West of Tucson — Panorama Image by kenne
The trail is dusty
Stirred only by our steps,
A soft breeze unable to lift
The dust above our boots
Often coming together as strangers
Sharing a love of the wild
And a desire to hear sounds
In nature’s best.
Nature walks are fine
Surrounded by experts
Who share their knowledge
Born with a feel for the moment
An eye for beauty and form
Nature speaking to the senses
Where nothing is perfect
And everything Is perfect.
— kenne
Spring View Off The Patio (Palo Verdes Blooming) — Image by kenne
Ocotillos produce clusters of bright red flowers at their stem tips, which explain the plant’s name.
Ocotillo means “little torch” in Spanish — Images by kenne
Waiting It Out
Desert display
as Saguaro’s spiny arms
raise to the darkening blue sky.
Days of heat waves
chase Ocotillo flower buds
drooping slowly in the mauve air
very still … and then,
with the distant rumble of thunder
and a flash of lightening,
comes a first drop.
Coming fast, the rain begins
a flood within the gulch
and there, from nowhere,
from the nothing dust,
from the ether
reconstituted
as out of a mirage
appears by the side of the road …
a toad.
— Sue Mason
Spring Flowers Along The Trail — Image by kenne
— Wendell Berry
All Tangled Up In Barbed Wire — Image by kenne
I don’t know, why I don’t
Put it out baby
We kiss and the flames
Just get higher
But yeah I know
When I hold onto you baby
I’m all tangled up in barbed wire
I get burned, I don’t learn
I’ll be back, give it time
Yeah, I know it sounds crazy
But guess I like playing with fire
— from Playing with Fire by Thomas Rhett
Circling the Sky — Image by kenne
— kenne
Stormy Weather Over The South Rim of The Santa Catilina Mountains — Panorama by kenne
A Thunderstorm
The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, –
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.
The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.
The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.
The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands
That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father’s house,
Just quartering a tree.
— Emily Dickinson
Another Beautiful Day In The Catalina Foothills — Image by kenne
Old Juniper Tree In Coyote Buttes, Vermillion Cliffs National Monument — Image by kenne
— kenne
Surphur Butterflies on Creosole Bush Blossoms In Sabino Canyon (July 27, 2021) — Images by kenne
The recent monsoon rains have greened up the canyon, bringing out a lot of butterflies.
Unfortunately, I only had my 18-70 mm lens, so trying to photograph
the mostly surphur butterflies became challenging.
— kenne
Windswept Trail In The Santa Catalina Mountains (This area was burned 18 years ago.) — Image by kenne
time passed since the burn
was called the aspen fire
many square miles chared
— kenne
Desert Landscape — Arrangement In Gray and Black by kenne
“When at last, in all my storms, my whole self speaks,
then there is a pause. The soul collects itself into pure
silence and isolation—perhaps after much pain. The
mind suspends its knowledge and waits. The psyche
becomes strangely still.”
— from Fantasia of the Unconscious by D. H. Lawrence
Queen Butterfly — Image by kenne
Borderland Wildflowers — Image by kenne
— kenne
A Desert Sunrise — Image by kenne
— Paulo Coelho
Becoming is Superior to Being 