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The Poet and The Photographer, Roseau, MN (2026)

10/31/2025

•The Lake Where Lovers Go•

They say there is a lake at the world’s edge where two white pelicans glide at dawn, their wings catching the light like promises. No one remembers when they arrived… only that they move as one, even when the wind divides the water.
Once, they were travelers… wanderers of wild seas and narrow roads. A woman with hair the color of sunset fire, and a man whose laughter made the stars hesitate. They chased storms together, daring the edges of maps, devouring life as though it would vanish if they stopped. In their wake bloomed salt and story and tenderness too fierce to speak aloud.
But love, when it grows that bright, draws envy. The Gods, who cannot stand to see mortals love so completely, summoned a storm to test them. The man was cast adrift, the woman thrown into the silver heart of the lake. Still, she called his name… again, again… until her voice became part of the wind itself.
Hearing her, the man begged the Gods for wings, for a way back to her. Moved by the ache in his voice, they turned him into a pelican… white as devotion, patient as tide… and sent him to find her. When he reached the lake, he found her waiting, already transformed, her eyes knowing.
Now, each dawn, they sail side by side across the quiet mirror of the world. Sometimes they rise together, breaking from the water into the open blue… a rebellion against their curse. From below, it looks as if they are fleeing gravity itself, their wings carved from hope, their bodies lit by memory.
Villagers say that if two lovers visit a lake at dusk and whisper their truest wish, the pelicans will circle once overhead before vanishing into the horizon. And for a moment, the air will hum… like the sound of wings brushing skin, like a heartbeat underwater.
Some loves are not meant to be bound to earth.
Some are too wild, too infinite, to die.
And so they live on… in flight, in reflection, in the place where adventure and tenderness meet: the lake where lovers go.

10/24/2025

•I am the Forest•

The forest receives me like a secret…
its breath damp,
mouth full of moss and want,
smelling of earth and animal and rain.
My feet find the loam’s dark heart,
its sponge soft pulse giving way
as though it remembers me.
The air is cold silk, sharp with rain.
It tastes of crushed mint, of iron sap,
of the small, clean death of autumn leaves.
Cold air slashes my cheeks clean.
The wind is a wild conspirator,
wrapping its hands around my hair,
dragging the scent of pine sap,
lichen, and the faint metallic ghost of frost.
The world is a blur of greens and ghosts.
The branches whip like nervous thoughts,
brushing against my arms
with the intimacy of forgotten prayers.
I know the scent of everything…
wet stone, lichen, rot, fox musk,
the ghost of smoke caught in a fallen log.
Even the shadows breathe,
slick and alive, brushing my calves
like unseen creatures curious of their kin.
The forest is no longer around me;
it is inside me.
I am the sap that crawls toward light,
the frost that kisses a spider’s web,
the cry of something unseen yet ancient.
The ground opens and I pour into it…
root, marrow, mist.
I lose my name in the shadows.
When I finally stop,
the sky hangs heavy and low,
a gray veil torn by crows.
The world smells of storm and rebirth.
I press my palms into the soil,
and the soil presses back,
steady, knowing, eternal.
When I stop,
the forest exhales me.
Mist curls around my ankles like forgiveness.
The silence hums, not empty but full…
a great, breathing presence that knows my name.
And for one trembling, triumphant moment,
I swear I am part of it…
the green, the shadow, the sound, the wild.
I am the forest running through itself.

10/06/2025

•Plea•

The reeds bend like spines broken in confession,
and I am the small green whisper clinging
to the black mirror of the pond.
Above me, you split the sky open…
a blue blade, a symphony to distance.
You were made for departure,
I was made for pleading….
Please…
let me press myself into you,
fold against the thrum of your ribs.
I will be the laughter caught on your mouth,
the hush that melts into your kiss.
Do not let the air swallow me whole
while your wings carve freedom
as if I were nothing but shadow.
I know what I am: too much,
a fever sealed inside a fragile shell.
You wanted solitude, a horizon unchained,
yet I beg to be folded beneath you…
pressed against your ribs like a secret
you never meant to keep.
But I would bleed myself into your mouth
if it meant you’d taste me forever.
I would stitch my laughter to your lips,
let your storms tear me open,
if only to belong in the wreckage of you.
Once, I swore my inheritance was silence.
But then you…
your light burning the same color as mine…
tore through the sky, and I knew:
I had always been waiting
for the violence of your brightness.
If freedom is your cathedral,
let me be the echo trapped in its stone.
If flight is your kingdom,
let me be the shadow haunting its gates.
But please…
do not leave me behind.
Do not make me learn the cruelty
of a world emptied of you.

