Archive for the ‘D800’ Category

Sonoran Desert Wildflowers — We Stand Together   1 comment

Wildflowers (1 of 1)-2 blogSonoran Desert Wildflowers — Image by kenne

We stand together

Belief clings, but faith let’s go —

Confirm the unknown.

— kenne

Restroom Wall   1 comment

De Anza Trail

Men’s Restroom Wall — Image by kenne

“Nothing is worse than to finish a good shit,
then reach over and find the toilet paper container empty.
Even the most horrible human being on earth
deserves to wipe his ass.”

— Charles Bukowski

Joshua Tree Seedpods   Leave a comment

joshua tree (1 of 1)-2 B-W blog IIJoshua Tree Seedpods — Black & White Images by kenne

Standing

In a grove of Joshua
trees, looking up at
greenish-brown fruit.

Oval, fleshy colored pods
clustered together, when
dry starts falling to ground.

The seedpods are edible
if you think most
bitter desert bananas.

— kenne

joshua tree (1 of 1)-3 B-W blog

Colorado River Panorama   1 comment

Colorado River Panorama (1 of 1) blogColorado River South of Hoover Dam Panorama — Images by kenne

Colorado River (1 of 1) blog The Rocks

of these mountains
are no match against

the mighty river.
Weary of its motion

they open to
potent penetration.

— kenne

First 100 Degree Day In Tucson May 30th   2 comments

Pation Sun Screen (1 of 1) blogPatio Sun Screen — Image by kenne

Our patio is where we can sit and watch the sunset. But when the temperatures start going over 100 degrees, it’s time for the patio sun screen. Through the screen we can watch the sunset with the shadows of the sago palm and olive tree on the screen — beautiful day in the desert!

We almost made it through May without hitting triple digits.

kenne

The Cliffs Of Zion Canyon Panorama   7 comments

Cliffs In Zion Canyon Pamorama (1 of 1)-2 blog“The Cliffs of Zion Canyon” — Panorama by kenne

Zion Canyon cliffs
Towers of sandstone forming
Majestic wonders.

— kenne

The Real Jurassic Park   Leave a comment

Zion (1 of 1)-23 blogZion National Park Towering Cliffs — Image by kenne

The Real Jurassic Park

can be found in the
deposition and preservation

of Navajo Sandstone. Dating
back to the Early Jurassic

situated on one continent
was a vast sand sea. Extreme

winds created towering dunes
of pure quartz sand

dwarfing modern Sahara. Migrating
avalanches over one another

laminating the dune surface
thus becoming more stable.

Changing over time
by climatic cycles

locking stories of time into
Navajo Sandstone and

forming the towering
Zion National Park cliffs.

— kenne

Granite Angles   4 comments

Zion (1 of 1)-30 blog“Granite Angles” Zion National Park (May 20, 2015) — Image by kenne

The Granite Angles

of elevation and depression
looking up from my window

adorned by trees. A bird’s
song lost in its echo’s

I cannot scale. Lines of age
sketch your face. Tall trees

strike me as bonsais
taking root in your

weathered surface. Smooth
now, your peaks

penetrate the sky
and your cloud halo.

Your shadows dissolve
in a sigh of relief

bringing peace
to earth’s soul.

— kenne

Beauty In The Park   Leave a comment

Zion (1 of 1)-32 blogWildflower in Zion National Park (May 20, 2015) — Image by kenne

Zion National Park Majestic View Panorama   Leave a comment

Zion Majestic View Ledge(1 of 1)-33 Panorama blogZion National Park Panorama Taken From Our Balcony at Majestic View Lodge (5/20/15) — Image by kenne

I still remember those majestic views
out by the balcony railing
in the shadow of the late afternoon sun
as I captured several moments
before darkness,
waiting for the majestic view
to become an early evening glow
when the world becomes mine.

— kenne

Escaping From The Vegas Strip   1 comment

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area Outside Las Vegas, Nevada — Images by kenne
(Click on any of the images to see larger view in a slideshow format.)

I came to the canyon seeking an escape

from the manmade strip of bright lights.

Decade old Scenic wildfire still fenced-off.

Vegas influenced exhibits at the visitors

center providing impressive vistas of

the northern Mojave Desert.

Hiking the rocks and desert floor

ending the day on the 13 mile Scenic Drive.

Collecting my winning in nature’s house

the freeway takes me back 

to where the house rules,

I lose.

— kenne

Counting from One to a Million, Whitman and the Civil War Dead   2 comments

Whitman Event Ed_2015 05 07_0686_edited-3 blogEd Folsom presenting “Counting from One to a Million, Whitman and the Civil War Dead” — Image by kenne

For the 24th year the Writers in Performance series at Lone Star College – Montgomery celebrated the birthday of Walt Whitman. For the last several years the celebrations has been in two parts, one a lecture on campus in the afternoon, the second part an evening gathering of poets at a local pub or cafe.

This year’s lecture featured Dr. Ed Folsom recognizing the sesquicentennial of the publication of Dram Taps, most of which Whitman wrote while serving as a hospital volunteer tending wounded and dying soldiers. Whitman felt that a poet’s voice was needed to document the war and help make sense of such a travesty.

