Waterfowl and Wading Birds at Whitewater Draw, January 2026 – Image by kenne
Another season, another return. The birds arrive, faithful as gravity. If they ever stop coming, don’t ask the birds why— ask the men who drained the water.
February rides into Tucson with a hat on too straight and a grin rehearsed. La Fiesta de los Vaqueros declares itself, loud and confident, dust kicked up on purpose. The arena fills with men proving things to people who already agree with them. Courage is timed. Pain is applauded. Nostalgia is sold by the seat.
Outside the fence, the desert refuses to participate. Creosote blooms without banners. The mountains don’t lean in for a better view. A red-tailed hawk circles, uninterested in tradition or prize money.
I don’t oppose the rodeo so much as I distrust it—the way it shrinks a hard life into a weekend performance, the way it pretends the land was ever impressed by us. Still, now and then, a horse breaks free of the script, muscles flashing in the cold light, and for a moment the West is real again.
Then the gate slams shut. The crowd exhales. February moves on. The desert remains, having said nothing at all.
Birdbill Dayflowers On Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
There is always this temptation to keep walking, to believe forward motion is the same as purpose. But the Birdbill dayflower interrupts me— a blue so exact it feels deliberate. I kneel. The mountain does not applaud. It allows me this moment of belonging, as if I have earned nothing and been given everything.
Two Cedar Waxwings Resting in A Mesquite — Image by kenne
Two cedar waxwings sit close on the bare mesquite, their small bodies sharing the cold. I watch, and learn again how companionship survives the season.
Female Phainopepla In Sabino Canyon — Photo-artistry by kenne
Whenever we need to make a very important decision it is best to trust our instincts, because reason usually tries to remove us from our dream, saying that the time is not yet right. Reason is afraid of defeat, but intuition enjoys life and its challenges.
Kenne Getting Some Arizona Sun On Our Patio While here he spent some time running in Sabino Canyon in preparation for a half-marathon this February.
Kenne David is visiting us on my birthday, January 15, 2026. He is an ICU nurse in the Texas Medical Center in Houston. What follows is a poem I wrote after learning of the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
I can only try to imagine your words and thoughts echo in the long corridors of Memorial Herman, where the scent of antiseptic mingles with your compassion.
I think of him — of Alex Pretti — and of all who labor, sleepless,
hands trembling not with fear, but with the weight of mercy.
Each life touched, each breath steadied, a verse in the grand poem of endurance and love, something Whitman would write: you do not falter; rise again the next day, mortal yet eternal, each healer a leaf upon the same vast tree of humanity.
In the dark shadows of early morning, the hummingbird comes without fear. It trusts the sweetness waiting for it— a reminder that hunger often arrives before the light.
You cling. Let’s start there. Not affection— need. You grab my sock as if it owes you something, as if we were once intimate and I forgot to call. I stand still, arguing silently with a plant that refuses to let go without taking a piece of me.
