Reflective

If you could see
the past in a mirror,
would you spend more time
in front of it, recalling memories?

Or turn your back
on it and look out
the window
to the future?

The future,
where your dreams
are shining bright
and reflective.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

You may also enjoy: "reflection, reverence" ~ March 28, 2016

Photo Locations:

1. Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming  

2. Naples Botanical Garden - Florida  

Published in Stone

Bold beasts
suspended in sandstone,
traveling through time,
rambling nowhere.

Angular, circular,
intense with purpose.
Hands drawing hands.
Hands drawing tracks.

Cut with care
and crude tools,
dyed with earth's pigments,
their instruments of art express:

respect for ravens
and fear of snakes;
pursuit of elk, bison,
antelope and deer.

Meals shared
with stories of the hunt.

Visions published in stone.
Preserved for centuries.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

Dinosaur National Monument ~ Colorado

Dinosaur National Monument ~ Utah

Canyonlands National Park ~ Utah

Ocean of Sky

As I watch Orion
rise on the tide of night,
and sail slowly through
the vast ocean of sky,

a voice 
inside my soul
whispers:

"Soli gloria deo".

© 2019 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Catalina, Arizona

"Stairway to Heaven"

"There's a feeling I get
  when I look to the West,
  and my spirit is crying for leaving."


Photo Location:

Hurricane Mesa - Wyoming


Lyrics: "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin

Spent

Like the spent shells
along the the shallow shore,
we are scattered upon the earth;

grouped and gathered,
bunched and belonging,
longing to be noticed.

Selected from the many
prized and possessed,
collected on a shelf.

Collecting dust, seldom noticed,
but admired by children
spending their curiosity.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Sanibel Isand, Florida

2. Delnor Wiggins State Park - Naples, Florida

3. Home Library - Cannonsburg, Michigan

Probing

Through my side vision,
at the edge of my glasses,
I thought it was a tiny spider
walking between the drops
spattered and scattered
on the window of my library.

But turning my vision east,
to the edge of the woods;
it was a Downy Woodpecker,
hungry again,
now that the heavy rain
has let up.

He is probing
with his sharp, black beak  
between the fissures of wet bark
and among flakes of moist lichen
growing on a solid Red Oak.

I'm watching this Downy
while spotting the red spots
on his black-and-whiteness.

He's focusing on his foraging;
and now there's a pair there.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

Night Stroll

A sliver of alabaster;
the crescent moon hanging
in deep blue velvet.

An ivory pendant;
a necessary accessory
for her seductive stroll
through the night.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Home - Cannonsburg, Michigan

Winter Words

At the edge of these winter woods,
vertically black and white;
Sharp. Stark. Reality.

Unlike these winter words,
horizontally white and black;

ideas naked as tree trunks,
mere suggestions, 
once crystallized,
now melting 
into illusion. 

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations: Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

You may also enjoy: "promise" ~ December 22, 2016

Deep Dreams

Any day now,
the lake will freeze over.

Winter
will tighten its grip.

You will dream

of the dry desert.

I will dream

of the Sanibel shorebirds.

Time has migrated here to the north,
to stand steadfast for many months.

Our dreams will deepen
like the silencing snow
of acceptance,

and will adapt 
like resilient reeds
in the winter winds.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. & 6. Reeds Lake - East Grand Rapids, Michigan

2. & 3. Saguaro National Park - Arizona

4. & 5. Sanibel Island - Florida

7. McCarthy Lake - Cannonsburg, Michigan