Photography – Poetry In Time

New Growth Poetry Exhibit

Port Angeles Fine Arts Center

My poem below was selected, by the Olympic Peninsula Writers through a juried submission, to appear for a year in the PAFAC New Growth outdoors exhibit in the Webster Woods sculpture garden. Following a year, it will be moved with other poems to a number of parks in Port Angeles. It’s very exciting to have been chosen! Below is a photograph of me with the installation on the day of the poetry reading.

Here is a recording of my reading:

Laura E. Garrard reading her poem “I Have to Chase That Squirrel,” June 18, 2022.

I Have to Chase That Squirrel

Start at a run from the door
And accelerate to top lope
Just as I reach the base of the Douglas fir
Even if I’m too late to catch it
My instinct must be served
You laugh and shrug
For me, it’s not just for fun
It’s my essence, my expression
My way to tell the world
What kind of dog I am
So free me to do 
What I want, what I must
Responsibility, according to whom?
My number one purpose right now
Is to chase that squirrel
Even though I’m scared 
I won’t succeed
I must look skyward to see
On which limb the squirrel may be

Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022

Standing beside my New Growth poetry installation in Webster Woods, June 18, 2022.
(Photograph by Michael Nordell.)
My poem perfectly installed in Webster Woods next to a Douglas fir tree at a trail hub.
(Photograph by Laura E. Garrard.)

I Catch Sun on Lake Crescent

When I Catch Sun on Lake Crescent

There is a point where
I like to linger in the late light
Among the arms of a hugging alder.
I use my left foot to leverage
And perch myself on a limb
Not far from the ground beneath her.
I cherish course gray modeled skin
As wrinkled as an elephant’s
And run my fingers across the thickened ridges.
I look into a dark recessed knotty eye
From where I gather empathy and kindness.
The chatter and clatter of breaking waves
Keep us company with laughter and stories.
Like old companions familiar in fondness
I pick at the white lichen pieces
That slough easily from her aging skin.
When the sun begins to vanquish
I carefully and respectfully lower from
This grand gentle beast my friend.
Ambering arms flailing frozen about me,
I glimpse a couple’s infatuation carving 
Cut deeply into her thoracic body,
The same initials of myself and my own love.
Not my affront, I trace them apologizing,
Relish remembrance can be caught
As effaced longevity upon an alder trunk.

Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022
April 8, 2022



All blog photographs by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022

“Not My Affront, Yet Our Initials Still Caught,” by Laura E. Garrard, 2022

I’m Already Looking Forward

I’m Already Looking Forward

As the height of golden color
Becomes baked and matted
I can already see in mind’s eye
The blooming locations of next year’s beauties
And smell the sweetness of black cottonwood resin
A mere six months to wait
Things may be so different
I don goose down and Gore-Tex
In preparation of the colder and greener moss walks
Today’s azure brightness however
Forecasts a vital turnover
From nebulous to distinctive images
Only of fertile soil building
The winter wait will create cell space
Time will combine the correct mineral and organisms
I along with garden and forest will renew
As that is what seasons and bodies do

By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022
Oct. 31. 2021

“Winter to Summer,” By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022

Elusive Winter Sun

Elusive winter sun
Shine through frozen limbs
And warm my chest

Bring my inflexible bones back to life

Show the way to peace
I once observed
In your summer shining
Warmth through and through
Basking in the new grass

Sleepy relaxed muscles
A dragonfly lighting
On my stillness

By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022
Dec. 28, 2021



[Photo Gallery By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022]

Enjoying the Calm

Enjoying the Calm

Today I approached the lake
And observed that she was very still.
She said, I’m thinking.
About what? I asked.
My destiny,
About where I’m going.
Ah, me too, I said.
I’d rather stay here with you.
Me too, I agreed,
This valley holds infinite beauty
And nourishes my breath and body.
She said, But if we stay here
We will not discover 
What may happen
If we were to explore
Elsewhere.
I said, True,
But we can be
Here together now,
Enjoy your sparkling sunshine,
And not worry about leaving just yet.
She said the winter storms are coming-
I don’t want them to, but they will-
The waves and current 
Will carry this me away.
I know, I said,
We will spend some time
And enjoy the calm.

By Laura E. Garrard
Oct. 8 2021


All photos above and below by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021

I’m So Glad I Can Often Understand

I’m so glad I can often understand
The deeper meaning within poetry

That I can peer through dormer windows
Into your personal abstract stories

Like the sideways glance of shy eyes
And all you’re not saying

Revealing to me
Your truth

Tiny secrets you tease me to tug out
From your words but not

Your being

By Laura E. Garrard Copyright 2021
May 3, 2021

I Became a Drop of Water One Day

In celebration of Poetry in Your Pocket Day, during this Poetry Month of April, I recorded myself reciting this poem (in the above video) while kayaking on Crescent Lake.

I became a drop of water one day
I floated from a cloud into a high hillside creek
And flowed downward to join a magnificent turquoise river
The river rushed into an emerald oblong lake
Where I greeted trout and merganser feet
I filled the entire lake as all drops linked together
I felt my body reach from one shore to the other
As well as separate to myself, the original droplet
After I had known fully my lake environ
I streamed out to the bay, then rougher moving sea
Joining currents stronger than me
Carrying me to other shores and other beings
I grew in knowledge, strength, and courage
Finally after a lifespan, I recognized myself again
For the water is me
Fills me
Nourishes me
And heals me
I became a drop of water one day
And through it realized the essence of all creation

By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
Feb. 5, 2021



[Top and Below Photos all by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021]

Forest Spotlights

Forest Spotlights


Have you noticed how light shines into the forest

To spotlight, transfix, invite us

Drawing attention to focus on its present priority of beauty

How would we stand a chance to notice anything at all

If we were left to our complete wonderment and awe

Without sun’s focus letting us light on what’s chosen

How else would we turn to the fern furl at the base of a Douglas fir

Or spot Olympic’s first spring snowdrop flower

Why, we would miss the most spectacular moments

Falling subject to the broad view

When there are ants in our midst and bliss awaits through the lens

Magnified mosses moving ever so slightly as budding leaves quiver

We would overlook it all if it weren’t for the filter of sun’s selection

Through cedar webbings, I am taken in by the playing and the pointing

Parameters within which I am to study the smaller

A student of tree sculpture captured in my camera

Clicking over and over the short-lived painter’s shades

Of permanent green and ochre amber

In just a minute or less, the magical moment has left

And I continue on until she shines again to point my head


By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
April 12, 2021


[Top Photo: "Sunshine," by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021]