The Water Between Us
No field drinks alone. The water remembers what we forget. I began noticing the offerings almost as soon as I arrived in Bali. They were everywhere: in front of temples and shops, on sidewalks, beside doorways, at the edges of rice fields. Small woven palm-leaf baskets filled with flowers, rice, incense, and sometimes fruit or sweets. Some were freshly placed and impossibly beautiful; others had already been stepped on, soaked by rain, or scattered by dogs and birds. At first they seemed like one more beautiful feature of Bali. Then I took this photograph. At the edge of a pond near a temple, two small offerings had been placed beside the water. Orange and purple flowers rested inside their little woven baskets. Koi moved beneath the surface. Behind them stood a goddess, temple walls, trees, water. Nothing about the offerings was permanent. By evening they might be wilted or washed away; tomorrow there would be new ones. And perhaps that is part of their meaning. I took this photog...