The 100 most recent posts
Boiler Bay - Slate grey sky
Slate green sea
Ancient conifers
Snuggle up to the rocky shore
Recalling, perhaps
Distant ancestors
From a primordial ocean
Even I can imagine
With my scant sixty years
From this perch over Boiler Bay
Beachcomber - Beachcombing
You come with me
The same way you come shopping
Indulge me
Shopping
You come into the mall
Find a comfortable place
Then sit and read
Or people watch
Feign interest in the things I buy
Then watch over the bags
While I go to another shop
At the beach
You walk safely
Beyond the longest waves
While I splash about
Getting soaked
Finding sea stars and shells
Sand dollars and seaweed
Always feigning amazement
At the wonders I bring
But whether a crowded mall
Or an empty beach
You always come
Often despite my protestations
That you don't like to shop
Or go beachcombing
That you'll be bored
And I'm sure your time
Would be spent
Doing something else
"No"
You say
"I'm coming"
And it always surprises me
Takes my breath away
When I notice that your feigned pleasure
In a new scarf
Or a hermit crab
Is just a distraction
Because you're not looking at the object
I'm showing you
You're looking at me
With the sparkle of wonder in your eye
And I'm reminded again
That you come
To be with me
And there's no place
You'd rather be
And, my god
I could not love you more
For the way you take pleasure
In indulging me
Beneath A Sullen Sky - The sky like the snow
Sullen and sullied
The latter a victim
Of spring thaw
The collected detritus
Of winter storms
Revealed beneath
Retreating drifts
While the clouds
Speak with the voice
Of ill wind and
Malcontent climate
But the lake
Ahhhh
The lake sparkles blue
And even the worrying breeze
Does little but kindle its glimmer
A beautiful scene
After the ranger's warning
There would be naught
But the clouds to see
Defiance ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #328 - Some burned old crag
Half buried in soot grey sand
Itself pitted with the heavy rain
Of just moments ago
The rocks
Tossed on the shoreline
Like shards of coal
Still there is colour here
Kelly grass and golden straw
Life defies the gloom
Perfect Beach Day - Many will argue
Or just stay home
But there seems to me
No finer day
For a stroll on the shore
Than one marked
By a chill spring wind
Under a deep grey sky
Spitting rain and mist
In the temperate rainforest
That created the magnificent
Oregon coast
Out of the Corner of My Eye - Sometimes
I feel a presence
Out of the corner of my eye
Some one
Some thing
Looking out for me and mine
I turn to look
But it's never there
But there enough to know
The universe is benevolent
Even if not all its children are
Centre Line - Sometimes
Even in the darkest times
All I need
To keep me grounded
Is a centre line
Through open country
Valleys and Passes - Layers deep
To promising light
From a ledge of darkness
Valleys and passes
Stand between
Despair and possibility
Furious Nature - This ominous sky
This cataclysm of cloud
Sinister storm
Unleashed on a landscape
Unapologetically lethal
The exquisite beauty
Of furious nature
And I
Defiant
Steadfast in the wind
Rain pelting against flesh
Breathe in all that might
Make the power my own
Become the desert
And the storm
Find the darkness
In the light
And the light
In the darkness
Angry Sky - Angry sky
Above vacant land
Allows a torrent
That never satisfies
For the land
Is always thirsty
Brittle ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #327 - A brittle star breaks
And within a few moments more
The 4 billion year legacy of life
That is my planet
Will be rendered to vapour and dust
As will I
And all I love
And all that loves me
Pity, that
But all I have in these final moments|
Is love
Which I endeavour to take with me
Into eternity
Shadow Explorers - We in our little windows
Of shared wonders
Bathed in common light
While some seek the shadows
To discover glories unknown
Then bring them into the light for all
Solitude in Shadow - I stand alone
Solitude in shadow
Cast by arcing stone
Find peace in gentle breeze
Wafting warmth from heated earth
Find beauty in nature's chiseled landscape
Moving Sky - Though the ground accepts my footfalls
Offers bedrock for my foundations
The moving sky
Holds my fascination
Source of dreamy possibility
Hours Before the Dawn, the Sun Rises - Sky and lake
Rippled with moonlight
Clouds a veil
Drawn over coy constellations
On the shore
She stands
In a susurrus of near silence
But for the lap of wavelets
On salt crusted sand
Intent on the texts
Passed between friends
"I am free" she writes
"Good" comes the reply
A pause, and then, "Be safe!"
