Tag Archives: photographs

AUGUST REVERIES

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My brown-skinned girl,
each dusty draw
seems softer, shadows

linger longer at the dawn
as the sun moves south
down ridgelines.

I begin to hear
the faint sound
of a light rain, early

on the roof—the musty
smell of it awakening
a primal surge of new life

for old veins on guard
for the slightest sign
telegraphed ahead

of a train in my mind
mesmerized by rivulets
finding their own way

to the creek running
into spring. Cottonwoods’
first yellow leaves

gathered by rolling gusts
up and down canyon—
you say you feel it too.

 

 

Good Times

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ARBUTUS

Empress Hotel

Empress Hotel

 

The old trees wear scars well,
grab and hold the earth
together better than sapling

wood bending with each recent
gust, or so we say with ages
packed beneath our peeling bark

delicately exposing what we could
not young. Not nimble dilettantes,
we take our wine in gulps for pain,

for all that has been lost–
that we will surely follow
to the fire, warming as always,

toil by toil until we become
bucketed gray ash to be stirred
and washed into the hungry heart

of soil. These old trees stand
their ground to wait with memory
and dream, always almost there.

Butchart Gardens

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Reclamation of a limestone quarry in Victoria begun in 1907, the gardens receive over a million visitors each year.

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Butchart Gardens

Traveling with the Band

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THE TROUBLE WITH DRONES

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The Red Tails lift and glide above me,
circling our gather within oak trees, chemise
and fractured granite that hasn’t moved

for centuries on this mountain. One of few
humans they know, I have wished
upon their wings and eye, like a falconer,

to inform, to lead me to what I can’t see
grazing peacefully. Someday, maybe—
or resort to drones to do my bidding,

watch the calving, check feed and water,
be on patrol for coyotes and bears,
instead of me. But who would we be,

streaming sci-fi cowboy poetry? Who
would ever know enough to welcome us
into this other world, their home?

 

 

WPC(3)—HONKERS

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From somewhere north
they arrive together
for the summer—lovin’ it.

 

 

WPC(3)—”Summer Lovin'”

EARLY MORNING SHADE

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Mid-San Joaquin summer,
you can set your watch
by cows coming off the pasture

to Valley Oaks at seven-thirty—
back out into the blazing sun
by noon, breezes off the green.

Not one gossipy complaint
among them, chewing cuds,
relishing the timeless shade.

 

 

WPC(2)—JESS & JARO

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When all that follows
begins with a kiss
that only lasts a moment.

 

 

For the Archives

Kauai Wedding

WPC(2)—”Summer Lovin'”

WPC(1)—OUR REVERIE

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End of day in the shade,
100 degrees
of everything we need.

 

 

WPC(1)—”Summer Lovin'”