Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome back poet, writer and photographer Laura Rodley of Massachusetts with two striking photographs illuminating different facets of expectations.
Paw Paw reveals a whorl of leaves unfurling. Asimina triloba, the American paw paw, is a small deciduous tree with broad leaves and generous fruit with a custard-like texture and tropical flavor reminiscent of banana or pineapple. Often eaten raw, paw paw also finds its way into ice cream and baked desserts. The expectation here is twofold: the plant opening itself to another season, and the promise of sweetness to come. In the background, a blurred structure—perhaps a gazebo or umbrella—echoes and contrasts the paw paw’s form, creating a subtle visual rhyme that draws the eye inward.
Waiting for verdict in doctor’s office captures the light-headed, sickening pause before a medical diagnosis. Laura has taken a photo of a padded bench in the waiting room, bedazzled by a pattern of light created by the sun shining through the window-blinds. The light is beautiful, geometric, and transparent, giving us the feeling of mutability and transcendence. In this moment of suspended time, expectation becomes a fragile balance between dread and hope, the ordinary transfigured by light.
View Laura’s lovely photos, which lift the ordinary toward the sacred, in Synkroniciti’s Expectations, Vol. 8, No. 2, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Pushcart Prize winner Laura Rodley’s latest books are Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Press, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and Ribbons and Moths Poems for Children by Kelsay Books.