Yes, I am.
(I like to do it in bed, you see.)
He’s a mop-haired giant, both relaxedly floppy and alertly strong.
He’s protective. Energetic. Good-natured. Inquisitive. Obedient.
He’s everything a well-trained dog should be.
And he’s all mine.
This is an unmapped love, traversed
across uncharted terrain, over unknown waters
navigated by the northern stars blinking bright against
the night-dark of stubborn
tender
hearts.
It is not a road less travelled, but a path newly forged –
Road: Forked
(you go your way, I’ll go mine)
[separate ≠ alone]
– hands outstretched across the divide,
holding on over cut-skin sawgrass median and
not
letting
GO
but opening closed-grip palm-holds so the bird of opposite feather held there can fly. Free.
This is aeleron love. It is an hurtling exploration across blue-rain cloud-skies. A long-flight plane ride filled with pre-boarding anticipation, cramped coach-class cocophanous claustrophobia giving way to
wonder-filled expulsion of relieved
held breath amazement
upon arrival at
Destination: UNKNOWN
This is a mountain-trail love, root-tripped and steep-dangerous, an ever-winding upward trek, leaving us winded. Breathless.
It is a highway love, stretching its pavement into arms-thrown-wide open deserts, covered by the worn-blanket promise of eternal sky, leading infinitely onward, to
jungles. tundras. savannahs.
MOUNTAINS
(volcanic)
High we stand, cliff-face adventurers at the edge of the life-ledges we create, surveying the geological impossibilities we’ve traversed thus far, our paths marked with the footprints of Who We Once Were, our bodies wearing the blood-wounds of brambles climbed o’er, the sweat stains of exertion overwhelming, the scabbed-over scarred proof our tenacity.
Is that a salt tear that stings my eye when I look at you through their chameleon blue and see how far we’ve come? (No. It is the whip- wind sting. The storm-water prick from electric air sky.)
Take my hand.
Survey our history.
Catch your breath.
Sate here, with me, your restless wanderlust.
It’s one thing to utilize light to your advantage while taking photographs. It’s quite another to attempt to photograph the light itself so it shows itself to its best advantage. I’ve attempted the second, here.
I sometimes get comments about the soft and/or golden lighting effects in certain photos. (Here and here, for example.) It’s not a filter or a post-edit process or a camera trick. It’s simply the result of using this particular lamp to indirectly light my photo space.