Pic and a Word Challenge #1: Discovery

There is little more satisfying
Than finding a little-used road
Crossing unfamiliar country

Such a road promises
Adventure, beauty, discovery
And the longer I follow it
The further inside myself I see

Bryce Canyon Hoodoos

Sometimes
No words
Are forthcoming

Some images
Must be allowed
To speak for themselves

It is not the unknown
Which frightens me
But the stories I create
To comfort my ignorance

And so I forfeit
The beauty
And insight
I will never know

Sometimes I remember
The extent of my privilege
To cross a bridge
From here to somewhere

Other

Unfettered
Without risk
Without consequence
Without desperation

Somewhere better
To be
Somewhere different
To see

There is a road
Which goes
From here
To somewhere

Between
There seems
An expanse
Of nothingness

A place to come
Only to move on
To make plans
Buy provisions

A beach head
A landing
A portal
A gateway

The desert
Is simply
A ten thousand year
Drought

We are subtle lovers
The rain and I

I suppose that is the way
Of rainforest life

I hanker for the sun
Complain about the wet

But it exhausts me
when the sun stays too long

Every picture tells a story
Don’t it?
I suppose.
But I know better

Every picture evokes a story
Evokes a feeling
Evokes a memory
Or an insight
Or a knowledge

I watched the white paint shrivel and dry
On the old shed out back

I watched it pucker and peel
In successive seasons
Of wet, then cold, then wet again, then heat
Since decades past