Self-appointed Inspector

For many years I was the self-appointed
inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms
and did my duty faithfully,
though I never received payment for it.
Henry David Thoreau

I’ve become a self-appointed inspector too.
Many of us have.
For me it all began one Saturday morning,
   after receiving a surprise birthday gift the evening before:
      my first good camera, a Nikkormat.
I appointed myself to inspect a bed of chrysanthemums
   in a nearby public park.
Thirty-six exposures, one pretty much like the next.
In time I went on to inspect
   hundreds of varieties of flowers, jillions of weeds,
         a gazillion trees, and a landscape or two.
I’ve single-handedly inspected
   sand, stones, rocks, boulders,
      streams, rivers, lakes, oceans,
   fields, plains, deserts, valleys,
      paths, roads, lanes, labyrinths,
   clouds, sky, rain, snow, ice,
      and my full allotment of dandelions.
All faithfully inspected, just like Thoreau,
   all self-appointed, like Thoreau,
      and all without payment, as with Thoreau.
Except, as any contemplative photographer knows,
   the payment in reality has always been there,
      and it’s been sizable.
Quite sizable.