Reverie And Reflection ...

“Our love is a dream, but in my reverie

I can see that this love was meant for me …

So love me as I love you in my reverie

Make my dream a reality …”

    ~ “My Reverie”

   ~ 1938 popular song with lyrics by Larry Clinton; its melody is based on the 1890 piano   piece “Reverie” by French classical composer Claude Debussy, 1862 ~ 1918

   ~ Recorded by artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Bing Crosby & Sarah Vaughn

When I saw this simple white bench perched with a view of trees reflecting in the Lehigh River on a beautiful early November afternoon, it made me think of Debussy’s “Reverie,” as I feel his compositions sound like art set to music. I presented the image in sepia to enhance that ethereal, dream-like mood that is reverie, and to mirror the beauty of autumn that is tinged with sadness.

I captured this shot this after setting out from the Cementon Trailhead of the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, Cementon, Pennsylvania, part of the Asher F. Boyer Eagle Trail section of the D&L.

 

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

 

Lighting The Way ...

  “I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”

         ~ Og Mandino

              ~ American writer

                    ~ 1923 ~ 1996

 Reflections from lights on the historic Northampton Street Bridge, commonly called the Free Bridge, trip the light fantastic as they dance in harmony on the Delaware River as a soft autumn twilight in late November wraps around historic Phillipsburg, New Jersey from my vantage point across the river in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Programmable LED lights illuminate the iconic bridge which spans the Delaware River to link Phillipsburg with Easton.

The lights were installed as part of a bridge rehabilitation/improvement project that spanned from late 2021 until spring 2023. The bridge is colloquially referred as the “Free Bridge” to distinguish it from the Easton-Phillipsburg Toll Bridge (previously the Bushkill Street Bridge), a short distance upstream.

The bridge that spans the two states was completed in 1896 and survived massive flooding from Hurricane Diane in 1955. It underwent a thorough restoration in 1990 and is one of my very favorite places to photograph.

Historic Phillipsburg was established March 8, 1861 and named for William Phillips, an early settler of the area. The historic town of Easton was founded in 1752 and is located at the confluence of the Delaware River and Lehigh River, known as the Forks-Of-The-Delaware. Both are Delaware River Towns.

The Free Bridge can also be seen from across the Delaware River at Delaware Canal State Park, Easton, near the Forks of the Delaware Trailhead of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

Mirrored ...

“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”

               ~ Rabindranath Tagore

                  ~ 1861 ~ 1941

 

Perched on the banks of the Coplay Creek, a beautiful male North American Cardinal gazes upon his reflection on an April evening along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

 

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.

 

Early Spring Postcard ...

“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.”

  ~ Lewis Grizzard

   ~ 1946 ~ 1994

 ~ American writer & humorist, known for his Southern demeanor & commentary on the American South.

The feeling of early spring pirouettes on the waters of the Jordan Creek as they spill over Wehr’s Dam, built in 1904, to flow beneath the historic Wehr’s Covered Bridge, creating a picturesque early spring postcard at Wehr’s Covered Bridge Park, Orefield, Pennsylvania.

The wooden covered bridge in South Whitehall Township is a three-span, 117-foot long Burr Truss bridge, constructed in 1841. It has horizontal siding and a gable roof. It crosses the Jordan Creek and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

I shot this image in the late afternoon of March 24, 2024, less than a week after spring had once again awakened the land.