rain welcome but cold
drums on the metal roof -
it's dark without
good food and warm light within
the band begins at 7 PM
and the people come in pairs
dancing round the floor
two-stepping to the fiddle
their blissful faces say:
'now we're happy!'
touching hands
the dancers
float above the floor

knitting banana trees
and pale clouds,
they recreate the landscape

When we were in nursery school, every now and again, the teacher would hand each of us a little flag. We kids would pair up in twos, holding hands, and parade down the sidewalk around the block, waving our flags under blue skies with puffy clouds. The school was in a residential area here in Lafayette, Louisiana - it was in a house where three rooms were used for classes, and there was a separate area with a kitchen, bath, bedroom, and parlor for the owner. Huge hydrangea bushes were covered with lavender-blue blooms. Hula hoops had just become popular, and we gathered on the driveway near the carport to play at recess.

The American flag - stars and stripes - like a family member - was at times most dear to the heart, at times worrisome. By the time I was in high school, there were photos in newspapers and film on TV showing flags behind the President and the Generals and flags being burned at angry demonstrations. The Vietnam War era was characterized by strife, assassinations, and a large percentage of citizens feeling uncomfortable about their country. The drafting of men 18 and older, the use of Agent Orange (chemically defoliating large areas of Vietnam), incidents such as My Lai, and the way in which we exited the war were controversial, to put it mildly.

The U.S. has a most elegant and humanistic design. The Constitution (a descendant of the Magna Carta), focuses on human rights. Power is shared by three arms of the government: the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and the Congress (representing the citizens). Ideally, this prevents hasty decision making and enhances the wisdom of those decisions that are made. We are awkward regarding our military, the governance of our non-human resources, and our relations with those who live outside our country, with whom we share the planet.

Compared to many other parts of the world, we are still a very young country. Our roots, though, are strong, and the U.S.A.'s built-in respect for the individual's right to 'pursuit of happiness', while acknowledging the needs of the community, is something of great value, and worth protecting.

Image taken in Austin, Texas, June 7, 2012.

Traditionally, sunflowers face the sun. These blooms are doing their own thing!

The images above were taken in Austin, Texas on June 21, 2012.

'o caro mio...

Images taken in Blanco/Hays County, Texas April, 2012

We lived in a box of jigsaw pieces from many different puzzles, a two-dimensional game with a multi-dimensional answer, forever just beyond our reach.

Late in the spring of 1974, I'd just graduated from college and was soon to leave Colorado, a state I'd loved at first sight when I arrived in 1971. Some friends and I went camping together for the last time, a brief overnighter in one of the Rocky Mountain national forests. Late in the afternoon, it was gray, damp and cold. A friend walked ahead of me on a trail, and as he hiked over a rise, I was mystified to see him disappear into the fog.

Most of us had tents, but my roommate and I didn't. We couldn't find a flat area so we unfurled our sleeping bags on a slope above a valley. We placed stones at the foot of our bags to keep us from sliding downhill. (We were not pros.) The clouds cleared, so it got much colder in the night. That didn't keep me up because my secondhand sleeping bag was warm.

What kept me awake was the sky. The sky was spangled with stars, sprays and swirls of stars and planets in fascinating patterns of light against darkness. Sleepy as I was, I couldn't stand to close my eyes, to miss a moment. The beauty of the laws of the universe had become physically evident. The pace of time seemed to shift, and I got to see the motion of the stars, how they circled around the north star as the night progressed, how it all processed across the sky, how perfect the synchrony of the celestial clock.

The air was cold and very still, sweetly scented of the wilderness. I fell asleep late in the night, but awakened again well before dawn, my body awkwardly wedged against the stones. I saw something very bright in the east over the valley. Venus was rising. I knew of the planets, and had learned from books and classrooms how they traveled, and what our perspective from earth was like. But this was the first time it visually clicked. I watched the path the white fiery planet made the last couple hours of the night, watched it fade as sunrise approached. A couple of days later, I was on board a plane back home to Louisiana; my life in Colorado had come to a close.