"I will" she taps out
Adds "I don't know how long
I'll be AWOL"
A long wait before
"Your leave is authorized" and
"Take all the time you need"
"I will" she repeats
She smiles
Throws the phone into the lake
Where concentric ripples
Interrupt the linear
Gradually diminishing
Until they disappear altogether
She stands a good while longer
Content
Relieved
If a little anxious
About what the coming daylight will bring
Then shrugs it off
"Fuck him"
Hours before the dawn
The darkness has already ended
Ragged ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #326 - A tumult of stone
Fallen amongst the grasses
From ragged cliffs above
Ancient diminished crags
Once, perhaps, grand as snow capped horizon
First to soil, then to life, feeding hungry bison
Cradle - Salted inner sea
Perturbed not at all
By even a breeze
Offers its peaceful cradle
To the failing sun
A Day at the Beach - The air
Briny scent of death
The water
Still, thick with salt
The sand
Crusted, brittle, shards sharp underfoot
But the skies
Azure brushed with cirrus wash
And the sun
A hot glitter off the ripples
A beach day
Nonetheless
Diminution - I prefer the kind of spirituality
Which harbours no intention
To make me feel small
Or subject to the judgment of others
Not even gods
Just as I have no desire
To judge anyone
Not even myself
A condition
Which I am ever on the path
Of unlearning
The Expanse of Rural Life - An expanse of green
And brown beyond
Soon again to be green
Above
A sky
Promising the gift of rain
A smattering of structures
For shelter, work and storage
All to service the green
Occupants come and go
Seasons of family
And movement
Change
The cycle of life
In a rural field
Far from city markets
Warped ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #325 - I enter a cathedral
As if into warped space
Not warped as a physicist might think
But as in how a mystic might think
That is, a spiritual space or dimension
Bent, folded and manipulated
To conform to a specific configuration
Long ago transcribed into books
From collective memories
Predating written language
Aside from a certain wonder
At the passion and dedication
To the exquisite expression
Of humanity's greater achievements
In art and architecture
A cathedral reminds me
Of the power of group thinking
For both good and ill
How this can become a tight leash
On an individual whose spirit
Simply refuses to conform
But it also reminds me
Of the exultant satisfaction
I experienced
When I finally broke the leash
Chose my own path
And found my way to a spiritual space
Which conformed to me
Not that I am without
My own warped sense of spiritual dimension
But the distortion is familiar to me
Has meaning for me
And brings me to a place of peace
One of Many Paths to Goodness - Raised beneath
Steeples and spires
Kneeling Sitting Standing
In pews row on row
First Holy Communion
Confirmation
Confession
Ash Wednesday
Palm Sunday
Incense and palm leaves
Midnight Mass
Now another confession:
Never a believer
Earliest memories
Saying what was expected
Doing what was expected
Praying aloud the lie on my lips
Though there were Pastors
Two at least
Who made as much
A philosophy of sermon
As theology
Who bespoke love
And compassion
Forgiveness
And kindness
As if these were as important
As believing in Father, Son and Holy Ghost
I kept the compassionate love
Discarded the trinity
And for a long while
Wanted nothing to do
With religion
Or the religious
Until I finally saw
The strength faith gives my mother
Courage, resilience, tenacity
Powered by compassion, love and kindness
All in God's name
Now I understand
Something about the nature of goodness
And the many paths we may travel
To bring ourselves to the love
Which is its foundation
Always - Some scenes defy description
Even a photograph
Cannot capture them
Sometimes you just have to be there
In the moment
No. Always be in the moment
No words can describe a scene
Or a moment
No photograph
Can transport me to a place in time
Or fill me with the grace of presence
Sunrise Sojourn - I wake
Into darkness
Scramble out of the tent
