Sunday

  It is the kind of peaceful day we used to have, before our lives here became insanely busy.   The whole day we do not leave our home.  Dael spends much of the day outdoors.  Even I get time to plant a couple of things and wander around shooting photographs, before the day meanders toward a close with that unhurried, thoughtful sluggishness days should adopt far from cities.
  This is our place, our home.  At first, for months, we enjoyed just such long, slow, magical days and nights.  Now we are blessed by too many wonderful friends, too many tasks we can't ignore, too many paintings to see, too much music and poetry to hear, too many openings of too many fine shows by people we often know and like.
  Today is different.
  We sit outside eating a late breakfast with a friend.  Toward sunset, we sit outside again, listening, watching, writing.  We speak in whispers so as not to frighten the quail.  We marvel at the deep red glow the fuchsia take on, back-lit by the setting sun.  We remark on how peaceful it is -- if you don't count the white-winged doves squabbling with the quail, and both squabbling among themselves, and the bees frantically raiding the bird-of-paradise blossoms.
  I even try my hand at a quick poem, but the best I can manage right now is:


The western mountains are yellow ghosts.
The setting sun paints the peaks East of us
a deep, royal red they have waited
all day to wear.  Quail venture nearer
as the shadows lengthen.  A hummingbird
visits ocotillo blossoms, silhouettes
against a clear sky.  Cactus blossoms
fold themselves delicately
against the night air.  Soon
coyotes and the horned owl
will sing up the moon.

Cholla Blossom

Hesperaloe

Ocotillo Blossom

Ocotillo Blossom 01

The western mountains - approaching sunset

Doves at Sunset