Author Archives: Sarah

Hat Tricks, etc

 

every person is a joy
…to varying degrees

 


 

Contrary to my reputation, I am actually very likable.

 


 

Every day when she comes in she does a new hat trick

In an effort to make the receptionist smile

All tricks are met with stony faces

The tricks get more and more extravagant

She acquires a cane

She throws ten, twenty feet high

She bows

She draws a few spectators, regulars every morning to watch the trick

But never does she draw a smile from her target

One day she doesn’t come in

Another second day passes, she won’t answer the phone

They call the police

Who break in to find her

Wrists slit

Two days dead.

When the receptionist hears,

All she has to say is

“I knew she was fucking crazy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

And the Stars Wrap Around Me

 

Eons pass
And the stars wrap around me.
I am born under Capricorn
I grow up under Orion
In the crisp country night
I see black and white.
Under the bright fluorescents of education
I learn what color means.
I get a job
In a room with high speckled ceilings.
I struggle smally.
I see the moon in the mornings
And dappled winter sunsets.
I grow old
Joints from creaks to cries
Complaints from whispers to shouts
My hands grasping at light-pierced blankets
I face my own mortality.
And the stars wrap around me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

Arizona Photos

 

These are in no particular order. I started to sort them and got walleyed. It’s more interesting out of order anyway. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

 

There was always a highway just over the edge of an incredible view. Or is it the other way around?

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It rained the day we went to the painted desert. My sister was sad the sun wasn’t there to make things glow, but I was happy to see all the blues highlighted! We argued about this a lot. I think I was trying to talk her into being happy despite the rain but I just ended up being unreasonably combative.IMG_20190915_140659796_HDRIMG_20190915_140754601_HDRIMG_20190915_115843855

Everything orange in the photo below is petrified wood. Or great big turds. See what you want.IMG_20190915_120718105IMG_20190915_120426625

Antelope Canyon X was surreal.IMG_20190917_110931836_HDRIMG_20190917_110945258IMG_20190917_110628661IMG_20190917_113345701

 

Trains, everywhere. Bringing food in from places that are actually able to make food.IMG_20190915_112648119IMG_20190917_141748914

This was my rock stack. See the useful skills I have accumulated in my varied life. Sandstone is hard to stack, because every time you put pressure on it it starts to crumble away.IMG_20190917_120130351IMG_20190915_100500313IMG_20190917_143826844_BURST000_COVERIMG_20190918_150558013IMG_20190917_170506298IMG_20190917_135551880IMG_20190915_183306657IMG_20190917_084418966IMG_20190915_115037311_HDRIMG_20190915_115013708IMG_20190917_141305446IMG_20190917_143934619IMG_20190917_140651189IMG_20190918_150000253IMG_20190915_105824222IMG_20190915_105748812IMG_20190915_113824581IMG_20190915_140648221IMG_20190917_170429464IMG_20190917_170720957IMG_20190915_115025563_HDRIMG_20190917_141758270IMG_20190918_150532846IMG_20190917_143327280IMG_20190918_150154259IMG_20190917_170402481IMG_20190915_140637172IMG_20190915_100243326_HDRIMG_20190915_140702640_HDRIMG_20190915_104946640_HDRIMG_20190920_122403237IMG_20190919_134300630IMG_20190920_152014397IMG_20190920_122714752IMG_20190918_155357620IMG_20190920_123007375

My niece took the below picture of the inside of a wishing well/fountain. It was too pretty not to include.IMG_20190920_151704271IMG_20190918_155249414_HDR

Below is Meteor Crater. Ten guesses what caused it.IMG_20190918_164456854

An old abandoned zoo. Weird derelict Route 66 stuff was everywhere. At first it depressed me but by the end of the trip I was starting to like it, despite myself.IMG_20190918_160430673IMG_20190920_122705100IMG_20190918_154432695_HDRIMG_20190920_121705320

Wanna feel fat? Take a short, moderate hike down into the Grand Canyon. Watch your family and friends outpace you. Watch them wait lovingly and politely for you to catch up at the top. Swear to self to be less fat in the future.IMG_20190919_134240310_HDRIMG_20190919_131050885IMG_20190920_111051352

I love taking pictures of people taking pictures of things. For some reason it’s just adorable to me, seeing them love the thing and try to capture it. See the way she loves that tree. Isn’t she adorable?IMG_20190920_121515592IMG_20190919_134224348_HDR

Entrance to the APACHE DEATH CAVE. Very tight squeezes, very ankle-turny. Amazingly, no ghosts! My favorite part was later when I asked my brother-in-law where he got that scratch on top of his bald head and he answered casually, “In the death cave.”IMG_20190918_154615192_HDRI thought the desert sun was exquisitely bright, turns out I just needed to clean my lens. Heh.IMG_20190920_121755899My siblings and I kept quoting Shorty in Indiana Jones, “See? Strong bridge! Strong bridge!”IMG_20190918_155405364IMG_20190920_121328323IMG_20190919_134233823_HDRIMG_20190920_180552688

 

Well, I expected rocks. Damned if I didn’t get them. You go to a gift shop, guess what they sell? ROCKS. You can also find arrowheads, or fossils, or petrified wood (i.e., rocks).

I expected a few more creatures, and life. Really didn’t get that. My brother-in-law and his son went searching for rattlesnakes, on purpose, everywhere they found brush, at every gas station or scrubby landscape. They. Found. Zero. I actually felt bad for them. Poor kids. No rattlesnakes for them.

When I got back to Missouri, I felt like a soggy mummy. My lips took a full week to heal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Small Salvations

 

Some people have been hurt so deeply
They no longer know how to accept love.
They have been repeatedly wounded
Until fear overwhelms them.
Their defenses scar shut.
They can’t bare their hearts to trust again.

Even these can find small salvations.
A lover, a child, a persistent friend
Might break through,
Might prove to them
That love is worth the pain.
That humanity
Has beautiful faces.
That they belong.
That they deserve
All the good things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

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