A garden untended and ignored.

The bronze cracked and green,

the bell with its mouth open to the ground

and sleeping

was entangled in thorny bougainvillea

and the heard golden color of the bronze

turned the color of a frog;

it was the hands of water,

the dampness of the coast,

dealt green to the metal

and tenderness to the bell.

This broken bell

miserable in its rude thicket

of my wild garden,

green bell, wounded,

its scars immersed in the grass;

it calls to no one anymore, no one gathers

around its green goblet

except one monarch butterfly that flutters

over the fallen metal and flies off, escaping on

orange and black wings.

My soul is an empty carousel at sunset.

— Pablo Neruda

So long, visitor.

Good day.

My poem happened

     for you, for nobody,

          for everyone.

I beg you leave me restless.

I live with the impossible ocean

     and silence bleeds me dry.

I die with each wave each day.

I die with each day in each wave.

But the day does not die —

     not ever.

It does not die.

And the wave?

     It does not die.

When the stars in the sky

     ignore the firmament

          and go off to sleep by day,

The stars of the water greet

     the sky buried in the sea

          inaugurating the duties,

Of the new undersea heavens.

You wonder
     if I will disappear 
          like a rainbow.

After the rain
     when sunlight
          dries the tears
               of the clouds.

But I do not disappear,
     instead I do appear
          I'm always appearing
               in the change of the seasons.

In the space
     where the moon pulls the tides,
          at the moment of dusk.

I appear here
     and you will find me always
          in the flow of this moment,

And in the next one,
     and, the next, and the next....   

In Montessori shadows
     early evening high in the hills
          jazz, and rain.

Miracles of nature...way back
     in the cabana warm and safe
          remembering places we've never been.

On the marina's edge,
     early evening on the bay
          front seat, back seat, wet seat.

Clear lights of the city,
     far, far away.

Giving is different than giving up.
     In giving we gain ourselves. 
          We spread ourselves outward
               like the plant from it roots.

The plant giving flowers and seeds
     not giving up roots, not giving up
          its own place in the dark sun.

Giving without giving up
     giving an illuminated heart
          boundaries moving in
               moving out.

Letting love in
     letting love out.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

-- Lord Tennyson

O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!

-- lord Byron, from The Corsair

Strange flight, the body
Held at a threshold
And never quite freed

Or quite revealed—
One wing taut with wind,
One wing concealed

Until the wind grows calm
And it shimmers in a shadow-world,
The shape of a sail, yet softer—

The drifting boat
A bird half in air,
Half in water.

— Heather Allen

A perfume like a sweet plum,
sugary kisses on the teeth,
vital drops trickling down your fingers,
sweet erotic pulp.

Threshing floors and haystacks,
inciting secret hideaways,
mattresses with a hidden past.

The pungent green valley seen
from the roof above.
All young love, wet and burning
like a lantern tipped in the rain.

In autumn, high arrows, renewed oblivion, fall from the popular.
Feet plunge into the pure blankets.

The aroused leaves coldness
is a dense fountain of gold.

A spiny splendor sets the dry
candelabras of bristling statues near the sky.

And, the yellow cougar scent a live of droplet
between its claws.

Another trip three months ago to Patagonia, the wildest wilderness in South America, outside of what is left of the Amazon.

A quick, ten day trip to the remote parts of Bolivia; stark beauty with occasional displays of color.

To all, to all…

to whomever I do not know, to whomever never

heard my name, to those we dwell

all along our vast shores,

at the foot of snow-packed mountains. 

To fisherman and farmhands,

to Indians thriving on their territorial lands,

of lakes sparkling blue glass,

to the craftsman who at this very hour questions,

fashioning wood with ancient, weathered hands.

To you, 

to the one who unknowingly has awaited me,

I belong and acknowledge and sing.

Here I found love.

It was borne in the sand,

it grew without out voice,

touched the flintstones of hardness,

and resisted death.

Here mankind was life that joined

the intact light, the surviving sea,

and attacked, sang and fought

with the same unity of metals.

Here cemeteries were nothing but

turned soil, dissolved sticks

of broken crosses over which

the sandy winds advanced.

A series of candid photos after my latest exhausting trips to the far flung corners of the world.  Now planning a lengthy trip to the remote parts of Indonesia, Papua New Guiana and Sri Lanka.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…-

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

– Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark -- 1995

Because of the intense rains all of California has experienced over the past six months, superblooms are occurring everywhere, particularly here in the desert east of Los Angeles.  Here are a series of photos taken at Lake Elsinore, Joshua Tree National Park, and Anza-Borrego Springs State Park.

Short trip to upper northwest Washington to view the stark beauty of the coast.

I've been remiss in posting my travels over the past eighteen months.  Spending too much time enjoying the experiences, and not documenting what I encountered.  So the next series of posts will attempt to remedy. 

Spent six weeks in Cuba and Belize, one week in La Habana, and the rest traveling the countryside. Beautiful, yet improvised, particularly Cuba. Some parts of each city were refurbished, the rest were a testament to the paucity of services available under a Communist rule.Younger people have been indoctrinated since birth, and, although secretively, they have access to the Western world, they still reject its basic tenets. No sense in arguing, because their perspective is too narrow.  And, they have not been taught to challenge what they hear or read.