I Have A Story For Everywhere You’ve Been

I shot this photo in 2009 but I didn’t get it until just now.

It’s an Arizona Cardinal.

I’ve been all over the great American Southwest, to towns that time passed by.

Speeding down the mother road, a smoke in one hand and snacks littering the floor. Camera gear in the back of the car and hippie deodorant stinking since the day before.

I’ve climbed through barbed wire to explore the Lone Wolf Annex and braved the stray dogs on Backroad to watch the sunset in Madrid Cemetery.

I’ve been chased out of churches by natives with guns and told to go back where I came from.

I’ve heard the call of the void from atop Mt. Charleston. John Denver heard it too when his plane crashed into the Monterey Bay and more recently I sat inside by the window while Debbie Reynolds died of a broken heart.

I’ve been where you’ve been, down this road and that.

To every place left to wilt in the sun.

I’ve been away for awhile. Ventured to the east in the name of love but now our time here grows short and there is much to do.

Only so many days until we go back home.