestic redwoods,
    no feeling of stateliness,
        no mysterious fog.
Just a pastel field, some low flowers, and the late afternoon sun.
“Oh!” my wife Bernie said when she held the first printed copy.
Every so often, if not always,
   I am taught I must nudge my own thoughts out of the way,
        my own self out of the way,
    if I am going to be ushered to that place
        that rises above, and sinks beneath, all thinking.
The place of “Oh!”.