Enough time to boil water
Coffee
Cereal
Almond milk
The breakfast of
Car camping
Photographers
Pre-dawn
On the horizon
Time to go
Camera bag
Tripod
Fresh brew in the travel mug
On the way
Not far from the campground
Dawn demands a stop
Unexpected glory
In a few hurried frames
Then to the switchbacks
Moki Dugway
Rising twelve hundred feet
Straight up Cedar Mesa
From the top
With the wide zoom
And the fisheye
Expected glory
As the sun gets high
Back down
Just a couple switchbacks
Until the sun's low again
At a spot scouted
On the way up
Now a little telephoto
Crumbling mesa in the foreground
Golden Gods in the distance
Deep sigh of success
And anticipation
For the work which takes
A latent image of RAW bits
To the finished photograph
Here
Golden Gods - The golden hues of sunrise
Seem always
Somehow
More precious
Than the golden goodbye
Of sunset
Half the Sky is Stars - As the day fails to black
Half the sky is stars
Half is clouds
Which continue to roll in
Soon enough so thick
Even a half moon couldn't peek through
Were there a moon at all
But I'm grateful for the stars
Too the clouds
Behind which
Twinkling pinpricks in the blackness
Play hide-and-seek
With star gazers like me
In the quiet heat of the night
Chasing Hope - The road takes me through
A deepening darkness
Toward a near horizon
Of fantastical colour
Receding with the sun
I depress the accelerator
Hoping at least to keep pace
But wishing to my core
That someday
I will catch up
Falling Away to Depth - The mesa falls away
Into the depths of early evening
Low sun illuminates
Undulating canyons and buttes
Sedimented sandstone
Layers indicating a scale
Powerfully daunting
And exquisite
And I
Stopped halfway between
Floor and ceiling
Sense myself in the centre of aeons
Epochs pass
Every hundred steps or so
Up the trail
A hundred years
A thousand
A hundred thousand
A million
Unwinding time
As species come
And species go
Great, fearsome lizards
Ruled the known universe
For 165 million years
But only in the last tens of steps
Before the top
Do I walk in the footsteps
Of my most ancient ancestors
A paltry 6 or so million years ago
I am reminded
For all our accomplishments and cleverness
We are but toddlers on this Earth
Itself nothing more
Than a pale blue dot
Circling a minor star
Spiraling in an outer arm
Of one galaxy
In a universe dotted
With hundreds of billions
Layer upon layer
Of time and space
Stretch out to scales
Unimaginable
A few steps more
I stand atop the mesa
Returned to the time and place
That belongs to me now
Deep, heavy breaths
To gain my equilibrium
While scanning across the vista
Tallying a few hundred million years of strata
A snippet
In an existence billions of years in the making
Layer upon layer of time and space
To make this collection of sediments
Which seems so very vast and ancient
But is no more than a cosmic blip
In all that was
All that is
And all that will be
I feel small
Fleeting
Insignificant
Yet
Somehow
And nonetheless
Stupendously magnificent
Because in all this immensity
Stands me
A self-aware collection of molecules
Contemplating the inconceivable miracle
That is my own consciousness
Tucked away in some small backwater
Of eternal infinity
Just how fucking exquisite is that?
And the view up here is awesome.
The sun sets
Light falls away to darkness
But for the little beacon of light
That is me
Rules ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #324 - Rule of Thirds tells me
Never place the horizon
In the middle of the frame
But I am often as enraptured
With the sky as the land
So break that rule without remorse
Embers - Embers burn beneath the grey
From the fire an amber glow
Mitten outlined on horizon black
In the dying light of setting sun
A simple scene made exquisite
Fabled Places - I return to fabled places
Find there
Always
Something new
A different light
A new story
History added
Or revised
Here mittens and buttes
Formations once remembered
For Spaghetti Westerns
Now where Forrest Gump
Just plain stopped runnin'
The Changing Sky - From a high vantage
Late in the afternoon
Or is this early evening?
