Murray Robertson (photography & poems)
I make photographs and poems to please myself (and share them to please you).
Red Deer River Valley here was an ocean an ancient shallow sea; great creatures navigated there before you and me. archaic things swam in sandy bottomed shallows sailors in ancient places, where we'll never go again. buried bones have turned to stone millions of years went sliding past it seems so long; it goes so fast. here are bones, when fleshed and live, swam by so long ago. we see them in museums, learning little.
sign of springtime growing wild on a hillside, always impressive, wild things in wild places. snow melt waters cool hillsides, and arrowleaf balsamroot. this year i'll miss the daisies. a time has come to go to distant places, to move along, and find other signs of spring, in other places. adventure seems to beckon; we will go.
it's someplace
exotic where
i'd like to be
again.
winds bring us
clouds then it
starts to rain.
green stuff
is wonderful,
so appealing,
i don't know why.
it seems a
green voice calls
seductively
and i know
that not too
many steps,
into the green,
i'd disappear.
smiling.
look and see before it goes away. the sun is best just moments before the sky goes dark. she tells me when it hurts so very badly. i see so little, but i try to help, but am helpless. my sorrow is her pain must be hers alone. i cannot feel it, though it tortures me, because i know she is in pain, and i care. the sun is best just moments before the sky goes dark.
my grandfather's
uncle saw the green
and said so.
since then we too
have learned to
see the green;
it surrounds us
and many of us see,
but some don't;
or they say that
they don't see,
denying reality.
some green things
are terrific, and
feed the world.
but others are
very deadly,
poisonous,
as are some
toxic people,
denyers of
the green.
from here
it looks
so different,
and it seems
like another
world, a wonder.
someone thought
its name might
frighten tourists.
so they put a
different name
on the map.
local people
laugh about it.
they know that
rattlesnakes are
native too.
they are not
overly sensitive
about it.
and if tourists
are too scarey,
a good bite might
set things right!
mute evidence of
long ago eruption,
cooling rocks
swim in warm
pacific waves.
a thousand
miles away
a gentle breeze
stirred a sea,
and pushed a
surface droplet
against another
and another.
the pile rose
and now waves
wash over
these dark rocks,
we watch their
rhythmical arrival,
hear a pattern
of splashes.
they could be a clock,
dividing our days.
we might live
between wave peaks,
resting in valleys.
and how the sun
burns down on us.
when the tide
height's right,
you may see
this sight.
a causeway
to black rocks
in a warm
pacific ocean.
lava flowed;
it flowed again.
we wandered,
free as wind.
beside the sea,
a safe and easy
place to set
our tired feet,
walking in our
city shoes,
smelling
wonderful
salty breezes.
i heard it said
tree heliotrope
is throughout
much of oceana.
so many places
i have not been!
toxic, they say,
in large amounts.
nobody would
eat that much.
crooked branches.
who could build
with such tangled
wood as that?
but trees like this
are fine, so fine,
for creating shade
beneath a south
pacific sun.
African Tulip Tree
once they borrowed
this invasive tree,
brought from afar
to hawai'i.
it was imported
from a world away,
once transplanted
it just got away.
spread like disease,
among a flock,
we heard it so.
so many things
we do will fail us.
time will bring
surprises that
we cannot
understand.
our great works
impress us so.
new evils
seem to
surprise us;
but we may
still endure.
