I was not going to leave the zoo without this image.

The beautiful bird, I first saw the outlines of through the man planted flora, gracefully glided across the artificial pond. Its motion cut a gentle trail in the small, evening breeze caused ripples.

I set an ambush at the narrow part of the pond and waited patiently. No good. The introverted animal was too edgy when passing by, and emerged in and out of the dark shadows at unpredictable intervals. This was going to be a long haul.

Luckily, with the ambient light we both needed running out quickly, my desire to capture the elegant curves of this creature and its routine craving to nibble a bit before the day expired reached an uneasy, but welcomed equilibrium. I held my breath and pushed the button with my cold stiffened finger.

Timeless beauty.

This is not a great story, just a blurb, with a moral that outweighs its size. The ever relevant message to those who take away your freedom is to realize they will never be able to deprive you of your Dignity, your Grace.

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A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

Jean de La Fontaine (1621 − 1695)

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There are some things you feel you can’t do without on a night like this, like going to a place where the light comes at its best and see it for yourself. For me, at that moment, the place was by the river.

Mud dragged my feet down with determination and the footprint holes were filled with underground resident water, dissolving them quickly, as the river was trying to do away with any trace of intrusion in its domain, especially on a night like this one.

What an incredible view that was.

Once presented with a sight, with its superb colors, vibrant reflections, textures of many, sounds of water and wind meeting obstacles on their way, the cumulative effect to your senses is on such a scale, that will certainly reignite your zest for life no matter what size of desert your soul may have.

A divine experience of this kind every night and, I think, I could outlast my fate.

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Yes, that very delightful illumination, the one I‘ve been searching for a long time, far and wide, the light indescribable and as elusive as ever.

Like in this landscape, where the dark forest still drains its branches, just moments after the mean storm and the sun reappears cautiously in a quest to reclaim the heavens from the gloomy threat, highlighting the spots on the puffy clouds and the ground, randomly, or possibly in a pattern I can’t comprehend.

The very luminosity that makes you start seeing things – around the ruin of an old house, behind the mysterious woods, between shy little clouds that float slightly above the tree tops and all the creatures that only need a good reason or a site like this to crawl out from your subconscious self, right from the deepest ends of your storytelling childhood memories.

I know, I should get serious and meet my age specs, but with a scene like this before my eyes and a camera in hand, that may not be trivial, even worse, I may be too old to grow up now.

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Entertain great hopes.

Robert Frost (1874 – 1963)

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