An in-between of light and tone
Like my mood
I scan the roads
Which took me here
Now and in the past
And again perhaps
In some near or distant future
Far below
Moving slowly
Or so it seems
Scale and time
Diminished by the distance
Carloads of people
And luggage
Expectations
And dreams to be
Fulfilled or dashed
Some approach
Some recede
All have, or will
Round the curve below
Before, or after
Passing behind me
On the switchback's final curve
Some stop
Unload their occupants
Who join me and the gentle breeze
On Cedar Mesa's rim
To bask in changing sky
With quiet wonder
The Truer Path - My fear is always
More about the road
Already travelled
Than what is to come
I carry the past
As tragedies
And failures
Then project them ahead
Like road signs
Diverting me from a truer path
I remind myself
When checking the rearview
Acknowledge the tragedies and failures
Along the road once travelled
But leave them in the past
Then bring to mind
The triumphs and successes
Project these on every road ahead
As billboards of encouragement
On the Brink of Immensity - With my love I stand
On the brink of immensity
At once diminished to a speck
And raised up with a presence
I can only describe as divine
As immense as the canyon below me
My love takes my hand
Rests her head on my shoulder
Nothing is so grand as love
Grand ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #323 - I stand upon this grandest rim
Try to imagine unthinkable of time
Relent before too long such fruitless task
Instead I'll contemplate this lazy little rhyme
Through the plateau
The Colorado like a pickaxe falls
Reveals sedimental sandstone rings
The eons marked on canyon walls
Rock bottom finds the hardest rock
Twelve hundred meters down below
There an ancient granite shield
No deeper can the river go
But wider still
The river's reach
A force of will
The cliffs be breached
Upstream the river
Has not yet found
The basement rock
So burrows still into the ground
Horseshoe Bend - This little peal of green
Winding through the desert red
Cut its path through rising rock
Stone once silt when waterborne
Now to the sea writhes its decay
Perhaps again to stratify
Mother Nature: Earth’s Artist in Residence - Beauty sculpted
With the softest tools
The utmost patience
Beheld by a mind
For a fleeting moment
Recorded for a moment more
While the sculptor
Chips away
Her pieces ever
Works in progress
Not a one complete
The Ebb & Flow of Possibility - In between
The dead
And the not dead
In between
What is
And what is not
In between
The light
And the not light
There find
The realm
Of possibility
Seen only
By those who conceive
A world without absolutes
Where dreamers dream
Between sleeping
And waking
While the world flows
Between being
And non-being
In the wakening hours we dance
Between self-remembering
And self-forgetting
This is the ebb and flood
Between the conscious
And the unconscious
Like the darkness
And the light
In eternal conflict
Only the master sees
The dominance of either
Is true darkness
While the light burns brightest
In those who come to know
The balance of both
Hard Rock Cradle - Hard rock cradle of the canyon
Fluffy down comforter in the sky
Below, a river flows
Brings all I see and need to life
Gentle Tenacity - I remind myself
Even the gentlest creeks
Carve canyons from bedrock
With the aid of time and tenacity
Timeless Cycle - Embers
spark of life
renews within the valley
Enveloped
in the warm stone
of canyon walls
Emerging
as if from the womb
new life partum
Embraced
by the Earth
matron of time and being
Evermore
the cycle plays and plays again
birth, life, death, rebirth
Landscape ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #322 - I love a landscape best
Which is not so self-conscious
As to fear the domination
Of a cloud-illumined sky
Shadows - In the bright sun of day
I am shadow
A mask without a face
A smile without a reason
Laughter without glee
A sign of existence
Without presence
So I breathe
Bury my hand
In the hot sand
Shout out the pain
Of heat and grief
And emptiness
Give voice
To the being
Which once cast
The shadow
Until the voice
Becomes being
A vessel
For the light
The pain and grief
And emptiness
Become the shadow
Beyond the Straight and Narrow - Where once the road
Went ever on and on
The straight and narrow
A path long fixed
Now curves ahead
Promise us adventure
Through lands ahead unknown
The future far beyond
And I
No more or less the merry
For what is known and what is not
All are part the journey
Little Rogue - Lingering
Above the peaks
One little cloud
Gone rogue amid
The overcast
She calls upon
The fading sun
Which does oblige
With warming light
Just before
Advancing night
Daylight’s Final Sigh - The road takes me
Toward the golden light
Day fading into
Indigo night
The long desert drive
Doesn't end
'Til well after dark
So I stop before the dusk
Share with the Earth
Daylight's final sigh
Desert Warp - Long days
