3/22/12
3/21/12
3/20/12
Leave-Taking
Nature is a sentiment...
Post hard spring rain,
that soaked needy desert floor,
there a single droplet remains.
Clasped to twig leaf branch,
unwilling to take leave,
and fall without the chance,
to bid adios to burgeoning flowers.
Assignees of the tiny water beads
contribution to baptizing largesse,
a rich offering to arid land enhanced.
Post hard spring rain,
that soaked needy desert floor,
there a single droplet remains.
Clasped to twig leaf branch,
unwilling to take leave,
and fall without the chance,
to bid adios to burgeoning flowers.
Assignees of the tiny water beads
contribution to baptizing largesse,
a rich offering to arid land enhanced.
3/19/12
3/18/12
3/16/12
Sitting and Resting My Booted Feet
In quilted emerald fields of desert clover...
I've been trampling long over high desert terrain
A range covering dry sand and silt alternating gravel and rocks,
Sockets of arid thistle, punctuated with prickly pears and creosote.
Trudging, mostly looking at the ground to avoid the sun,
In a slow ocular dawning my eye corner notices a damp wash.
A centerline trickle of water causes my head to tilt and squint in the sun.
Ah ha! The wash widens ascending down with alluvial fan's beaded streams,
Pouring from mesa lined with deep tap rooted bushes and in between
A rich overlay of desert clover to rest my feet while sitting on a boulder.
Enveloping my boots it tantalizes my feet before being soaked in cool water.
I've been trampling long over high desert terrain
A range covering dry sand and silt alternating gravel and rocks,
Sockets of arid thistle, punctuated with prickly pears and creosote.
Trudging, mostly looking at the ground to avoid the sun,
In a slow ocular dawning my eye corner notices a damp wash.
A centerline trickle of water causes my head to tilt and squint in the sun.
Ah ha! The wash widens ascending down with alluvial fan's beaded streams,
Pouring from mesa lined with deep tap rooted bushes and in between
A rich overlay of desert clover to rest my feet while sitting on a boulder.
Enveloping my boots it tantalizes my feet before being soaked in cool water.
3/15/12
Economic Disconnect
Abandoned for destruction wires cut and removed...
Waiting for the bulldozers and claws.
Waiting for the bulldozers and claws.
3/14/12
3/13/12
Roadside Memorials
Here marks the last spot on earth seen alive...
Roadside memorials have a long history and in the Southwestern US they are usually marked with crosses as the main feature originally due to the Hispanic heritage of the region. It does not mark the place where someone is buried but where they were last seen alive and not necessarily where they died. These memorials are created by family and friends to commemorate the person and the cause of death is due to some sort of traffic mishap.
To me the ones that I have come across regularly over years that have been maintained are particularly poignant. It is an indication that the person who is now deceased has not been forgotten by those left behind. The memory is so strong that the tribute continues to be tended as the spot of the final place the soul lost to them was a whole person intact as they knew them. These photographs are of a roadside memorial in a rather remote area of Arizona and the highway depicted has a reputation for wicked collisions and fatalities and referred to as the "Highway of Death."
These markers are also meant to serve as a warning to travelers cautioning them to drive safely. The Arizona Highway Patrol started placing white crosses in the nineteen-forties and fifties to mark the site of fatal car crashes and the tradition was carried on by family members of fatal collisions. In Arizona and New Mexico Department of Transportation workers are not required to protect them but generally they are left unaltered or moved if necessary out of respect for the caretakers.
Roadside memorials have a long history and in the Southwestern US they are usually marked with crosses as the main feature originally due to the Hispanic heritage of the region. It does not mark the place where someone is buried but where they were last seen alive and not necessarily where they died. These memorials are created by family and friends to commemorate the person and the cause of death is due to some sort of traffic mishap.
3/12/12
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