Fall's arrival

It has been a beautiful Indian Summer here in the high desert. We've had the kind of wind-free, warm-sun weather where it's hard to stay indoors and get "things" done. The outside beckons. Therefore, I answer its call and go out. Come in. Then go out again. Things are just beginning to show the touch of cooler night air.

The fishhook cactus. It's always red, but I think I notice it more now that the sky is that impossible fall blue.

The desert willow

I don't have much to say tonight, so I have decided to share with you words written by my friend Erik Stalheim. This is what I really want to say, and it is so much better in his words. (Thanks, emmet!)

ridiculous to dam tears, at times
i am so full of the world
It can only squeeze Itself through ducts
collect itself in perfect globes of 
                      wet salt
and then fall, following gravity
               to Its source
And the world does not fit
inside my skin, bursts me like a
splitting cocoon to birth the sun - 
Its light allows no boundaries
still these eyes that give tears
make them out, blurred or cut
sharply in love
                                          ~Erik Stalheim, 2004