And excessive miles
On desert highways
Warp my mind
But it's a good warp
Ripe with strange insights
As the desert strips away
All but the essential
Comet From the Vanishing - Dusky desert sky
Offers not
A single star
So look ahead
To where the road
Is vanishing
A comet glows
Slow to grow
But soon enough
Comes streaking by
Whereupon
The night sky falls
So stars may
Come alive
Relief ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #321 - The rippled land
In golden light
Where shadows fall
Before the night
Such lush relief
Did storms reveal
Time's watercourse
Shapes Earth's appeal
Slow Ride into the Unknown - Sometimes
I am reminded
The best path
Is not always direct
The best place
Is not always familiar
The best means
Is not always expedient
Sometimes
A leisurely pace
Into the unknown
Offers the surest road
To a cherished end
As yet unidentified
When the Sun Shines on the Bay - Some places draw me in
With the embrace of a dear friend
Not seen in far too long
Sea to Sky - In the valley
An empty basin
But for the lingering salt
Where once a lake
In the sky
A saltless sea
Atmospheric bounty
Held aloft by the winds
Infinite Rhythms - Finite tracks traverse
Infinite space and time
Every passage a new road
Every road a new story
Played out in the rhythms
Of dashed lines and power poles
Where even the vanishing point
Vanishes
Into futures unexplored
Haystack Rock - A seductive rock
On ocean's edge
Half the day
Surrounded by the tide
Attracting thousands
Nature's iconic monument
To a monumental coastline
In time with the waves' ungentle caress
They saunter near, then scramble back
This flightless flock of sandpipers
Photographs and selfies
Arm-in-arm and hand-in-hand
A deep breath in, a longer one out
The calm that comes on any shore
Where the surf rumbles and sighs
Some may say it's the rock
But the rock is a draw as any other draw
A pier, a lighthouse, beach chairs and gazebos
It is the sea which helps us remember ourselves
Enlightening Moments - Every now and again
Quite often, to be honest
It's important to just stop
Interrupt the flow
And touch Earth
Literally and figuratively
Grounding
Being grounded
Is of itself no map for the lost
But if my feet aren't on the ground
Then no map can guide me
Protection ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #320 - ATGATT
All The Gear
All The Time
Helmet
Face shield
Gloves
Ankle high boots
Padded jacket
And pants
At home
By law
Helmet & eye protection
Here too
Helmet
At least
Eye protection
If travelling
Over 50km/hr
Compliance
In Jakarta
Sketchier than home
Even for children
But not for masks
Priorities
Can be
Confusing
Confrontation & Consequences - Imaginary
Lines crossed in the car's back seat
Dad arm from the front
Subject Unknowing - I wonder if I've ever been
The subject of someone's
Best photograph of the day
But never found out
Like this fellow here
On the third shot of eleven
Who never looked up
So never saw the camera
Pointed out the taxi window
Capturing this delightful moment
The Streets of San Francisco - Fabled Streets
Of San Francisco
Car chases
And cable cars
In nineteen hundred and ninety six
I take my 5th wheel down Powell
Forty-five feet of feelin' cooler than
McQueen, Cage and Connery
Past the bottom
The truck's brakes fail
So I drive the city streets
Using the trailer's brakes
Impressing a parallel trucker
"You're one of us," he shouts
Eat your hearts out
Movie stars
Sharpness is a Bourgeois Concept - Colours and edges
Splashes and blur
Nothing to see
But for the eyes
A turn of a head
And just enough detail
This would be a discard
X’d out on a contact sheet
But for those eyes
Because now I want to know
What she sees
Princesses, Puppy dogs, and Rag Dolls - Greater than the magic of fairytales
Is a simpler
More beautiful enchantment
When once upon a time
Comes with every sunrise
Here's a realm
Where every little girl
Is a princess
Holding court
Over puppy dogs
And rag dolls
With her maids
And maidens
Explores a wonderland
Of salt spray
Sea shells
And hermit crabs
While the ocean
Stretches out
Beyond the horizon
Of imagination
Beckoning
The Exhilerating Colours of Grey - He'd always start the day
In the ocean
With a board
And the waves
The water was always cold
Often too the air
Grey skies the norm
The sea like slate
But every wave
Was a band of colour
In a rainbow
That became his dayLight ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #319 - Given just a day
We arrive
With howling glory
Our sun waxes
Then wanes
And in the end
Extinguished
Though in the final moments
Perhaps an opportunity
To reprise the beauty
That was and is
The magical light
Of our manifestation
Dust Storm - Sometimes
Life moves at a pace
I cannot keep
Or rather
Life moves
I simply do not
And in my disastrous stillness
The dust storm rolls in
Without hesitation
To Roll
Over
Me
Move or don't move
Retreat or don't retreat
Seek cover or...
