New poem and old photo published in Cirque Literary Journal: Black and White

Just had this poem published in Cirque Literary Journal, Winter Solstice, 2014. The print copy is wonderful to hold in your hands and read, filled with writers from the Pacific Northwest. Excellent layout, good writing, great photos and illustrations. You can find their Facebook page HERE. Or go HERE to get your printed copy!

Black and White (revised, 12.24.14)

I spend this morning in in my office visiting Alaska,

clearing dust from a snow-covered mountain

brilliant in the low winter sun.

Thirty below, hundreds of spots, dirt

and scratches: abrasions of twenty winters,

landslides, thaws, freezes – disfigurements

of age. I wonder if ridges and slopes

have sloughed and fallen, baring rock, scouring trees

with draughts of compressed air, changing the landscape

    forever.

Finished, I pretend to stand again in a darkroom –

scent of fixer mingles with crisp day,

numbing my nostrils. I ask Ansel to bless this,

my latest effort to visualize zones as I remember,

performance complete with a last mouse click –

burning highlights, maintaining texture in the whites;

dodged shadows distill the cold past into clean,

   cruel tones of now.

I am reminded of all that is seen

and gone missing in the frosted glass;

even Ansel can’t bring it back, can’t make what was reappear –

instead, a sharp rendering makes me draw breath,
   full of cold air and light.