7:23am June 22, 2015

Description: Árbol de Piedra (“stone tree”), an unusual rock formation carved by wind-blown sand, in Bolivia’s Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve. It is about 7 metres high.

Description in Spanish: Atractivos Turísticos - El Árbol de Piedra, Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa.

Date: 8 April 2009, 14:33:06
Source originally posted to Flickr as Arbol de Piedra
Author: El Guanche

[This image, which was originally posted to Flickr.com, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 12:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC) by Avenue (talk). On that date it was licensed under the license below.]

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

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• to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
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[All above text taken from Wikipedia. Some Wikipedia images are so stunning they just have to be posted.]

12 notes

9:04pm December 1, 2014

The White Institution (written ~2002, events 1999)

I walked down the street
With my eyes on the building of white
I knew they were like me
Autistic and trained not to fight

They rocked behind bars and
I knew I belonged there not here
Not out on the streets
With the ones who had never known fear

My body moved forward
To ocean with sand and with stars
But my thoughts, they went back
To the white institution with bars

As slugs we might be
But the world it had fashioned a shell
Not home anymore
Not here, not on earth, but in hell

madeofpatterns this is my best attempt to recreate from memory the poem I wrote about that white institution with the tiny yards full of wrought-iron bars, and the beautiful gardens that nobody ever actually walked in, that I saw anyway. I can’t find my last post referencing this place or I’d link it. If I ever find the original version (probably in my computer that’s in the shop) I’ll post it if it differs significantly from this version.

11 notes

2:12am October 31, 2014

A Series Of Short Poems About Rocks

This was originally posted to my main poetry blog, and due to the images it looks better over there. And that blog has a comment section.

These aren’t quite haikus, though they’re heavily inspired by them. To my mind, they’re too subjective, and tell too much of a story taken together. I like them both individually and all together. So I put pictures in between them to divide them up in the reader’s eye. So that you can see this is not one long poem with many stanzas, but many short poems on a common theme. And the theme is rocks, and my relationship to them. I hope you enjoy reading at least some of these, as much as I enjoyed writing them. Just take the time to read them as separate poems, one at a time.

madeofpatterns: Watch for the final picture… All of my current close rock friends together in one hand! Anyway, enough babbling, here’s the poetry:

Rocks sing constant songs
Avalanches, quarries, lava
Songs from where they came

Rocks sing constant songs
Sand and dust and memories
Songs for where they’ll go

Rocks understand
Eruption is birth to them
Rocks know birth

Rocks understand
Sand is death to them
Rocks know death

Rocks understand
Sand can form into sandstone
Rocks know rebirth

Rocks resonate with
The rocks in the ground
Rocks are social

Rocks in my hand
Sing only in tactile ways
Rocks talk through touch

I can feel a rock
Telling me and other rocks
Of its secret past

I can feel a rock
Resonating with my bones
I can speak rock

Bones are made of rock
We are each carrying round
Rocks inside us all

One can throw a rock
One can make a stone castle
Rocks hurt and protect

Rocks are made into
Stonehenge and cathedrals
Rocks make things sacred

Holy is not made
Holy already exists
Rocks are holy

In my pocket
Pieces of sacredness
Kept in form of rocks

Agate is my friend
Fiery, smooth, and translucent
She sits in my hand

Schorl egg in hand
Black with a soap-like texture
Warding off bad dreams

When I close my eyes
Amethyst has same color
As the Mother Tree

Amber holds the sun
Yellow, red, and fiery orange
Sunset sparkles depth.

Lapis is a world
Deep blue with islands of gold
Yet fits in my hand

Unobtrusive brown
Spectrolite is secretive
Flashing blue and orange

Tiger eye’s well named
Glints flow from depth to surface
Like a cat’s eyes

Sitting by the road
I splay my legs to the sides
Stack rocks on my knees

Grey pebbles have
Just as interesting stories
As precious gemstone

It was plain grey rocks
Who kept me company
When no one else would

Grey rocks said I had
Place in the world beyond
Human social world

Grey rocks sang
Of avalanche and mudslide
Of death sand and love

When grey rocks sang
All the ground seemed to rumble
With their wisdom

Grey rocks are not dull
They are underestimated by
Those who look with eyes

Rocks beneath our feet
Rumble to each other now
All around the world

Rocks in my hands
Tell me that I am real
Rocks in pockets too

Sitting in my hands
Rocks keep silent company
Unobtrusive friends

13 notes

2:37am October 9, 2014

irlannd:

Aww, c’mon, this is not even fair! They are the cutest and they are going excinct! :(

save dem poor little kitties!

via root

11 notes

9:05pm September 27, 2014

The Rock In My Hand (circa 2005)

[Hand holding a rock]

The rock in my hand tells me
That there is a world out here in this swirl
The rock in my hand tells me
That things will not disappear

The rock in my hand sings an avalanche song
To the rocks in the ground all around
It sings fearful power and boldest delight
And of death and of sand and of love

The rock in my hand tells me
That there is a world out here in this swirl
The rock in my hand tells me
That things will not disappear

The rock in my hand tells me
That there is a world out here in this swirl
The rock in my hand tells me
That the world has a place I belong

[Hand holding a rock]

[Also published at my other poetry blog.]

8 notes

3:30am July 12, 2014

The name of a tree

If you want to know the name of a tree, you’ll have to listen with more than your ears. Human is not a language they speak. You’ll have to listen with parts of you, you never knew you had.

Feel every groove in its bark. Trace its branches against the sky. Listen to its leaves or needles rustling in the breeze. Sit in its crown with your back to the trunk and feel the way the wind blows each branch.

If you want to know the name of a tree, don’t ask me — it can’t be pronounced. The name of a tree can only be enacted by that one particular tree. It spends its whole life shouting its name to the world. Shouting it loudly, shouting it quietly, shouting for anyone to hear. It’s a rumble beneath the earth, a whooshing against the sky, a creaking, a subsonic rattling cry.

And once you’ve heard it? You’ll never forget for as long as you live. And you’ll learn to listen to the names of other trees. You might move on to rocks and boulders and mountains. Or tiny specks of sand. You’d be surprised how much of the world is shouting its name, and how few people stop to hear.

70 notes

3:24pm May 31, 2014

arctic-monkers:

treespeech:

Star Sand, found only on a few beaches in southern Japan, is made up entirely of the calcified shells of marine protozoa that once lived on the ocean floor.

somethingofpointe