Father and Sons at Street Fair — Image by kenne
A father bends over,
one son tugging at his arm,
eyes bright for the bag, soon full.
The other rests on his back,
head nestled in dream-heavy sleep,
breathing soft against the rhythm
of footsteps and people’s voices.
Vermillion Cliffs National Monument — Image by kenne
Stone waves frozen mid-surge,
vermillion ridges unfolding
like the ribs of the earth.
Bootsteps press into silence,
sandstone breathing heat
from centuries of sun.
Every turn opens another cathedral—
walls painted in rust and gold,
arches carved by wind and time.
Hiking here is a passage
through color and quiet,
where the desert
writes its scripture in stone
on a canvas of earth and time
spread wide beneath the sky.
Tanuri Ridge Sunset Computer Painting — Image by kenne
Evening comes slowly,
a patient hand across the desert sky.
Tanuri Ridge lifts its quiet spine
against the last of the light,
trees and shadows holding their place
as the horizon begins to burn.
The sun spills its final colors—
deep amber,
rose drifting into violet,
a breath of gold dissolving into silence.
Every hue lingers longer than the last,
as though the sky is unwilling to let go.
On the screen,
a digital brush gathers the moment,
stroke after stroke shaping what fades.
Pixels remember
what the eye can only witness once.
Here, in painted light,
the sunset does not vanish—
it stays suspended,
a meditation on time,
a stillness made visible,
a horizon that never fully darkens.
Vermillion Cliffs National Monument — Image by kenne
Boots in desert sand,
a hidden canyon opens—
stone shaped into waves.
Hand upon the curve,
motion carved into stillness,
time becomes the tide.
Heat of noon above,
I stand inside the silence,
carried by the earth.
Autumn Plants Down By The Wash — Computer Art by kenne
Layers rise,
a quiet geology of thought,
one over another.
Filters shift the air—
suddenly the world
tilts into a dream.
Even pixels
carry the weight of silence,
carry the hand of the artist.
Early Autumn On Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
Somewhere between reading Rainer Maria Rilke and listening to Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Drunken Poet’s Dream,”
the following just flowed out — as usual, no rewrite, you get what you see.
THE BODY SLOWS ME DOWN
The body slows me down,
but the blood still flows,
the soul hasn’t slowed
fostering a deep and
necessary intimacy with life.
The body slows me down,
but I count my blessing
without a 60-cycle hum,
freed from habitual
trains of thought.
The body slows me down,
but the poets still, please
with a taste of bittersweet chocolate,
burning through the words
manifested in music.
The body slows me down,
but my mind leads the
way to an enigmatic mystery,
seeking a Rilke Maria’s moment
freed by Ray Wylie’s applause.
The body slows me down,
but I keep running
from the ghosts that
keep on coming
around the bend.
The body slows me down,
but it’s a dividing outline
is no longer there
providing a membrane
between inner and outer worlds.
The body slows me down,
but I can still hum
Polk Salad Sally,
framing cosmic image
descending from invisible heights.
The body slows me down,
but I still use my imagination
to inspire conscious thinking,
allowing “the damn fox
do what a damn fox does.”
“The days I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days.”
— Ray Wylie Hubbard
Monsoon Clouds Over The Catalinas — Image by kenne
Over the Catalinas,
monsoon clouds rise like mountains
upon the mountain—
rolling, swelling, breaking light
into silver and shadow.
In black and white,
the desert’s colors fall away,
yet the drama deepens:
every ridge sharpened,
every fold of stone
wrapped in the storm’s unfinished script.
The sky is restless charcoal,
the peaks a pale bone line—
between them
the promise of rain,
the hush before thunder speaks.
Two queen butterflies on Mule Fat Blossoms (Baccharis salicifolia) in the Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
In the Patio shade after a long hike
Female Phainopepla in Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
In Sabino’s golden morning,
a female phainopepla rests—
soft gray against the thorny reach
of a leafless ocotillo.
Her crest lifts in the quiet wind,
eyes sharp for the shimmer of berries.
The canyon holds its breath,
sunlight weaving silver through her feathers.
Raven Out On A Limb
Raven’s back turned still,
perched on limb in desert light—
holds a silent watch.
Saguaro Blossoms — Image by kenne
Bee hovers, sunlit,
above saguaro’s white crown—
sky endless, serene.
AI Painting of Wild Peaches
I owe my appreciation for and love of poetry to my high school sophomore English teacher, Miss Scroggie. Back in the fifties, we referred to her as an old spinster. She taught students who needed help in English, mostly jocks. During each class, she would read a poem to us, which I learned to appreciate over time.
Some years later, I found myself reading and writing poetry. One of my favorite poems is Elinor Wylie’s Wild Peaches.
Wild Peaches
1
When the world turns completely upside down
You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,
You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown
Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold colour.
Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,
We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.
The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.
2
The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass
Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
The misted early mornings will be cold;
The little puddles will be roofed with glass.
The sun, which burns from copper into brass,
Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold
Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold
Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.
Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;
A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;
The spring begins before the winter’s over.
By February you may find the skins
Of garter snakes and water moccasins
Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.
3
When April pours the colours of a shell
Upon the hills, when every little creek
Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake
In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,
When strawberries go begging, and the sleek
Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak,
We shall live well — we shall live very well.
The months between the cherries and the peaches
Are brimming cornucopias which spill
Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black;
Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches
We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill
Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.
4
Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
There’s something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate,
Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
There’s something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,
A thread of water, churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.
Raven Art by kenne
Dark Clouds Over the Canyon
A brushstroke of black
against the storm-heavy sky,
the raven ascends.
Wings carve through silence,
bold ink on a canvas stretched
above ancient stone.
Below, the canyon
holds its breath beneath the weight
of gathering dusk.
In the hush of wind,
art is flight without a frame—
wild, unwritten truth.
Female Broad-billed Hummingbird at the Patio Feeder — Image by kenne
She arrives without sound,
only the shimmer of green
and the hum of still air.
Beak dips to red bloom,
sipping the sun’s sweet echo
drop by hidden drop.
For a moment, she hangs
between heartbeat and breeze—
then vanishes in a dart.
