Peonies after Rain

                                                                                

Hundreds of red and white flags border the square.

The bandstand erupts with echoes

of distant battle—

polished brass, steel,

stretched skin.

The cemetery sign says One Way, Do Not Enter.

But I am not driving through

like the faces behind glass on Memorial Day,

leaving red and white flags, plastic placards,

amputated flowers to dress up stones.

I am not bringing dead flowers

to remember the dead.

I do not want to remember

what’s left of you

in the black plastic bag.

The rain waited patiently until

the once-a-year folks drove away.

The peonies I planted have fallen in a circle,

white faces pressed against the grass,

shattered petals like shards of bone.

I found the skull of a deer in our woods,

fallen this side of the No Hunting sign

where the hunter did not track

the trail of blood, a clot of red

mushrooms erupting from the empty eye socket.

Walking the trail you bushwhacked,

I learned to see the world through your eyes.

Once, you stopped, looked up at the moon

and laughed. That’s when I saw the white rabbit

nibbling a moonflower.

A year ago I sprawled across squares of sod,

watching ants crawl all over

white peony globes. The buds refuse to open,

you said, until the ants lick off the sap

binding the petals.

A year has knit the broken ground.

Now a globe of white light rises

from the scattered petals.

I want see the moon

through your luminous eyes.

swans sculpted from towels

swans sculpted from towels

by the young boy who mops floors,

smiling shyly

On the first day of our stay in Hotel Alhambra, we are greeted with an intricate sculpture made of bath towels, hand towels and wash cloths laid out like a white hibiscus at the foot of our bed. As usual, whenever I see anything beautiful, I take a photograph. 
          The next day, when we return from our outing to Isla Mujeres, we find an even more elaborate towel sculpture, in the shape of a swan with a red hibiscus tucked in its breast. We are reluctant to destroy the sculpture in order to use the fresh towels. How on earth did the artist, who must be the person cleaning our room and changing the sheets and towels, manage to get the swan's neck to stay upright with that graceful curve? Curious as to how it was constructed, I carefully take the swan apart and then try to reconstruct it, but to no avail. A little sign by our water pitcher says that our room is being cleaned by Rebeca, so she must be the secret artist. 
          The following day, we leave the coconut I bought on the island along with a note, written with the help of the man at the desk: "Muchas gracias por el cisne, Rebeca. Está muy hermoso. El coco es para usted." After we return from our trip to Tulum, we find not one but two swans, their heads touching, the arch of their necks forming a heart shape. Nestled between their breasts are a yellow gladiola, a white gardenia and a note with a smiley face: "Disculpen pero no soy Rebeca sino Ricardo. Disfruten su estancia. Gracias." We show the note to our Spanish-speaking friends and they translate: "Pardon, I am not Rebeca but Ricardo. Enjoy your stay. Thanks." So our "secret admirer" is a guy, not a gal. How is he going to top two swans? And how can we top the coconut?
          The next day is a rest day. Before we go out to explore the town, we make a clumsy version of sheet and pillow art: three pillows in a pyramid, the sheets as twin sphinxes and an artistic mimosa pod in the middle with another note: "Nos gusta muchismo! Maraviloso! Usted está artista!" When we leave, there's a pile of sheets on the table outside our room and the young boy with the spiked hairdo is mopping the stairs. We've seen him every day, busily mopping and cleaning. "Ricardo?" I say, and he smiles shyly. When we come back, we find a dove with a green branch in its mouth. This young boy with the hidden talent, mopping floors! You just never know.
          Here is another mystery. None of the other members of our group are being graced with Ricardo's towel sculptures. Why us? We are not newlyweds. We are not a pair of pretty young girls. Perhaps it's because, from the first day, we always took the time to greet him with a smile.
          Another day there's a white elephant, its trunk curved up, and finally, on the last day, a "family" of two adults and a child, each holding a red hibiscus and a small seashell. We like to think this represents the two of us with Ricardo, who has become like our son. We leave him an extra big tip, along with my photographs of his towel sculptures and our hopes that he have a long life filled with beauty.

Searching for Entrance

Searching for Entrance


She steps into a postcard
where poetry is a boat with a white bonnet
rocking on a blue lap. Above Lago di Como,
Brunate rims the crescent, an artist's garret


for the jaded elite escaping the heat
or their husbands. Light falls in triangles
of honey-soaked parchment,
a place where no one sleeps yet everyone dreams.


The funiculare hauls her on a silver leash
up the roller coaster hill to the old Hotel Milano.
She tries to hold onto something
but the slant of the walls drags her back.


Restless, she wanders the streets,
cobbled canting capricious.
Every doorway filled with women in black,
furrowed faces hunting sun.


The handsome grocer
fails to rouse her with his amorous
still life: pyramids of polished pomegranates,
brown eggs in burlap bags, leeks cocked on a bed


of crushed ice, artichokes concealing
delicata under soft bristles.
Her life is already severed, burnished,
waiting to be consumed.


The maid drapes a clean white tablecloth
over her door lintel, every day folded
with a different design, a message for women
in frames -- look each day from a new angle.


Climbing above the mansions, she stumbles
upon a bed of bearded blue iris
below three stone steps leading to
what?


Each golden tongue for a day
shriveling to a question mark.
Tuberous toes dancing up the hill
long after the house has fallen.

shroud of white netting

shroud of white netting

wrapped round a plant skeleton

captures a tufted seed

Along the hill going down to the creek, I pass the dried stems of last year's Queen Anne's Lace poking up through this year's green shoots. Some of the skeletal stems are shrouded in white netting, the work of a kind of spider that weaves a tangle web to capture insects. The way the webbing is wrapped around the stems makes the plant skeletons look like a dragon's head and clawed foot. Amusingly, the snout of the dragon's head is decorated with the white tuft of a dandelion seed, poor fare for dragon or spider!

Paz para todos

Paz para todos

Amor para todos

Luz para todos

On our first night in Playa del Carmen, we wander out to experience night life in this seaside resort on the coast of the Yucatán. The message above the door of Hotel Alhambra says, in Spanish and English, "Peace to all, Love to all, Light to all." The trunks of the palm trees, wrapped in cords of light, glow softly. Their reflections in the large windows of the hotel across the street appear to hover inside, doubling the light.

yellow Bugatti

yellow Bugatti

parked outside the VFW --

road warriors at rest

What is a vintage Bugatti Grand Prix racing car doing parked outside the Veterans of Foreign Wars building in the small town of Fairfield, Iowa? From the looks of the worn leather straps on the hood, it appears to be an original model circa 1920s. If so, it's worth a large fortune. Even if it's a reproduction, it's worth a small fortune. Either way, it's a beautiful machine, and I'm happy that its bright yellow presence graces our little "corn corner" of the world.

weaving strands of light

weaving strands of light

into golden nets, rainbow 

glyphs, luminous wings

For this session on photographing in low light, we set up our cameras on tripods and adjust our settings. Now the fun begins. Light sticks and light cords create dramatic effects unseen by the eye, which appear like magic in the digital images.