Hibiscus Blossom on Our Patio — Image by kenne
This morning
the hibiscus opened
its scarlet face
to the sun.
No hesitation.
No rehearsal.
Just a quiet unfolding
from green bud
to impossible gold.
I stood beside it
with my coffee,
thinking of all the things
I postpone,
all the things
I wait to become.
The flower said nothing.
It simply bloomed.
Sonoran Sunset -- Image by kenne
The mountains darken, but above them
red, orange, and yellow gather
like old spirits around a fire,
warming the vast desert silence
one final time before night.
Sunset Over Tanuri Ridge — Image by kenne
Becoming
Sunsets shouldn’t be taken for granted.
We’ve earned that wisdom.
They aren’t endings, but continuations—
light working through its final argument.
The desert holds its breath.
We’ve both run out of reasons
to explain beauty.
It happens anyway—
the sky goes dark,
and we call it grace.
Not because it lasts,
but because it doesn’t.
Later, inside,
the room fills
with the faint scent
of dust and air,
the residue of light
still on our faces.
You turn away to pour wine.
I watch,
knowing one day
I’ll remember this—
the silence,
the dimming,
the simple act
of not taking it for granted.
Toothleaf Goldeneye — Image by kenne
— kenne
Camellia Flower — Image by kenne
A Tucson Sunset — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— David Hume
Sedona, Redrock Country — Photo-Artiatry by kenne
— kenne
“Cheers,” Joy — Image by kenne
“Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Photo-Artistry by kenne (Early 2000’s In The Woodlands, Texas))
— from Love Abides by Tom Russell
Street Magic In Las Vegas — Image by kenne
— kenne
Golden Columbine, My Mountain Princess — Image by kenne
My Mountain Princess
Loves shadows and mountain streams
Sounds of moans and sighs.
— kenne
Computer Painting by kenne
Desert Chicory on Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
One of my favorite books of poetry is Riprap and the Cold Mountain Poems, by Gary Snyder.
The book includes Snyder’s translations of Han-shan’s Cold Mountain Poems. Han-shan was both a man and a mountain, a mountain madman in an old line of ragged hermits. He lived at a place called Cold Mountain, a poor poet having a crazy character. He wrote poems that were rough and fresh, and when he wrote about Cold Mountain, he means himself, his home, his state of mind.
— kenne
Gary Snyder reading “I settled at Cold Mountain long ago . . .”
Star-flowered Solomon’s Seal Wildflower on Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
BRAIN DROPPINGS GROWING INTO THOUGHTS
Seeds waiting for gentle rain
Wildflowers rising out of time
Looking for the god of rain, Tlaloc
Hiking on a rainy afternoon
Trails temporarily becoming streams
Ferns moving in joyful motion
Standing still in the breeze
A poem with silent words
Being in rhythm with nature
Moving on toward oblivion
Eyes looking out of the darkness
Things of the spirit left behind
Words strange to my lips
Kika and the tree lizards
Happiness is a tiny white flower
Writing memories on the trails of time
Taking the ordinary to a new level
Looking for a poem outside the words
Living in knowledge without knowing
Scoring love by the number of sunsets shared
— kenne
Mariposa Lily — Image by kenne
— kenne
