Luminosity

I love stained glass. In and of itself, not much but colored glass, fixed together in some thoughtful way. But, when you add light — bright, clear, brilliant white light, it becomes much more than the sum of all its parts. It is its own unique light, its own glow, its own story.

I am always dazzled by stained glass, and so, I thought I’d share a few photos of some glass I’ve had the privilege of photographing. Enjoy.

Angel, with trumpet - Old Cathedral of Saint Mary's, San Francisco

Assumption of Mary (detail) - Old Cathedral of Saint Mary's, San Francisco

Mary Magdalene - Saint Ignatius Church, San Francisco

Esther Regina - Saint Ignatius Church, San Francisco

Angel, with violin - Old Cathedral of Saint Mary's, San Francisco

Jesus and Saint Joseph - Old Cathedral of Saint Mary's, San Francisco

Baptism of Jesus - Old Cathedral of Saint Mary's, San Francisco

Baptism of Jesus, detail of John - Old Cathedral of Saint Mary's, San Francisco

Gabriel - Saint Ignatius Church, San Francisco

Rose Window - Grace Cathedral, San Francisco

Paths

South Beach, San Francisco, October 2009

The Path

If you don’t like where
you are,
Walk.

Step around brambles
Leap over pits
Caution the shortcuts that –
while flat and pleasant –
sticks you
Back
to not liking where
you are.

I learned to walk
in the dark,
avoided the fissures in the pavement,
but couldn’t see the world.
Always ended up somewhere different.
But sunlight is much nicer.

Love the amble.
Trust the direction of the sun.
Your blood always
finds the path
Pointing to your
Cherished Beloved.

National AIDS Memorial Grove, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, June 2009

The Labyrinth: Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, October 2009

Dawn: Post Street, San Francisco, October 2009

Yosemite National Park, February 2009

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, July 2009

San Francisco traffic, Fall, 2009

Autumn Dew

Grassy Area, The Presidio, San Francisco -- Morning

If we were tiny, we could drink.

Grasshopper or ant?

Random Snaps – Sunday

Still haven't gotten a coffee maker since my last one broke. This will do for now, but I can only make one cup at a time...

Morning composition of a work in process..

Every bathroom needs a duck(y)

Self-portrait in a blurry mirror -- September 6, 2009

San Francisco Civic Center Farmer's Market, 1PM

Cherry tomatoes, in bright sunshine

Flowers, three bunches for ten dollars... I bought two dozen roses for twelve bucks...

The walk home, Saint Francis Hotel, Union Square, San Francisco

Beautiful tomatoes and apples

Untitled – 09/06/09

Thank You for walks
in the summer sun,
sweet tomatoes plump with seeds,
apples streaked with red and orange
sunshine,
and scented peaches like summer
jasmine, sweet wine, and kisses.
Thank You for
books
and sleep
and good news among the bad,
Thank you for quiet moments’
reflections — like
cracks in my cocoon.
Thank You for
friendships near
and far — voices
which pluck my quiet
pains, and set them
loose into the gentle
breath of wind –
into the river
and into the ocean,
where they are small,
normal, and dissolve into your
great Immensity.
And thank you for words
which, like feathers in
my wings, carry me,
with each beat,
each melody,
ever and ever closer to
You.

Let Go the Line (Thank you, Rumi)

Looking up at the sliver of the sky - Gleeson Library, September 2009

Let Go the Line

(Thank you, Rumi)

Let the rigid line do what
it must
alone.

In its wide pronouncements it can never bend or
leave its dank
rooms
suffocating -
Stuck there
it can never curve to the ocean’s
rippling edges (disappearing beneath
the yielding sands)
nor
chase the
butterfly’s
meandering path
through flowers

In all its ponderous (bor
ing humorless) seriousness
it will never crack
up
collapsing
in a heap
of laughter
or
swing free-flight (high, higher,
to spy the secret fountains
just over the fence)
between
pleasures and joys
(which can never be pinned).

