Photography – Page 2 – Poetry In Time

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


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


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


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