Calochortus

In some ways, my Dad and I are not so different...
1961                                                                     2013

Yup, both those flowers are Calochortus'.

Prayers

Melina discovered we had both written prayer poems...

Prayer

oh love,
i think of our words,
today's and yesterday's,
some sweet, some bitter,
and watch them all
rise as invocations
into the sun of our love.

i think of your lovely brown back,
bent to the sun as you garden
and feel my desire burn pure and clean
in the sun of our love.

i think of the petty and the fearful things in me,
and watch them burn to ashes
in the sun of our love.

oh love,
let us throw open the doors of our hearts,
let the light of this love
suffuse us, fill us, flood us.
let us live in this marvelous gift,
in the sun of our love.

Fred S


Prayer

beneath love's infinite sky,
green sway of pine and oak,
dancing golden and silver within clear blue eyes,
humbled on earth-stained knees,
back bent to the warming sun,
hands tuck sleepy seeds into dark soil,
always with a prayer---
may the winds be my breath,
and yours,
may the rains slake my thirst,
and yours,
may the sun light my soul,
and yours,
may this love root deep within my heart,
and in yours,
may this love's garden grow,
and we two remain one,
sustained on love's ever-flowering vine

Melina S

Old Self-Portraits

Found this Lee Friedlander self-portrait (top) on the internet the other day and it reminded me of the photos that Fred Rosenberg and I took of ourselves over the years. Where does the desire to see see ourselves come from? Maybe we just want an external proof that we do exist.

 Lee Friedlander, 1965

 Fred Rosenberg, late 60's?

 

Fred Staal, ~1963

~Mid 70's

Rolf and Me

Trees in Autumn

 
When the summer's gone out of them
we can see what they are made of.
The vesseled maze, the spreading beams,
strength or helplessness, bone or cartilage. \
Defenseless. Now
we see through them.

Rolf Jacobsen
 

Trees

 
Its a bad time for trees,
a secret half locked deep in the ground,
an aerial half vulnerable
to the whims of arrogant men.
Their only defense (and it has always been so),
a seasonal diaspora of seeds,
when the Many seize the late summer winds
and leave the One behind. 

FS

The Journey, Beginning and End (with Olav Hauge)

There Will Come a Time

There will come a time
when it is time to wander off.
Around me, people
laugh and cry and carry on.
Still, I am not with them;
I cannot be with them.
They don't yet know,
with the certainty that I am coming to know,
that there will come a time
when it is time to wander off.

The time for some is sooner,
the time for others later.
We do not know our time.
Then suddenly, before us,
a new and shining sea,
a fresh breeze,
and a little boat,
bidding us to sail.

FS

It's the Dream

It’s the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen
that it must happen
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the rockface will open
that springs will gush–
that the dream itself will open
that one morning we’ll quietly glide into
some little harbor we didn’t know was there.

Olav Hauge