oh my sweet and tender-hearted girl,
i feel you
i steal you
i reel you
onto my table-top orbit—
i was once new
i was once true
i was once you
cardinals coming and going—flying through the slats on the little side porch, eating at the feeder, drinking in the fountain
a single peony shimmering in the morning sun
cups of orange spice tea on cool nights
family gatherings with pineapple popsicles
glasses of deep red wine into the night
cool linen sheets for afternoon naps
I took a photo of the white tulips, a quick shot, a forgotten snap.
The next morning, I posed them on the table adding a canvas to the background, a candle in the foreground, lights on and lights off, an interesting book, some seashells.
In the end the best shot was the simple one I’d taken the day before, as I was headed for the dog leash and a late afternoon walk.
So much of life is like this, where the un-orchestrated is the most pleasing, the image that works.
Note to self: allow things to be themselves, independent, uncluttered and free— people, ideas, love, tulips.
there you were, sniffing the violets—
your shoulders hunched and your snout long,
your grey fur, a perfect camouflage on a misty spring night
the alternate world of the photographs that get snapped by mistake—blurry and not always decipherable, an abstraction in composition and color and even in thought—infinitely compelling
the stillness of a perched crow—
perhaps it contemplates a distant destination,
the whisper of flapping wings,
the camaraderie of a journey at dawn across January skies,
or the solitary moment on the margin between flight and rest