Let
The dust
Take meNature’s Dance - I like to imagine
Mother Nature kicking back
In her Adirondack
Enjoying the majestic dance
Of her creation
Choreographed with geological rhythm
The chuckles she must chortle
As all her little creatures
Scurry about the stage
Like so many Keystone Kops
In a silent era comedy
None more ridiculous
Than we
Possibilities - A thought rises through the fog
Beautiful, perhaps
Or dangerous
Maybe both
As beauty and danger
Often are
Risk
The blade of possibility
Honed to fine edge
So that with a stroke
We may manifest the exquisite
Or sunder it
Whether through intent
Fortune or folly
Carapace and Claw - What's left behind
On this near side of eternity
Shell of existence
Shadow legacy
Husk of memories kept alive
By those who'd known the shell
But never the true nature
Of what it protected
Too the trails
Footfalls left in the sand
Evidence of passing presence
Echoes oft anonymous
No matter
All this tides soon enough erase
And echoes fade
To silence
So cling to hope
For something beyond
The far side of death
Or suffer the fear of oblivion
Morning Stroll in the Sand - A lazy Thursday morning
When life is but a stroll in the sand
With the river flowing out
The waves rolling in
Very breath of Earth
As we all take a welcome sigh
In advance of the hodge-podge concerns
The day will all-too-soon offer
May I carry that sigh of the sea
Into the coming hours
Breathe in waves of beauty
Let the day's worries flow from my earthly body
The only weight I'll bear
Left behind on the beach
Footprints in the sand
Clouds in the Window - Beyond the window
Only clouds
Though comes the wind
To move them on
While they clear
We could explore
The world we're in
There's so much more
Or linger here
We may enjoy
What is revealed
While clouds move on
Details Details - I watch you
Taking in the wide oxbow landscape
A thousand feet deep
While I photograph the small details
Of tumbled stone and distant valleys
If you could embrace
The vastness of space
Then even a galaxy
Would be a minor detail
In the landscape of infinity
And I?
Not even a speck
To speak my insignificance
Demands more consideration
Than my infinitesimal displacement
Of time and space deserves
And yet
Here are we
The infinitesimal
Contemplating the infinite
Which I suppose
Is big enough
For me
Perhaps
Even...
Divine
Like the way a river
Has carved this earth
For millions of years
And left a canyon here
To pique our wonder
Kisses ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #318 - The world transforms
With half a turn
Twice sun kisses
Sky and stone
In the dusk
With gentle love
Comes the dawn
With passion's lust
Morning Glory - Arrives the dawn in golden glory
Sunlight's kiss good morning
Rise ye
Rise ye
The universe is calling
Three Burros - Burro #2: What's up with this guy?
Burro #3: Dunno.
Burro #2: Why is he stopping?
Burro #3: Dunno.
Burro #2: Wait. What!? Again?
Burro #3: Yep. Again.
Burro #1: Smile for the camera, ladies.
Burro #2: Bloody tourists!
Burro #3: 🙂
Burro #2: 
Burro #1: 🙂
Beauty Beyond Limits - In the failing glow of sunset
She sidles up to precipice edge
Peers into deep shadows
Senses gravity
Emanating from the abyss
Steels herself
Resists anxiety
But resistance
Is anxiety
Breathe
Breathe
Breathe
Seeking peace
With the imminence
Of eternity
Nearing the Edge - In the failing glow of sunset
She sidles up to precipice edge
Peers into deep shadows
Senses gravity
Emanating from the abyss
Steels herself
Resists anxiety
But resistance
Is anxiety
Breathe
Breathe
Breathe
Seeking peace
With the imminence
Of eternity
Impenetrable - Shield above
Wall below
Safely nestled in the comforting green
Of my impenetrable canyon
The Loneliest Road - No greater metaphor
To my reason for being
Than a remote highway
Through open country
I've not yet explored
With the tools in hand
To tell the tales
Of my discoveries
Long lonely highway
Stippled asphalt
Humming rubber
Eating up the miles
Alone in thought
Serene solitude
Long lovely highway
Depths ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #317 - Water of life
Cuts into stone
Reveals depths
To be plumbed
A hard journey down
A harder journey back
Rewards every step
Even the most painful
Boxed In - Boxed in
Egress blocked
Walls impenetrable
But a blue sky
Offers promise
Possibility beyond
So I seek alternatives
Unknown paths
Improbable routes
The unexplored
May hide secrets
New trails to blaze
The Open Country of Being - No greater metaphor
To my reason for being
Than a remote highway
Through open country
