Photos and Poetry

It’s a Saturday, and lest someone think me all business and no pleasure, I’ll share some more of my brother’s photography. I’ll share parts of the conversation and ideas behind the photos too, as these activities are – well, a pleasure. Now then, this first photo… well, I don’t know a thing about the photo. My brother sent it along with a couple others and said, “Check this one out too.”

No title, but I liked the photo, so for now, until LittleBro gives it a title, it’s called “Wooden Sky.” Enjoy!

UPDATE: Attila the Pun titles this photo "Eave'ning"

Now this second photo does have a title, and it’s a title that reflects what my brother saw when he took the photo. “As Foundations Crumble” and the alternate “Golden Years, Out to Pasture” inspired a conversation worth having. It also conjured up a poem I wrote for my “number three daughter” on her graduation. Here’s the photo and the poem.


January 6, 2005: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

For my daughter, on her eighteenth,
Looking forward to graduation.

There we were, your Mom and I,
eighteen years on the other side of yesterday
watching and waiting for you to arrive.

Astonishing! You — determined to be,
your Mother — determined to hold,
I — determined to watch

you slip out; face up, an angel’s kiss
upon your forehead, and clearing your lungs —
you were the life in our daughter’s cry.

The days, the weeks, the years crept by —
you crawled, you toddled, stumbled and walked —
you were the meaning in your first words.

We watched you take deep breaths,
blow your heart across an instrument,
and God, you were the music in your flute.

You pursued everything that seemed to make you smile,
music to marching, to flag waving, to cheering, and on
to being the passion in your dance.

Now, here we are, your Mom and I,
eighteen years on the other side of your birth,
wanting only joy in your life, meaning in your

pursuits, music in your celebrations, and the magic of passion —
passion for everything you do, everyone you love — so that you,
looking back from eighteen years on the other side of tomorrow,

will be soothed to sleep, by a life well lived,
and burrow deep into the summer of your beginning,
when you thought you had forever.


Here’s hoping I haven’t lost what little readership I have as a result of the poetry. I know some feel as Robert Heinlein feels, “A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.” it’s true, I have other nasty habits ;-)