blue train

Somewhere, I saw these train tracks.
Maybe alongside a dye factory.
I used to live near one, years ago. The little stream would be a different colo(u)r every day. Photo: Location forgotten, I think in USA somewhere
Text: The dye factory was in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong -- it is now closed.

come, welcome

A good friend will be visiting soon.
Welcome.
Photo: Door, Rajasthan, India

stepping into another

I am reading 'Just Kids' by Patti Smith and am transported.
As is she.
Last night, when she was an 'unknown' 21 year old who had not yet played the guitar, Patti went to a concert by The Doors.
She writes, "I observed his every move in a state of cold hyperawareness... I felt, watching Jim Morrison, that I could do that. I can't say why I thought this. I had nothing in my experience to make me think that would ever be possible, yet I harbored that conceit. I felt both kinship and contempt for him. I could feel his self-consciousness as well as his supreme confidence. He exuded a mixture of beauty and self-loathing, and mystic pain..."
Photo: Student shoes, Laos
Text: Excerpt from 'Just Kids', HarperCollins, 2010, page 59
I thank my sister for giving me the book - she knows I wanna be a rock star

I am thinking of East Africa

I am thinking of East Africa. The UN is calling the crisis a "pre-famine". Millions of people are at risk. Malnutrition rates for children are 5 times higher than normal in some areas. Hundreds of thousands of animals have starved to death, and it is livestock that provides much of the income in the region.

Lots of factors: drought, conflict, political divisions, climate change, rising food prices...
Lots of suffering.

So, let us do what we can. Today.
Please, let's stop a famine from happening 
Photo: A gravestone, Rotorua, New Zealand
Text: For information on Oxfam's work: http://www.oxfam.org.hk/en/eastafricacrisis.aspx

what is the colo(u)r?

What is the colo(u)r of love?
Photo: J's wedding dress

corridor

We walked through these Torrey Pines,
believing.
Photo: J and J wedding, Moss Beach, California

tree, trees

This tree lives in Texas, but the other day,
at a mossy beach in California, I also saw trees with beards, swaying.
And just last night, in Hong Kong, a dear friend with a similar grace.
Stand beside a tree, and we also become a tree. 
Photo: In a state park near Houston 

books and birth

Today is my father's 84th birthday, and I see this building as a birthplace. Here, he would meet the person with whom he would begin the wedded part of his life. 
At that time, the site was a library. Now it is a kindergarten.
Photo: Stuttgart, Germany

clouds and confidence

Am flying today. After so many flights,
I still choose the window seat. I choose
the tops of clouds.
In my poem, 'Madeleine, Flying',
I call clouds 'confident countries'.
Photo: Airport, Singapore

grace and space

Gardens.
Places of grace.
And guardians.
Photo: A garden in New Zealand

bright, brighter

Am in San Francisco, warm and bright,
and today, when two friends wed,
we will be warmer, brighter.
Photo: Featherston, New Zealand

breathing

A lung.

Deep and full.

Photo: Our deck, Sebago Lake, Maine

rivers

A friend sees himself as river.
Another sings like one.
Maybe this one.
Photo: Cornish, Maine

one jeweleye

The first of July. One jewel eye.

In Hong Kong, street and summer and voice are full of vision, mission. Full of thousands of minds and bodies, and even more souls.

Thank you. 

Photo: Water lilies, location forgotten

Text: Over 200,000 people attended a rally in Hong Kong to protect and ensure our rights.

They walked from Victoria Park to Central District. I thank them, from Maine, USA.