I've not yet explored
With the tools in hand
To tell the tales
Of my discoveries
More and more
Discovery comes
As reflections of my self
In the landscape of existence
A Little Bit of Infinite - Despite the ways
My eyes can see
My ears can hear
My fingers feel
My tongue can taste
My nose knows scents
The world I sense
Is incomplete
And even with our cleverness
The tools we build
Extend each sense
Take me beyond
Known boundaries
The world I roam
Is but a part
To this I add
Imaginings
My wildest dreams
Absurd theories
Draw with words and pix
Artistic renderings
And yet
What mind and heart creates
Is in some sense
Quite finite
(I'll reach my end
In time and space)
While the possible
Is infinite
Perhaps some day
I'll spend my last
And come to know
What comes beyond
Then grasp at last
What it all means
Become myself
The infinite
Sun’s Eclipse - This the golden hour
In advance of sun's eclipse
I am with you
Hand in hand
Follow every laboured breath
A life of laughter, love and kindness shared
With wordless gaze and poignant smile
A tear
A sigh
A tightened grasp
Then return to fitful rest
A slumber which will last the night
But I'll be here when you awake
In golden hour
Your hand I'll take
Until at last
Your sun may set
Winding ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #316 - The winding path
Which takes me well beyond
Desired goals
Has served me well
Offered possibility
Once well outside my ken
Comforts challenged
Bound'ries shattered
With every step astray
From oft trod trails
Discover unknown countries
Within myself
A lesser man would I be
Who'd stayed the straight and narrow course
To some place known
When I'd set out
Will of the Wisp - My presence in this moment
Is but a wisp of a cloud
In a windswept sky
A drop of rain
In the eons of torrents
Which gouge a canyon
From a plateau of stone
Try as I might
I cannot grasp
The monumental meaningless
Of my own existence
Leaving me to acknowledge
The incalculable significance
Of drawing a single breath
Here am I
An infinitesimal ephemeral wisp
In the cloud-strewn sky
Of existence
Claiming my glorious place
In the magnificence
As if a passing moment in eternity
Were eternity itself
Sunset Descent - In a moment between breaths
Clear my lungs
Clear my mind
Clear my heart
In this realm
Of sunset otherness
The heavy sigh of engines
In smooth air
As a world of cares and worries
Slides by far below
Soon enough to be rejoined
I take another breath
Feel the gentle decline
Back to Earth
Take another breath
Close my eyes
Imagine myself
In flight forever
Concerns and attachments
All suffering
Spread across the surface
Of a small globe
Above which I can choose to float
So when I choose again
To walk the Earth
I may appreciate both
Its suffering and joy
Its love and discontent
Its beauty and ugliness
Its hardship and kindness
With another breath
Empty my lungs
Empty my heart
Empty my mind
Of attachment
To one state or another
For it is the attachment
To a state of being
Which creates the suffering
Not the state of being
"Cabin attendants prepare for arrival"
Straight Stretch - Oft times the path ahead
Seems crystal clear and straight
Still I proceed with caution
Keep my eye upon the road
For sudden curves unforeseen
For living things which cross the lane
For side roads leading from the route
Some could throw me from my course
And I could lose my way
Some may form a barrier
Force me to a halt
Some may lead me far astray
Distract me from my goals
Some may offer opportunity
A better route to go
And which of these
I may not know
Until I've passed
Some many miles ahead
Powell Street Cable Car Smile - I record the world
To share what I have seen
And as I share
I often find
The moments missed
While I recorded
Like a beautiful smile
Meant for me alone
Gods ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #315 - Such delight
It seems
The artist took
With godly visage
And none too small
The chisel hammered
With whimsical caprice
A fitting ode to Gods
Whose whims become
The stuff of legends told
The Golden Lie of Youth - I recall the halcyon
Of inviolable youth
When life
Stretched out before us
As an infinite loop of fun
Pain and suffering
Seemed ephemeral
As an all-better kiss
And adulthood perceived
As a condition of denial
That play is anything but
A full-time endeavour
Long since has that glitter faded
Pain and suffering
Joined now as companions
But little desire has this adult
To deny a child
The pleasure of play
Instead to play along
Perhaps to live again
The golden lie
Of youth
Pix to Words 