Archive for the ‘Santa Catalina Mountains’ Tag

Silver-spotted Skipper   1 comment

Silver-spotted Skipper, a Little Rough Around the Edges — Image by kenne

To look at this skipper
is to confront the aesthetic of use.

The roughness at the margins suggests a history
we cannot access directly, only infer.

Unlike the pristine specimen, which invites admiration,
this one demands interpretation.

It asks:
what does it mean for a living form
to bear the marks of its own survival?

Hiking Into The Morning Sun   3 comments

Hiking into the Morning Sun — Image by kenne

The desert does not hurry us.
Even the sun takes its time
climbing the ridge,
spilling light into every hollow.
We hike, and something in us
loosens—
as if the day is not something to conquer,
but something to meet
with open arms.

Where Were You   4 comments

Image and Poem by kenne

Rose Lake   Leave a comment

Rose Lake in the Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne

No fish yet.
Just ripples
counting time.

He listens—
water against water,
nothing wasted.

Line in,
mind out,
both drifting.

— kenne

White Clouds Under A Cloud Cover   3 comments

White Clouds Under a Cloud Cover — Image by kenne

No drama in this sky,
no thunder, no blaze—
just a quiet occupation
of white under gray.

The mountain breathes slowly
under its coverlet of cloud.

And something in me
loosens,
as if certainty were never
the point at all.

— kenne

Great Horned Owl   1 comment

Great Horned Owl — Image by kenne

Feathers the color of dust and bark,
perfect camouflage—
until the eyes ignite.
He looks through me
like I’m another passing nuisance.
Out here, I am.

kenne

Mountain Geranium   Leave a comment

Richardson’s Geranium — Image by kenne

Edge of the stream—
roots hold in thin soil.
Flower beetles
working the flower
like a quiet craft.
Nothing extra here.

— kenne

 
 

 

Blue On The Inside, Gray On The Outside   Leave a comment

Marine Blues On Moist Rocks Near a Mountain Stream — Image by kenne

Butterflies on moist rocks,
suddenly the world makes sense.

Color speaking to color,
wing touching wind.

Yes, I think—
this is how things work.

Then, the butterflies lift,
vanish off the rocks,

and the rocks stand alone
with their quiet question.

I get it.
Then I don’t.

— kenne

Yellow Disks Sketching Circles In The Air   2 comments

Sneezeweed in the Wind On Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne

A gust arrives
and the sneezeweed bows
all at once.

Someone might call this
wildflower behavior.
But from where I’m standing
it looks suspiciously like art—

yellow disks
sketching circles in the air
while the wind
keeps erasing the drawing.

— kenne

Mushroon In Pine Needles   Leave a comment

Mushroom in Pine Needles — Image by kenne

Under ponderosa shade

one pale cap

holding up

a whole sky of trees.

— kenne

Acorn Radicle   2 comments

Acorn Radicle — Image by kenne

Still clinging to its mother branch,
the acorn refuses good manners.
It should wait. The branch says, stay.
The wind says, soon. The acorn says, now.

So it splits its dark shell
sending a pale root nosing into open air—
a small act of rebellion against gravity,
a white question mark lowered into nothing.

In harsh country
you don’t wait for perfect ground.
You start the root before the fall.
You trust the dirt you haven’t met yet.

That’s how deserts are made—
not from patience,
but from something stubborn
refusing to postpone its life.

— kenne

Birdbill Dayflower   2 comments

Birdbill Dayflower — Image by kenne

In the high canyons
of the Santa Catalinas,
the Birdbill Dayflower
blooms testing the theory:
that beauty
need not last
to matter.

By dusk, it has folded
its argument
into seed.

— kenne

In Honor of Georgia O’Keeffe   Leave a comment

Golden Columbine — Image by kenne

On black

the gold grows louder.

Each curve deliberate,

each throat of light

a doorway inward.

Look long enough

and the flower

becomes landscape.

— kenne

Natures Synbolism   Leave a comment

Saguaro Sunrise — Image by kenne

Saguaro cactus at sunrise—
you say endurance,
beauty against all odds.
I see a drunk saint
full of needles
hoarding water like secrets.
The sun bleeds out behind it
without apology.
If there’s a lesson there,
it’s that even the harshest thing
knows how to bloom
when it has to.

— kenne

Ace of Spades   2 comments

Male Phainopepla — Image by kenne

He is so high in the mesquite
I must squint—
An ace of spades caught in thorns.

Yet I feel the small red spark
of his eye
fasten to me.

The branch yields, does not surrender.
My grandmother said
real strength makes no announcement;
it simply remains.

He falls—
a swift stroke of black—
and rises again
to the same waiting limb.

Nothing altered, it seems.

But the desert keeps a breath
between his leaving and return,
and in that held silence
my heart shifts,
quiet as sand
after the wind.

— kenne