Tedeschi Trucks Band — Red Rocks Ampitheater

7/28/2024, 00:01 MT; Morrison, CO

There was nothing but love in my heart as I rolled through the winding roads to Boulder. It was all absurd, all beautiful, all adventure, down to the last neon liquor sign, and I knew that now.

7/25/2024, 18:46 MT; Boulder, CO

The hum of friendship
reverberates through my soul
beat to steady beat —

driving out worry,
quelling the maddening buzz — 
one thump at a time.

7/24/2024, 14:21 MT; The Rocky Mountains, CO

For anyone interested, this is what was required to photograph this little snowman. We had hiked (my friends and I; not the snowman and I) a good 11 miles before this, and I had passed the snowman, having grown weary of taking photos as we hiked. My friend turned around and gave me a look. I paused, I sighed, and laid in the dirt to get that shot. I’m glad I did.

A Strip of Rock

07/23/2024, 08:52 MT; Garden of the Gods, CO

For a time they walk.
Joy. Pain. Love. Loss. A lifetime.
Their own strip of rock.

07/22/2024, 05:27 MT; Boulder, CO

Meant to carry, meant to hold, meant to be traveled through.
Teaming bodies flow inwards and outwards with their goals and worries.

They pay no mind to where they rush.
No mind to the buildings as they are.
It is only what the building contains, what transpires there, what they can do for you.

In the soft, pink glow of morning, the people sleep.
The buildings come alive, beautiful and resolute.

07/21/2024, 08:34 MT; Boulder, CO

The mind expands upwards through the roots of red wood trees — 
Out along the wings of singing birds and the wind on which they ride — 
Stretched by the morning sun to the towering stretches of golden rock — 
javelins that pierce the sky.

And there it remains to wander through tranquil emptiness — 
Until I call for it again.

A short poem on devastating beauty

Ravens landed on her dress,
dissolving into vibrant black silk — 
each fold waltzing around her perfect form — 
aware of their privilege.

Where her heels clicked along the sidewalk,
music ceased to hum with the same harmony.
The lilies grew drab.
Nothing flowed like her auburn hair — 
nothing would flow again.

When I gazed into that blackness,
I saw nothing
I saw everything.
I wanted to freefall — 
surrender to that flowing abyss — 
and never return.

Black Silk was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A poem

The selfish man who becomes aware of his own selfishness is not redeemed.
Nor will thoughtfulness born from guilty confessions absolve him from his guilt.

There is no place reserved in heaven for the man who acts well out of obligation.
No sainthood reserved for he who would sin if not for the watchful eye of consequences.

The snake suffers a great deal having realized its nature.
It suffers a great deal more, finding that awareness is no road to heaven — that a snake with awareness is just a snake.

Damned was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reflections on a painting

The man tends the land.
On the land sprouts fields of green
that stretch all the way to where the earth kisses the sky.

The cow feeds on the grass — 
bathes in the pastures of tender sunlight.
Each morning, the man gathers his strength
from a glass of milk and a golden orange,
and together they walk to the patches of food under their gentle care.

The man whistles a tune the cow finds quite agreeable.
The cow keeps the man company, which he too finds quite agreeable.

Sweat pours from the man’s brow.
The heat of midday carries it to the sky, and the clouds find that rather agreeable. The rain empties down a promise of new and perpetual life.

The man looks up at the sky — allows his weight to balance on the rake.
The cow walks up beside him, both standing before their humble shack,
and beyond that shack the grassy fields.

Draped over them gleams a triple rainbow,
stretching all the way to where the sky kisses the earth.

How lucky we are, the man thinks to himself.
How lucky indeed, I think to myself.

City Dreams was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A poem

It’s so easy, inevitable even, to leave in a dusty storage bin somewhere one of those brush strokes.
Maybe the pleasant lavender one of not changing out of your pajamas on a rainy Sunday.
Or that charcoal blue one, back then an abject misery, all-encompassing when your brush had etched it into the canvas.
Where is it now?

Just like so the paint marches forward, that is until one peculiar day in which a rock, touches of mossy green acrylic, sat indifferently in the middle of the road.
My bike turned that corner once again — small tick mark nestled in a school of small tick marks.
I felt the breeze on my face pick up as I began a speedy decline.
And then there it was, a foot or two ahead, slightly off on my right.
A rock.
Just as quickly as I had registered it was there, I had passed it.

Then it occurred to me in a jolt of lucid terror:
Had that rock been a foot or two ahead and slightly left of where it was…
No, there certainly would not have been enough time to swerve my thin road bike tires.

By the time I made it down the rest of the hill,
I felt the lens on my memory had panned far outwards.
So many days spent nose up against the paint, and in a flash here I was, staring at the picture, struck by how much white there was.
How a rock in the middle of the road might have ripped the brush from my hand.

I might have wished for a more life altering course of events after such an existential realization.
It certainly was a poetic series of thoughts.
But instead, I just rode on.
What else really was there to do.

Rock in the Road was originally published in Imogene’s Notebook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.