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.

Cigarette: Photo Poem 41

Posted on May 15, 2014 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Walmart parking lot: Photo by Noelle

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.

Little Gem: Fire

Posted on May 8, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Fire Blue: Painting and photo by Noelle

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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.

In the Land of Algae: Photo Poem 40

Posted on May 2, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 2

In the Land of Algae grows dragonfly larvae and tadpole eggs. A curious place of varied greens and swirling motes that build grasshopper an island. In the Land of Algae is the home of the skating water bug, fat belly and spindly legs, skipping over oxygen bubbles and landing in dark mud, seeping from delicious decay. In the Land of Algae is a planet unknown, as Mars and Jupiter, but so much closer to home.

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.”