Tag Archives: Roads

Crossroads

Best if you view this one from my blog instead of the reader, as I’m sure the Reader will mess up the spacing and shape. IMG_0258

Crossroads

You and I are at that place where roads cross—
a new place made by the need for things
going in

d
i
f
f
e
r
e
n
t
d i r e c t i o n s

to meet.

How lonely if all roads
veered off on their own,
solitary,
never coming to a junction.

It might have been thus, but for
a thousand small decisions
that led to this particular meeting,
here on this corner
of
your
road
and
my
road

Here in this location not uniquely either of us,
where we meet and mingle
and become one
for as long
as we both decide to stand
talking like neighbors,
each of us having veered halfway
away from private territory
to come to the spot
here in the middle
where we become two parts
of a center.

V
e
c
i
n
a
neighbor,
l
o
v
e
r
husband, wife
s
i
b
l
i
n
g
grandparent
f
r
i
e
n
d
daughter,son
a
c
q
u
a
i
n
t
a
n
c
e
interloper
b
y
p
a
s
s
e
r
s
or strangers when we
m
e
e
t

So
many possibilities
in
the
crossed roads
of
our
lives.

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/crossroads/

No Free Ride in Mexico: Cuota Road to the Beach

The “Freeways” of Mexico are anything but free.  Yes, there are free roads, but they are generally twisty, two-lane and frequently not too safe.  In Mexico, what we think of as freeways are actually toll (or cuota – pronounced “quota”) roads.  They are not cheap, but they are multi-laned, divided, well-maintained and generally safe, although this trip presented one unique potential danger not often found in the U.S. unless you happen to live in the northwest.

Click on the first photo and then the arrows to enlarge photos and see the story told in their captions.

http://ceenphotography.com/2016/04/05/cees-fun-foto-challenge-freeways-expressways-highways/

At the Crossroads

IMG_0310At the Crossroads

I am drawn
toward a horizon
not as flat as the others.
Palm trees stir
in the ocean’s breath.
A yellow dog
churns down this road,
but I do not follow.

That other road?
Spires of a city
pulse with light
and an imagined music
blows in on the wings of notes
that swim through heat currents in the air.
Not that road, at least not yet,
the music tells me.

What the third road leads to is invisible
behind a denser curtain of air
blistering with possibility.
Like fingers motioning me forward,
flapping like drapes in the sky––
beckoning.
Come here. Here. Here.

Spinning to look behind me,
then in a circle to see where I am,
“Is this place enough?” I wonder.
It is a place known and comfortable.
It has the right chair and a fridge well stocked with food––
familiar objects of my choosing.
Can “here” be a course chosen?
Can we draw new roads through where we are?
Everything is present everywhere, I once said,
and a trusted friend agreed;
but truths of the past are not always complete truths.

We add on to truth like sand castles,
building new towers,
crumbling others in our haste
to make bigger, better.
Truth changes like the sea.
In its entirety, it is the truth;
in each part, part of the truth.
It is a creative endeavor,
this life of each of us––
choosing the parts of truth
to call our own.

DSC09735

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/sorry-im-busy/

 

Follow the Lines: Cee’s Compose Yourself Challenge: Leading Lines

Follow the Lines
(Click to enlarge pictures)

IMG_0105 Version 4You need to CLICK to expand this one. Although this looks like a panoramic shot, it is actually a cropped version of the photo below. I think the  horizontal imagery of the photo (in which every element is horizontal) is brought out with more effectiveness in the cropped version, perhaps because the canvas itself is more extremely horizontal. Unlike leading lines that demonstrate perspective by leading the eye back into the photo, these lines draw my eyes back and forth, so I wonder if they qualify as leading lines or if perspective is a requirement.

IMG_0174 (1)(This is the original of my cropped version favorite above it)

IMG_0563 (1)I almost didn’t use this photo because of all the contrasting round and curved shapes, yet I feel in spite of them the horizontals of the music draw the eyes back, especially because of the narrowing perspective.  I’m interested in what Cee has to say about this.

DSC00627 - Version 2I love this scene and took it from about 5 different perspectives and focal lengths, including a shot that reveals shoreline for miles up the beach.  There is something about the simplicity of the wave line in this shot echoed by the ripples on the sand that made me like it the best.  Showing this line extending for miles seemed like overkill.

DSC01483Searching for leading lines in my current library of photos on my computer made me realize that I really do concentrate on curves and more rounded shapes.  What lines I found were almost always of roads or beaches, so it was fun to include these raindrops on the windshield of a speeding car.  They seem to fulfill the assignment to me, but still I’m interested in what Cee has to say about them.

Now, on to the additional assignment of including curves.  I think these photos fill the bill:

Version 2IMG_0261

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/10/28/cees-compose-yourself-photo-challenge-week-5-leading-lines/

Take the Cobbled Way: cees-which-way-challenge-2015-week-27

Take the Cobbled Way

At the corner of my street, I always turn left, then always stay far right to avoid scraping my muffler as there is a big depression to channel the water coming down the arroyo.  Click to enlarge this picture and you can see a small trickle.  A few days ago it was like fording a stream!
IMG_1444 IMG_1439
Wherever you are going as you enter my fraccionamiento, the way is always up!  And the way out is always down.

To see more possible ways to go, go HERE

Cee’s Which Way Challenge, May 19, 2015

DSC09677

All roads lead to home.

DSC09647

Making the way easier.

DSC09456

The sylvan way.

 http://ceenphotography.com/cees-which-way-challenge/

Routes Laid Out by Heavenly Bodies

P4270416 - Version 2

Routes Laid Out by Heavenly Bodies

The road of the moon
on the water
is a bridge
between us
leading me
to our new self.

When I am ready
to return
to what I was
before you,
that road
has vanished

but the sun
lights a different
pathway
and sends my shadow
ahead like a door
I seek to enter.

The oldest moon,
the sun at its birth
or just before its death
create  in us
just the suggestion
of a road.

That is why we rise early
for the sunrise,
gather for the sunset,
spill old blood,
howl howl
at the open moon.

This poem meets both prompts today. The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem about a bridge. and the WordPress prompt was  “When the full moon happens, you turn into a person who is the opposite of who you normally are.  Describe this new you.”

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-full-moon/

Brick and Stone

Brick and StoneIMG_9666IMG_3523IMG_9339IMG_3526IMG_8562 (1)IMG_7818IMG_7685IMG_3528Version 2DSC08083DSC08085DSC09872 - Version 3DSC07053DSC07064DSC07065

Version 2 DSC08073
Mexico is brick and stone.  Everywhere you look:  cobblestoned roads, stone paver roads, stone walls, brick walls, stone sidewalks–you name it, we have it.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Any Kind of Bricks or Stone Walls, Walks or Roads

Long Roads, Short Lives

The Prompt: This week its all about roads, paved or unpaved.

First of all, here’s a little background music for you to view these pictures by.  You’re in for a treat if you do listen to Norah Jones singing her rendition of Long Way Home.

 Long Roads, Short Lives

DSC09735

Some roads less permanent than others, but still roads

DSC09734

Making tracks on tracks

DSC09630_3

Sometimes the road becomes the traveler.

DSC09629_3

What happens to roads during a heavy storm in La Manzanilla.