Solstice

Morning Walk

            

    There is a splash of rain…just enough to refract the light. The gulls are breaking fast and an intrepid old man is riding his bicycle through the sand.

Evening Walk

            There is rain in the forecast, but tonight is cold and star-laden.  I wander the beach watching a golden crescent moon cradle into the ocean.

Halloween

     It’s Halloween in a quiet space where the eve is marked only by the orange of the setting sun. There is no one here where I am camped, over the ancient site of a band of Salish. The ephemeral clouds ghosting the creek assume dream forms as I bend far out over darkening ripples where fish surface and insects light.  Just where the fresh water flows into the saltier sea, another slap and roll of bright rings leads my eye to what the heron has already spied.  A trout rises, disturbing the wavering ghosts fishing in deep water.

Sustenance

Late at night

Men pull food

Out of restaurant garbage

Some of it eaten

Some shoved into plastic bags.

And in the morning

One crabbed old man

Pulls a cart

Filled with dirty bags

His tattered shreds

Into the square

Calling in the pigeons.

He crumbles bread

Over the pavers

Where hundreds of birds

Cloud and swirl

Landing on arms and head

Flapping for a share.

We move closer

Cameras thieving

His image

Until he spies us    Cautious

Moving around the edges.

 

Cackling

He holds out a crooked hand

But we back away

Across some thin line

Shrinking

From filth and stench

And fear.

Glowering, he spits at us

And grabs a bird

In violence

Wringing from it

What we would not give

Even as fair trade.

Paris Notes by Sheila D Robertson | Make Your Own Book

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Wallowa Mountains

Seven Devils from Buckhorn Guard Station

Billy Meadows

Spent the last week living in a tent... retuning to nature in the Wallowa Mountains.  It was a retreat of sorts to focus on writing and photographing.... two of my passions. 

Twelve others and I spent this time together at Fishtrap's Outpost in Billy Meadows, working on our craft.

Meadows of Flowers

The nights were filled with bugling elk, howling coyotes, calling owls and the lyric song of the thrush.  The days were filled with flowers, butterflies and rich words.  

View from Buckhorn Guard Station

Some days the quest is beautiful.  Some days the quest is not quite so lonely.