Break up
with its (boss
sy) arrogance.
Let it fade in
its own
secret fiction.
Let linearity
misunderstand the complex
geometry of (all)
Creation -
Let it be its own roadway
to the dead
lands
where here always eventually
becomes there
(no deviation for
ice cream trucks or the puppy who licks
your fingers)

It has no power -
it will never (like gratitude) fall
as wet raindrops
or (like love) (ever) capture
sun
light’s
comforting
warmth
(it cannot feel
or cry or know
anything more than it’s own rules –
it has no
reflect
ion.)

Let it be what it must
Traveler -

The Divine path
is
no straight
line
from here
to
there
Step off – eyes
open,
watch the land splinter
into silver nothings

Let go the line
and wander –
There
you will always find
your Beloved’s eyes beckon
ing
you.

Summer Roses - Outside Gleeson Library, September 2009

To (Simply) Be

Half Dome, Yosemite National Park - February, 2009

I keep returning to these pictures of Yosemite (obviously), even though I have so many more photos which are probably better composed, with better lighting, from more recent outings.  Yet, like Paris in the spring, or your lover’s attentive eyes, it’s very difficult to take a bad shot.  Even the chaos of random snapshots can be salvaged, but really, it’s all about your fondess for the subject, isn’t it?

I altered these photos so they appear in black and white.   I think they look nice.  Yosemite, though, in any light, will always be beautiful to me.  Click on each picture to view a large-format version, if you like.

Winter storm gathers, Yosemite National Park, February 2009

Bare branches like black lightning, Yosemite National Park, February 2009

Pinecones (not from Yosemite, but still beautiful)

A walk in the woods, Yosemite National Park, February 2009

Ah..  I’d like to go back again soon.  I’d like to find someplace quiet there, so I can be still, so I can be silent, so I can simply be.

In a world full of action verbs, sometimes, it’s hard to simply be.  Enjoy the photos.

On the Edge

Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite - Winter Morning

I saw the sun rise
once,
when every flower deepened
to full being
and the needles from
silent giants shivered off
the cold night
like tears of homecoming.
Around me, the world
beat a sound of awakening,
Frozen hills swelled silver forests,
like breathing lungs
cleared after a long illness –

There I was
small,
lost in the dark for so long, alone–
this gift from nowhere
and it was mine.

Nothing could contain it–
my mind too fragile
a place to remember for more
than a few fleeting moments,
so I took the pieces I could catch
and kept them,

Until
A gentle friend found it,
and wore the mantle of
flowers he found there,
and the rings of diamond ice I had kept.
His hair became the lichen-covered
branches of oaks,
his soft voice like the Mountains
drawing their line apart from stars.
We
two princes of morning,
shared a drink beside the
cool streams
where the sun rises.

He faded into the day,
a blur now
(or was he my
broken memory)
but still I think
and wonder if one day
again
we’ll stoop to drink in the river,
and talk of the day ahead
rested in the presence of clarity,
along the edge of another dawn –

And if he’ll ever know
how much
I wanted to give
him
what I had
of that sunrise,
because he wore it so well.

Breach

Bronze
bends down your broad back –
Molded muscles
shiny and wet

Luminous steel trickles white hot
trails down your brow,
while silver oozes
up from glowing breaches of rock.

We grip,
as if tumbling down the dark
tangles of possible ways,
Lost in our hiding

There, behind the drift of ripe mangoes
rising from the bowl,
flowers wilt
and burnt cherry candles push
black soot into
the shiny sky.

You taste of the vast
metallic streams:
each drip of you and I
sparks
alchemic fires

carpets singed

knees raw

together we
deceive
Time

Like
the moment before a storm
when everyone runs for cover
beneath the news
and awnings

but we,
newly immortal

lift our eyes and
welcome the drench
of heaven’s tears
as we crash

Back to the world of men.

The Construction of Memory

Ocean Beach, San Francisco, January 2009

Against Matter

Tunnel View in Clouds, Yosemite, Feb.2009

what if I turn off everything
and cut sails free from the whims of wind,
the constant chatting changlings of
the world today tethered to
its news of wars, small and personal, creeping
into powerful nodes, spreading.

what if i did that?
what if I became nothing to the world,
unconnected?
where would I land and to whom
would it matter
that I quest upward
into unscalable
places without a rope?