This year’s Birthday Celebration for Walt Whitman took place May 7th, which I thought would be appropriate to delay posting till this Memorial Day, 2015. (Post Note) — The holiday originally was called Decoration Day and was a day of remembrance for Union soldiers who died in the American Civil War.

kenne

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Gathering of Poets at Dosey Doe Music Cafe, Conroe Texas — Images by kenne

The following passage from Dram Taps includes the longest sentence ever written by Whitman.

The Million Dead, Too, Summ’d Up — The Unknown (from Memoranda During the War)

THE DEAD in this war—there they lie, strewing the fields and woods and valleys and battle-fields of the south—Virginia, the Peninsula—Malvern hill and Fair Oaks—the banks of the Chickahominy—the terraces of Fredericksburgh—Antietam bridge—the grisly ravines of Manassas—the bloody promenade of the Wilderness—the varieties of the strayed dead, (the estimate of the War department is 25,000 national soldiers kill’d in battle and never buried at all, 5,000 drown’d—15,000 inhumed by strangers, or on the march in haste, in hitherto unfound localities—2,000 graves cover’d by sand and mud by Mississippi freshets, 3,000 carried away by caving-in of banks, &c.,)—Gettysburgh, the West, Southwest—Vicksburgh—Chattanooga—the trenches of Petersburgh—the numberless battles, camps, hospitals everywhere—the crop reap’d by the mighty reapers, typhoid, dysentery, inflammations—and blackest and loathesomest of all, the dead and living burial-pits, the prison-pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle-Isle, &c., (not Dante’s pictured hell and all its woes, its degradations, filthy torments, excell’d those prisons)—the dead, the dead, the dead—our dead—or South or North, ours all, (all, all, all, finally dear to me)—or East or West—Atlantic coast or Mississippi valley—somewhere they crawl’d to die, alone, in bushes, low gullies, or on the sides of hills—(there, in secluded spots, their skeletons, bleach’d bones, tufts of hair, buttons, fragments of clothing, are occasionally found yet)—our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us—the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend from the dear friend—the clusters of camp graves, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and in Tennessee—the single graves left in the woods or by the road-side, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated)—the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the upper Potomac, after the cavalry engagements, the pursuit of Lee, following Gettysburgh)—some lie at the bottom of the sea—the general million, and the special cemeteries in almost all the States—the infinite dead—(the land entire saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes’ exhalation in Nature’s chemistry distill’d, and shall be so forever, in every future grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that grows, and every breath we draw)—not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil—thousands, aye tens of thousands, of Southerners, crumble to-day in Northern earth.

And everywhere among these countless graves—everywhere in the many soldier Cemeteries of the Nation, (there are now, I believe, over seventy of them)—as at the time in the vast trenches, the depositories of slain, Northern and Southern, after the great battles—not only where the scathing trail passed those years, but radiating since in all the peaceful quarters of the land—we see, and ages yet may see, on monuments and gravestones, singly or in masses, to thousands or tens of thousands, the significant word

UNKNOWN.

(In some of the cemeteries nearly all the dead are unknown. At Salisbury, N. C., for instance, the known are only 85, while the unknown are 12,027, and 11,700 of these are buried in trenches. A national monument has been put up here, by order of Congress, to mark the spot—but what visible, material monument can ever fittingly commemorate that spot?)

Palmers Penstemon — The Thrill Hasn’t Gone   1 comment

Las Vegas & Zion_2015 05 20_0739_Palmers Penstemon_blogPalmers Penstemon — Image by kenne

The thrill hasn’t gone

it’s just move

to a new place —

I’ve found it,

have you?

Some know 

where it’s at,

some don’t —

easy come

easy go. 

I get all

the love

I need

down a

new path

where 

the passion

remains —

but then,

who am I 

telling you.

— kenne

Red Rock Canyon Panoramas II   2 comments

Red Rock Canyon Panorama (1 of 1)-5 blog

Red Rock Canyon Panorama (1 of 1)-6 blog

Red Rock Canyon Panorama (1 of 1)-7 blog I

Red Rock Canyon Panorama (1 of 1)-4 blog

Red Rock Canyon (1 of 1) blogRed Rock Canyon Panoramas by kenne

The scenic wildfire

Doesn’t diminish beauty

At red rock canyon.

— kenne

Red Rock Canyon Panoramas   3 comments

Red Rock Canyon Panorama (1 of 1)-2 blog

Red Rock Canyon Panorama (1 of 1) blogRed Rock Canyon (View along the 13-mile Scenic Loop Road) — Panoramas by kenne

There are many beautiful scenic views in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. In September of 2006 a wildfire burned nearly 2,000 acres. The blaze, dubbed the Scenic Fire, burned rugged terrain inside the area’s 13-mile Scenic Loop Road, less than two miles west of the Red Rock Canyon visitors center.

I was able to get in some hiking while photographing this beautiful canyon in the Mojave Desert north of Las Vegas.

kenne

Red Rock Canyon Panorama (1 of 1)-3 blog