On the Outer Banks of North Carolina
I keep the cigar lit
long enough to feel dangerous.
The whiskey glows
like a small sunset
I can hold.
But when the glass is empty
and the scene is still there,
I know—
it was always theater.
— kenne
Archive for the ‘Existential Moment’ Category
Props, Not A Habit Leave a comment
Witnessing Pain and Suffering 3 comments
Mother In Hospice (08/26/06)
Every photograph of suffering
proposes a contract:
you may look,
but you must not
turn away too quickly.
The stages of pain—
shock, endurance, vacancy—
are flattened into a single frame.
Time is arrested,
yet the body continues
beyond the border
of the image.
— kenne
Share this:
Hazy Morning Leave a comment
Hazy Morning Sun In Sabino Canyon — Silhouette Image by kenne
Saguaro cutouts
against a milky sun—
even the shadows
drink their coffee slow
out here.
— kenne
Share this:
Armory Park ICE Demonstration Leave a comment
Abolish ICE Demonstration In Armory Park (07/01/18) — Image by kenne
There is something about grass in Tucson—
it feels like a miracle you can sit on.
We stood on that miracle,
raising our voices.
Armory Park once trained soldiers.
That day,
it trained witnesses.
A little boy climbed
up into a jacaranda tree
and shouted a chant down at us,
his voice high and fearless.
We answered him.
Because every movement begins
with someone small enough
to believe it might work.
— kenne
Share this:
Kenne David and Katie On Galveston Beach Leave a comment
Kenne David and Katie on Galveston Beach — Image by kenne
Galveston still has that beach.
Kids probably still run it raw.
But Kenne and Katie grew up—
that’s the real crime.
You don’t notice it happening.
One day you’re just standing there
remembering sand
and wishing you’d paid better attention.
— kenne
Share this:
Love On Valetine’s Day 3 comments
Joy and Kenne — Old Western Look On The Streets of Tucson — Image by kenne
Beloved, count not distance, years,
Nor trials we have known;
For love’s arithmetic is this—
Two solitudes made one.
You are here.
I am here.
And absence finds no room between.
— kenne
Share this:
Sunset: The First Of Many To Come 4 comments
Sunset — Image by kenne
The sun sets
not because it is tired,
but to remind us
that endings
are another way
the soul learns trust.
— kenne
Share this:
Anticipation Leave a comment
Children Playing in a Park Water Fountain — Image by kenne
The fountain, meanwhile,
enjoys the power of suspense,
teaching a brief seminar
on anticipation
to a very captive audience.
— kenne
Share this:
Nurses Will Not Backdown 3 comments
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.
Share this:
Death Happens Leave a comment
Death Happens — Image by kenne
Death happens
the way rain does—
announced by no one,
soaking the afternoon
until even the living
forget when it began.
— kenne
Share this:
Remembering How To Endure Leave a comment
Cold trail at night—
even the stones remember
how to endure.
— kenne
Share this:
Door That Sings of Dust Leave a comment
Old Farm Junk By a Shad in Willowsprings, AZ — Painting by kenne
The shed door sighs open,
its hinges trembling
with a worn vibrato—
a reed instrument fashioned
from stubborn wood and time.
That wavering note
brushes my chest,
and something inside
loosens, answers.
I step into the dim interior
where shadows keep company
with the tools no longer needed,
and I feel the strange comfort
of being admitted again
to the places I’ve outgrown.
Share this:
Old Tucson Backlot 1 comment
Backlot props — Image by kenne
I wander the dusty backlot of Old Tucson
where a broken wagon wheel leans
against a wall the color of old adobe.
A sign reads Props, but really,
who can tell?
Everything here looks equally retired—
the wooden crates, the tin stars,
the barrel with no bottom.
I stand there wondering
if this is what happens to a life too:
all our moments stored behind a door
labeled with someone else’s handwriting.
— kenne
Share this:
Self Portrait 1 comment
Photo-artistry by kenne
There is a thin, vibrating line
between breaking and becoming.
Every life presses against it.
In the quiet,
you can feel your own edges—
the places where you diminish,
the places where you bloom.
Fragility is the instrument,
transformation the music,
survival the performance
no one applauds
yet everyone enacts.
— kenne
Share this:
We Watched Our Children Grow Old Leave a comment
Kenne David & Kenne George in Bryan, Texas, Many Years Ago
We watched our children grow old
the way you watch a city rise around you,
street by street, believing you are standing still.
Their faces sharpened, then softened.
They learned the weight of names,
the cost of leaving,
the strange relief of returning.
We were busy loving them—
that constant labor—
tying shoes, lifting boxes,
listening for footsteps in the dark.
Meanwhile, time passed through us
like a second language we were learning
without knowing it had a grammar.
One afternoon we caught our reflection
in the glass of their lives
and saw it clearly:
the quiet accumulation,
the patience etched into bone,
the years carried without ceremony.
We had grown old
the way a house does—
slowly, while sheltering others—
until one day the light fell differently
and revealed what had always been there.
— kenne
