From the embrace of shade,
shelter from the elements,
we watch the world.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged haiku, photographs, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged haiku, photographs, poetry, sycamore, weekly-photo-challenge
“We may be living on an atom
in somebody’s wallpaper.”
– Wendell Berry (“Dust”)
1.
Between worlds, the sun leaked through
the shingles of Granddad’s dark shed
where the pixie dust would dance, sparkle
within light beams, as my sister and I
urged invisible steeds to town adventures—
fly aboard the manure spreader stored
for the future, the iron wheels and idle
wagon tongue would wait to take us
to wild dimensions for young dreams.
2.
The friction wears us smooth and fine,
cobbles, sand and dust. In the dry years
midden rises under hoof on a gust,
generations lifted to cloud the light
that smell like deer hides and taste
like acorns—tiny planets inhaled
behind cattle drawn to gather here
to wait and see how serious we are
about leaving what feels like peace.
3.
Through a stained glass window high
above the hand-hewn beams in the adobe
Chapel atop the prep school’s hill,
the call of selflessness floated on motes
that framed the sermon, moving me
from the wooden pews filled with two
hundred other vacant blue blazers
into another world for a week or so, yet
clings still to particles that float in space.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Alie McKee, branding, haiku, photographs, poetry
Clear and crisp yesterday afternoon, I took a short walk down the driveway with the big lens towards the Prickly Pear cactus where the Roadrunners are nesting, wanting also to show you how the Filaree has come back in a week’s time after 1.38″ of rain. Growing again, it’s amazing feed! (Click to enlarge the thumbnails below.)
The Roadrunners share their Prickly Pear home with about a dozen Cottontail rabbits who delight in waiting until the last moment before moving to avoid a vehicle coming or leaving the house. They’re fairly tame, but it’s a rare Bobcat or Coyote that can catch one.
Back at the house, the pair of Roadrunners were hunting snails in Robbin’s Irises.
A beautiful day for fools, we never left home with plenty to see and do between rains.
Looking between their ears
watching the business
on the ground stretched
and rolled for needles, knife
and iron, the mesmerizing
dance of humans ‘round
a calf to be turned back
into a jungle of Poison
Oak and Manzanita,
the impassable wilds
of Woolly Canyon
it took four days to gather—
all done in an instant.
Little progress here,
but no less futile
than punching a clock
where time is money
and the earth is flat.
Not a good sign for us that our asphalt connection to the outside world has received more attention during this past year with more non-sense emanating from town, reflective reminders, spaced every tenth of a mile, that nothing ever stays the same.
Shortly thereafter, Dry Creek Road got its first double-yellow line for its initial eight miles to where the pavement becomes too narrow to accommodate a vehicle either side of it, false hope for tourists taking the backway to Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park towing fifth-wheels with no place to turn around. The most recent signage also suggests sharing the road with bicyclists. Tricky business when the latest fine for crossing over the double-yellow line was $350.
Then a white fog line painted on and off the dirt. Thank you Tulare County government, dollars well spent!