Poetic Photography

Closet Poets - Part VI

“Painter’s Plight”
By Annette M. Magid

I need my whole collection of paints
if I wish to replicate the cherry pinks
in the evening sky echoing the delight
of sailors who gazed above for guidance.

I need my complete palate of colors
in order to duplicate the cerulean blue
woven through like a harbinger of baby
hues heathered above the highest trees.

I need a life-time of hours painting
if I wish to carry home the enormity
of the evening sky each moment the
Valley of Life reveals itself anew.

“Golden Canyon”
By Annette M. Magid

Absolute stillness
Masks the torrent

Mud, sediment, water,
Roiled, yet resolute

Gravity gaining,
Downhill toward

Alluvial paths
Forged long ago

Cutting creases
In impenetrable rock

Leaving mud packs
To beautify ancient

Craggy rocks,
Baked after the deluge

In varying patinas
From white to ochre

All glowing silently
In golden light.

“New Harmony”
By Annette M. Magid

They drove their Borax
Wagons, two by two
Twenty mules pulled.
Pushed to capacity.

Desert to desert
Death to Mohave.
Dark history of
Human worker abuse
And death

White patina
White gold,
Brittle Borax.
Used by morticians,
Housewives and farmers.

Chinese team work
Refinery, salt flats,
Returned to the desert’s
Convoluted floor.

“Solitary Palm”
By Annette M. Magid

A palm tree, with five branches
fanned open, evenly spaced,
Like a hand reaching toward
The sun, casts a shadow
That is invisible at noon
But appears to be a narrow
Human in the setting sun.

I’d like to find a message
From the solitary tree
That so audaciously exists
In such an inhospitable,
Foreboding, barren dessert.
No rejection against its
Being thwarts its resilience.