Sledding

2006, Northern Arizona

2012, East of Albuquerque

2017, Yellowstone

Snowcoaching

Jan, 2019 near Grand Canyon

Feb, 2019 N. AZ

Sledding in summer clothes?  Fooled you.

2009, White Sands, NM

Rio Grande (Albuquerque) Botanical Garden

Black-Eyed Susans

Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea)

Yellow Coneflowers

Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot)

Notice tiny red flower in center cluster

Yellow Columbine

"The wilderness and parched land will be glad;

And the desert-plain will rejoice and blossom;

Like the crocus it will bloom profusely

And rejoice greatly and shout for joy

[because of Messiah]."  Isaiah 35: 1-2a

Black-Eyed Susans redux

(personal faves)

Picture This

                                                      
This month, I am posting sketches, rather than a poem.  This was from a era in my life when I first pushed myself to become an amateur naturalist.  (Before, I'd just sort of roamed, mostly in New Mexico where I was raised, without really knowing what I was looking at.)  This, along with star-gazing, is one hobby I've definitely kept alive.

This was also when I was most prolific in writing my own poetry, which dwindled after that, then practically dried up (except for writing a few songs to existing hymn meters and the poem I wrote last October... see the sidebar).

I observed many of these where I was attending college, in south central Kansas.  (NOT in a botany, biology or other science field, though.  Just my new hobby then.)  Others were sketched out of books, due to personal interest.  A few years later, when I was stationed in coastal Georgia with the Army, I saw others of these up close and personal!   Some years later, when I returned to the West, I saw yet a few more up close and personal.

The Call of the Desert

 

Ah. . . 

I can laugh,  

And my echo laughs back with me.  

I can run,  

And only the wind runs with me. 

I can leap,  

And I can land gracefully. 

I see beauty: 

A beauty I always see. 

I am alone,  

For I came to be free.  

The earth speaks, 

And I hear, for it's a part of me.  

Who am I  

That God should open my eyes to see 

The deep beauty  

Of what imperfect earth can be?  

The thorns poke,  

But even they cannot stop me; 

For I laugh,  

And You, O, LORD, laugh back with me. 

 ---C. Marie Byars, 1985; New Mexico

FALL

I'm waiting for fall to come:
For leaves to fall,
For mists to blow,
For winds to call,
For birds to go,
And then I'll know it's fall.

---Anonymous [makes the elementary school rounds]

4th of July Canyon, New Mexico