09/03/2025

The Sunflowers Bow

See how the sunflowers lean,
their heads a choir of ghosts against the skys shadow.
They are not ruined. They are remembering…
they are exquisite in their surrender,
their backs arched in reverence,
their spines still singing of past sunlight.

I stand among them,
hair aflame like a secret fire,
eyes caught between innocence and daring,
my mouth curved into a question,
a promise,
a beginning.

I fell in love with myself here…
in the ruin, in the dusk,
in the way my body became part of the field’s last breath.
For what is more seductive than survival,
more romantic than standing whole
after every season has tried to break you?

There is someone my heart runs to…
his shadow lives in my veins,
his name tastes like wild honey
at the back of my tongue.
For him, I burn quietly,
a field set alight not in chaos,
but in the slow devotion of seasons.
I am both storm and tenderness,
both flame and open hand.

The sunflowers bow,
but I do not.
I unfurl, I rise, I burn…
not as I once did,
but brighter,
truer,
a woman who has made peace
with the ache of her own beauty,
and found happiness not in perfection,
but in the daring act of loving.

08/30/2025

•The Lighthouse Keeper’s Son•

Once upon a northern shore, where the waters of the great lake breathed like a sleeping giant, a lighthouse stood sentinel on a cliff of stone. And within its quiet heart lived Gage, a young cat with fur the color of smoke and eyes that mirrored the waters agates.

The lighthouse had belonged to his mother once. Her paws had polished the brass, her voice had soothed the storms, her light had kept ships from shattering on the rocks below. When her time faded into memory, the lighthouse did not mourn, for it had Gage… and Gage, though young, carried her spirit like a lantern within him. Without being asked, he became its keeper. The flame, the bell, the turning of the gears… he learned them all, and in his solitude he found a rhythm that was almost like peace.

But in the stillness of night, when the lake glittered with stars, Gage felt the tug of something larger. A whisper of adventure, of voices he had not yet heard and souls he had not yet known. He loved the lighthouse, yet he dreamed of forests where he could chase fireflies, of villages filled with laughter, of meeting creatures who would teach him the language of friendship.

Still, guilt curled in his chest like fog. If I leave, the lighthouse will falter. If I leave, the waters will swallow what I was meant to protect. He pressed his heart against these thoughts until it ached. But one day, staring at the horizon, he realized what his mother had always wished for him: not to be a prisoner of duty, but a seeker of light.

Choosing himself did not mean betrayal. Choosing himself was an act of love… both for the mother who raised him and for the self who longed to live. And so, with trembling paws but a spirit fierce as the storm, Gage whispered farewell to the lighthouse. He promised it would always carry a fragment of his soul, glowing in the glass like an ember.

Then, under the rising sun, he leapt down the cliffside path, each step echoing with destiny. For a lighthouse is built to guide others home… but Gage, the cat who once kept its flame, was finally learning to become his own.

08/13/2025

•The Garden Beneath My Skin•

The arch is not made of stone…
it is the hollowed curve of my collarbones,
grown slick with lichen
and the slow drip of years.
I have carried this threshold
like a ghost in my chest,
its hinge rusted shut
a locked door aching for a key.
It opens into a light
that has never touched the sky…
but the glow of something buried,
something ancient
that has been waiting for me.
The air is a muted gold,
thick as honey,
poured slowly over the breeze
until every breath tastes of memory.
The trees here watch.
Their bark splits to reveal
every secret I swallowed whole,
and their roots knot themselves
around my silences.
Each leaf is a whispered confession,
green with the ache of survival.
The path coils inward like a serpent,
drawing me deeper.
I walk it barefoot,
past blooms with glass thin petals,
that turn their faces to follow mine…
past shadows that slither at my heels
and curl possessively around my ankles.
Here, the garden’s hands are everywhere.
Here, the shadows slip beneath my skin,
hungry as a secret.
I am both the one who guards the door
and the one who dares to cross it.
I am both trespasser and treasure,
claimed the moment I crossed.
The arch lingers behind me,
its shadow tugging like a tether,
but I do not turn back.
For I have found the place
where my soul blooms feral…
and it will not fit back into the world
I came from.
The garden is patient…
it will keep me
until I become part of its bloom.

