Here, at the ocean's edge,
observing the horizon's fine line,
admiring distant clouds growing
in a blue, fathomless sky,
my meager, tenuous words evaporate
into the absorbing atmosphere.
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. Delnor Wiggins Pass State Park - North Naples, Florida
If I live to be eighty-six,
or possibly beyond,
I often visualize
our only daughter Sarah,
when she comes to visit,
(who is a good writer),
offering to read to me
the poems I've written
in these later years of my life.
I'll listen to her soothing voice,
her natural intellect,
her excellent annunciation,
her perfect pronunciation,
and her musical mind
reading my words back to me.
I'll ask, "Did I write that?"
"Yes Daddy, when you were seventy-six."
Then she'll show me my photographs
that helped to illustrate my words.
Then she will say:
"This is good stuff Daddy.
You could still write poetry today."
And she'll hand me a pen and paper.
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. Ludington State Park - Michigan
2. Rocky Mountain National Park - Colorado
These innumerable small shells
have washed upon the beach.
I select one in a million,
take it home in my pocket.
Display it on the library shelf
in my small collection.
A fine assortment of jewels
harvested from Sanibel Island.
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. 2. & 3. Sanibel Island, Florida
The wide Columbia;
deep and cold,
big and bold,
pushes relentlessly
down the gorge.
Slowed by several dams,
it seeks the ocean,
and always achieves its goal.
How many fish live
in a mile of water?
How many miles of water
patiently pursue the Pacific?
How many megawatts of electricity
can the Columbia River produce?
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. Hood River, Oregon
2. Biggs Junction, Oregon
An ambitious wind
rises with the sun,
pushes its way through the day.
Twists tiers of leaves
to expose their undersides,
dances with towering tree tops.
Carries cumulus clouds
from west to east
over your sky view.
Tickles your skin.
Furrows your hair.
Freshens your face.
Turns your book's pages
before they've been
read.
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming
2. Joliet, Illinois
3. Home Fields - Cannonsburg, Michigan
4. Home Deck - Cannonsburg, Michigan
Where the shoulder of the dunes
meets the breast of the beach,
a necklace of Sanderlings
performs a jittery, skittery ballet
along the white blouse of seafoam.
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. & 2. Sanibel Island, Florida
Usually, the words
emerge from the quiet.
In the silence of dawn
before the first birds awake.
On the smooth table of water
before the minnow jumps.
During the slow approach of dusk
before the tree crickets chirp.
At the golden glow of moonrise
when wavelets waver the light.
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. Home Fields - Cannonsburg, Michigan
2. Crooked Lake - Kent County - Michigan
Thousands of Sandhill Cranes call
and fall from the blue New Mexico sky.
With their wings held in stutter-flight,
coasting, braking, decelerating,
the cranes fall to earth, descend
into a great cacophony of sound.
A commotion of feathers
and feet on the ground.
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Locations:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge - New Mexico
inside the contours
of his creation on earth
God hides while we seek
© 2024 Richard Havenga
Photo Location:
Point Reyes National Seashore - (Tomales Point) - California
