What the Heck is This Words | Pictures Thing?
It’s a blog. Beyond that, no promises as to what exactly it will be.
I’m a creative writer and picture taker since the age of having hair and braces. Now, I focus mostly on nature and our fraught place in it. Rather than morning pages or journalling, which are productive habits for many writers, I like to walk with my camera, see what catches my eye, and snap the image. And pretty soon I’m lost in the cadence of walking and looking, and then a line or a fragment comes from the ether. I’ve learned to follow. The line might be part of a novel I’m working on. It might be short and unto itself. Whichever it is, this routine is the one dependable thing that awakens my muse and sets me to my writing for the day, and I hope it brings a moment of reflection or inspiration to yours.
I call some of what I’ll do here, these short pieces, One Thing, but they are really two; a picture paired with short prose. The subject could be anything. Like poems or stray thoughts but inspired by the photography. Rather than talk about process, I’d rather just do it. And I’ll share other creative work, both brief and long. A story, a poem, an essay. Whatever these posts are, their intent is to both sharpen my blade and hopefully carve out some quiet space for you in the middle of our chaotic days.
Rising Through the Fallen
The late autumn air
has cooled in quadrants
of forties and thirties.
The prairie trail is
hollowed, a seawall of
brown stalks taller than
the average man.
At the Gulf
On the edge of the white beach I am alone near the sea grass tall and waving and dying. Again and again and again the shore laps in the hot wind. The sand here is powder. At times windswept leaving ripples across the wide plain into the gulf that is firming the firmed shore where walkers walk and runners run and bikes wheel with asphalt assurance.
Companions
This is the divide in the trail
where we go our separate ways
you into memory fully sprinting
coat shining chasing who knows what
into who knows where
and me still walking
into tomorrow where the leaves fall
and cover with snow
Between Meetings
When a man, suppose a man of considerable wealth, has eyes
that meet you and leave you like making eye contact with a small
bird, says that his personal life just went in the crapper,
do you relate by saying, shyly, I can relate, or do you nod your
head like the cat watching the bird jump from each dry limb to the next
thinking how lucky he is to have feathers?
More Dog Walking
My dog rolls in dung on the trail. I shouldn't mince words, I think it was dog shit.
Then he ate it.
Bridge Over the Ravine
Not far from the house I live in is the house where I spent much of my childhood. Down the street, a road dead-ends at an old bridge, still open for pedestrians and cyclists. It crosses an ancient ravine—wide for suburban Chicago—with a narrow ribbon of creek winding through woods at its bottom until it meets the open waters of Lake Michigan.
Hello, My Name Is…
A painting colors your mood, your mood colors the art. The strokes and dabs pull you into their swirls. As do the last lines that lay a story bare. Or a chord is struck and reverbs around the lyrics glimpsing the singer's life and binding them to your own. Does it matter who the artist is and the life they've led to be moved by their work?
No, I want to say. I say it. No. But then, I don't quite believe myself.
Puerto Vallarta
…we found each other, and that led to the annual three or four night adventures in Puerto Vallarta overlooking Banderas Bay. A six-thousand foot deep Banderas Bay, waves breaking white over blue and shimmering to the horizon, where oceanside meals are easily found and trinkets constantly sold, where a beach-combing vendor dropped his rather large and alive iguana on my shoulder, then asked me for money. Where too much tequila can be easily drunk…
Wintering
…Dry leaves rattle. Something scurries in the browned reeds. The camera raises, but that 'something' is no more. Late again. Not that it matters. If I've mastered any art in digital photography, it's the art of being late. A second is all it takes and I'm left with what I usually see, which isn't what I could have sworn I saw…
Long Island Johnny at the Tiki Bar, 2020
Cold December Florida dusk. Hardly anyone there.
Hardly anyone is me and you and a few others
together alone in the pandemic air.
Creativity After 50
In my head there should be a factory
Unfortunately it may be closing
It’s more like a dying pet store
animals abandoned
shelled seeds strewn on cage floors
birds flutter around the bars
searching to fly free
peck for seeds but live on
stray chaff
Sustenance
…What a surreal nightmare to live through. Every person you’ve ever known and every person they have ever known only knew this way of life. Until the exact day when tomorrow became unknown and yesterday became never again…
October Storm
…Ollie the dog was leaping
at the sliding door. Opened
the cold air
rushed in
and he rushed out
bounding into the yard
barking at nothing
I could see except
the white grass…