08/12/2025

•Storms Bow•

In the flood’s cold mouth,
I stand… a coin of yellow
offered to the dark.
The water drags at me
like a jealous lover,
but I remember your hands…
how they hold me steady
when the wind thinks me small.

The sky has swallowed its own light,
but mine is stitched with you,
threaded in the marrow of my stem.
You are the unseen root,
the weight that keeps me
from floating away into forgetting.

Even as the rain writes me thin,
you are here…
your shadow in the ripple beside me,
your warmth pressed into the bruise of my bloom.

If I drown,
I know you’ll gather me…
petals, stem,
and whatever sun is left in me…
to plant again
where storms bow.

08/04/2025

•The Language of Roots•

We do not bloom with noise,
you and I.
We stretch like stems in the same hush light,
grass blades, fingertip leaves,
the near invisible reach
of lives unfolding slowly.
Some days are all pause and patience.
You sip your coffee. I breathe beside you.
Nothing grand declares itself,
but the stillness hums…
like something ancient,
like something deeply alive.
The world may not notice
the days we simply endure,
but these are the days
we carve each other into memory…
not with fire,
but with the soft burn of staying.
They won’t write poems about these days,
but I will.
Because it is here…
in the silence between your hand and mine,
between the unremarkable hours…
that I feel the tender machinery of us
click quietly into place.
We are not still.
We are storing sunlight.
Learning each other’s quiet.
Letting our growth slow dance
in unseen places.
There is a kind of love
that does not need extravagance to be true.
Only the weight of presence.
And honor.
Only the quiet joy
of facing the sun side by side.
And if the world forgets us,
let it.
We are writing a story
in the language of roots.
For we are not waiting to be witnessed
we are simply
becoming.

07/29/2025

I was not born of darkness…
I was born of light.
When the sun struck the newborn earth
with its first trembling song,
I spilled out like a secret,
a soft twin trailing behind its brilliance.

I learned early how to be unseen.
I slipped beneath the feet of gods,
brushed against the hems of comets,
and slept in the hollows of mountains
too young to have names.
I was not feared.
I was simply… overlooked.

But the earth, oh, she welcomed me.
Her soil held my face in her hands
and whispered: Stay.
I became the root-keeper,
the silent watcher in the under-thickets,
the spirit who kissed the seeds awake
and told the trees their futures.

The dandelion was my chosen child.
She wore her crown of soft white lanterns
like a queen holding court.
I would press my palm to her fragile spine
and feel the hum of her unborn stars…
each seed a prayer
folded tight as a secret.
I guarded them fiercely.
I still do.

I braided paths for beetles,
gave fireflies safe passage home.
I wrote lullabies into the veins of leaves,
and they sang my songs
whenever the wind passed through them.
No one believed it was I…
they called it coincidence,
called it nature,
never knowing the shadow was the hand
behind every kindness.

But there is no bitterness in me.
I have watched the light enough
to know it is not my rival;
it is my kin.
And when the wind comes
and the dandelion’s children lift their faces,
I do not clutch at them,
I do not weep.
I open my arms wide as the sky
and send them upward,
trailing my blessings in their wake.

For I am the first shadow,
older than sorrow,
and I have learned this truth:
that even the unseen
can teach the world how to bloom.

07/25/2025

The Ladybug and the Wishmaker Wind

Once, in a meadow where the sun rose as soft as a lullaby, there lived a tiny ladybug named Luma. Her shell was red as a painter’s heart and dotted with midnight freckles. Luma was small, even by ladybug standards, and because of this, the other insects believed she would never travel far or do anything extraordinary.

But Luma had a secret: she loved the sky. Every morning, she would climb the tallest stem in the meadow and whisper, “One day, I will ride the wind to places no one has ever seen.”

One bright dawn, while the dew still clung like glass beads to the grass, the Wishmaker Wind passed through the meadow. It was a wind older than the mountains, carrying the songs of forgotten stars. It stopped when it heard Luma’s whisper.

“Little one,” the wind hummed, “why do you dream of the sky?”

“Because the world is so big,” Luma said softly, “and I am so small. I want to know I belong in it, too.”

