Notes: If you have time, watch the incandescent poem below, the inspiration for my poem, found when I went looking for wind and waves. At this time of too many divisions, let’s remember the past and honor each others’ stories. We need to unite, fight the virus, not each other.

Oral Traditions
— William Nu’Utupu Giles and Travis T.

Continue reading →

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

August 19, 2020

Posted under

Current Events, Holiday, Photography, Poetry

Comments

26 Comments

Ode to Photography

Time,
present and past.
Frozen moments,
remembered and forgotten.
Beauty,
ordinary and extraordinary.

Photographic power
reveals in light and dark
what my mother looked like as
a young girl,
or my father as
he welcomed me to the world,
or myself
as I smiled between
brother and sister
whose faces are only visible
in black and white now.

Lost faces, missed warmth, people
linger in shades, lines, and shapes,
like hieroglyphics of the past.

Notes: For World Photography Day today, I offer this ode, in gratitude for how concrete my memories are, of times past.

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

June 16, 2020

Posted under

Current Events, Photography, Poetry

Comments

15 Comments

Colors Unbounded

All colors
should be free
to be,
to be as covered in glory
or as mired in earth
as needed,
or to stretch between the two,
bowing faces to roots or
lifting shining faces
in sunshine, Continue reading →

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

June 10, 2020

Posted under

Current Events, Memoir, Photography, Poetry

Comments

9 Comments

Glorious Color

As the cardinal calls
pretty, pretty, pretty,
apple blossoms
quiver like
cabbage butterflies
in lilac-scented sunshine. Continue reading →

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

June 5, 2020

Posted under

Current Events, Memoir, Photography, Poetry

Comments

16 Comments

Music in the Trees

I miss shaking a newspaper,
folding it closed, washing
black ink from my fingers,
feeling accomplished before
moving on with my day.

Instead, I hopscotch a crazy-quilt —
CNN. BBC. MSNBC. Fox. Round
and round, site to site and back,
never washing the stain
of sad news from my heart. Continue reading →

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

June 2, 2020

Posted under

Current Events, Memoir, Photography, Poetry

Comments

17 Comments

Justice

All the flowers, poems
cards, and teddy bears
left on sidewalks
after someone died
somehow
don’t fill
the painful void
where a person
we loved
once lived.
Only progress
toward justice
can ease the pain.
A little.