Missed Adventure

Posted on May 23, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 4

The reading room: Photo by Noelle

The sliver of window holds the field and the wood beyond. My eye catches the green as I peruse the book. In the cold and rain I shall not venture further, yet I feel muddy grass beneath my feet. In the quiet of the house, there lacks the tapping of rain drops swapping leaves, as they roll ever downward to the earth. Pages turning and ticking clock are a paltry company by comparison to the flooding ravines. Fiddlehead ferns breaking mulch dance about my mind interrupting this tale of woes and dragons, forgotten in my lap. For the confinement of dry and warm blankets I gave up the wind rushing my face and rattling my jacket sleeves. Such adventures of wet crows and dark fox burrows have I missed in this warm and dry corner of my house.

The Trail

Posted on May 20, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 11

Bear Creek Lake, Lakewood, Colorado: Photo by Noelle

The trail is long as a river in the grass. Sand lilies grace the trail dwarfed now and then by soapweed yucca. In this vastness, the short and tall grasses each belong to me, as surely as the wild sky. Storm clouds gloom, but the rainbow only laughs. The sun has broken through and crickets sun themselves on drying stones. They snap and sing, flying just ahead of me into the sagewort and buffalo grass. I hear the mountain plover and the meadowlark close and far, but they are nothing more than flickers in my peripheral vision. So much moves in this rolling prairie, but always sees me before I see it. Still, I do not hunger for company in such a crowd of scrappy rabbits and field mice. If I keep my pace, I may find the pot of gold before the light winks night.

Leaping

Posted on May 14, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Walking bridge at Clement Park: Photo by Noelle

Not everyone at the edge is leaping towards death. They aren’t all desperately escaping grief and depression. Some of us come to the edge to see who we are in the air. Then the water. The chance to leap, a joy hungered for. For surely, there is exhilaration in risking everything to become who you truly are. In the quiet corners of our lives we daydream of how water transforms.

By the Wire

Posted on May 7, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 8

By the Road: Photo by Noelle

By The Wire: Photo by Noelle

Long day and too much traffic. Coming home and I saw you by the wire and something told me to pull over. You were still and quiet, while the interstate roared on. I stood with you alone and together. I wonder what you thought of me, coming from no where or why you didn’t wander off. My mind was awash with details, suddenly wiped clean on your withers and dried in your mane. It’s weird what makes you think of peace and angels. This silent stillness, chest high in barbed wire and switch grass mixed with short blue grama. I stayed awhile and smelled your hide. Earth tones that cleansed my eyes of fluorescents. When I left you I was naked once again and on your bare back my heart road home.

Comes the Storm

Posted on May 5, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 4

Storm brewing over the hogbacks: Photo by Noelle

As the sun set, it was clear, the beauty was in the clouds, the high winds, and the violence between. They gave the sun something to shine upon, and in that, was the miracle at dusk. This is the path of healing. You are whole again when you can shine the light of your spirit on that which was broken, violent and torn asunder.

Coming of Night

Posted on April 30, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 13

Coming of night over Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

In the coming of night I feel the day slip away. In the last rays that crest the hill, I forget what disturbed my midday and nagged my afternoon. No monk am I, but there is a vesper in my heart at this hour. As if the monastery bell had rung and in the reeds of the lake I knelt. Swallows catch the last flies, before the chill descends with the night. I ache to follow the rays across the horizon, yet, there is peace in this twilight I fear to miss. The passing of my day, its light and its dark, not to be walked again.

Seed to Mulch

Posted on April 25, 2014 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Dead Tree at Chatfield Reservoir: photo by Noelle

In grain an old storyteller’s life twists and turns. Withered like drift wood that never left home. Each adventure a ring and a knot. An audience of millipeds and the rolly polly beetle that roam the planks and hone the staff. Sun demands payment in chlorophyll and sap, while wind licks it’s length a child on a lollipop. There is no rest from seed to mulch, for even in death the performance plays on, a tale told in wood.

Tree and Earth

Posted on April 23, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 4

Dead tree on the bank of the South Platte River: Photo by Noelle

And the trunk said “I am alone here. My branches are dead and gone. My many roots are withered or taken by beetles. My leaves have blown far in the wind. No life moves in my bark, accept that which feeds upon me.”

And the earth said, “Come to me. For you have fed me with your leaves and opened me with your roots. You have held me to this bank, for surely the rain would have sent me to the river. Be at peace, my old friend and sink into my soil. Tell me of your years in the sun. For that story given, I will trade of how water rises to the moon.”

Pressed Leaf: Photo Poem 38

Posted on April 22, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 10

Trampled leaf, Green Mountain Trail: Photo by Noelle

Look closely. Sometimes the most beautiful things lie underfoot. Stranger still, it is often in darkness that our real beauty is exposed.

In Stone

Posted on April 21, 2014 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Stone at Roxborough: Photo by Noelle

Veins run deep. Pockets of distortion, pits and sticks. A landscape cracked and disturbed, stained and bleached from the sun. Colors soft, contrast drifting into shade. Solid, firm, reliable as an East wind. In stone a story I hear with my fingers.