The Wishmaker Wind wrapped around her like a gentle hug. “Then hold tight,” it whispered.

And just like that, Luma was soaring. Over sparkling rivers, over endless fields of flowers, through forests older than time. She saw fireflies dancing like lanterns, mountains wearing cloaks of snow, and oceans so vast they looked like spilled ink.

But the wind did more than show her the world; it carried her home. And when Luma returned, her shell glittered with stardust.

The other insects gathered around, awed. “You really went,” they whispered. “You’re so small, and yet you touched the edges of the earth.”

Luma smiled. “Being small never meant I couldn’t be brave. Even the tiniest heart can hold the entire sky.”

From that day on, when the Wishmaker Wind passed through the meadow, the insects would close their eyes and whisper their hopes. And if you ever see a ladybug resting on a stem, look closely… she may be waiting for the wind, dreaming of the skies she will someday call her own.

07/22/2025

“Last Flower in July”

They said
don’t move.
Don’t stir the hush that settles here
when July begins to unzip her heat,
slipping off days like a dress you only wear
when you want to be remembered.
They said I bloomed too late
like a thought someone forgot to finish.
But I think I bloomed right on time.
Right when the sky began to blush
like it remembered its own softness.
Right when the bees flew slower,
as if they, too, wanted the moment to last.
I stayed.
In love with the way the sky
forgets its name at this hour.
Too enchanted by orange lanterns
swinging from bee-blessed stems.
Too full of the kind of silence
that only flowers know how to hum.
I stood tall while the meadow sighed,
watched July loosen her golden hair,
her laughter floating off in dandelion puffs.
She wasn’t ending…
she was making space.
The sun leaned down
and whispered you’re just getting started.
The breeze tugged my leaves like a promise.
Even the silence began to hum
like it was tuning itself for something new.
The others left…
chased by storms,
or promises whispered by August.
But I remained.
Hair unbrushed. Thoughts undone.
Still clinging to the perfume
of one last honeyed breeze.
And I…
a wild bloom no one picked…
felt something stir in the hush between heartbeats,
like a hand reaching, finally, for mine.
Because maybe…
maybe the sunlight wasn’t late.
Maybe it was always meant for me.
And now I’m here…
not just blooming,
but chosen.
Still open.
Still full of magic.

07/17/2025

•The Song of Courage•

In the soft belly of morning, where dew clung like silver kisses to each blade of grass, a chipmunk named Clove blinked awake beneath a canopy of wild sky. The world above her was colossal…an emerald jungle soaked in sunlight, crowned with whispers of clouds and the hush of wind weaving lullabies through the meadow. She was small, yes. But she was also watching.

Clove had been born beneath the roots of an old willow, where stories were passed through generations not with words, but with heartbeats and instinct. Her mother had once said, “The world doesn’t give you permission to bloom. You must do it anyway.”

So Clove rose with the sun each morning, not to be seen, but to see. She watched the world like a secret collector of wonders. The ladybug brushing past with purpose. The buttercup opening her golden face like a child’s laughter. The dragonfly who carried summer in his wings.

But today was different.

The sky was soft, painted in hues only the brave truly notice… lavender dipped in honey, the color of a dream refusing to die. And Clove felt something stir in her chest. A courage, strange and sudden, bloomed behind her ribs. Maybe it was the way the wind kissed her fur or the way the sun made her shadow longer than her fears.

She stood taller.

Clove had always feared being too loud, too curious, too much. But today, she peeked above the grass and did not flinch when the world looked back. She met it head-on with twitching whiskers and wide eyes… half wish, half dare.

A hawk circled high above. The wind shifted. The world could have swallowed her whole, yet it didn’t.

Because she stayed.

Because she dared to see and be seen.

Because even the smallest creature, in the right light, becomes a giant.

She pressed her tiny paws together, not in fear, but in reverence. She had made it another morning. She had watched the world turn golden and green again. And in that moment… brief and blinding… Clove was not just a chipmunk.

She was a witness. A warrior of quiet things.
A keeper of clover truths.
A whisper of bravery blooming in the wide-open hush of dawn.

And somewhere in the sky, the willow smiled.

The Poet and The Photographer

10/31/2025

10/24/2025

10/06/2025

09/03/2025

08/30/2025

08/13/2025

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