29 Comments
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Mary Pierce's avatar

A lovely meditative read on this cold, wintry morn. Thoughts of summer most welcome. Thanks, Wes.

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Weston Parker's avatar

Better to dream of being a sand raker than be a snow shoveler…

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David MacGregor's avatar

Very epitome of the beach bully

I kick sand in the bird's

Beak

To show I know Charles Atlas

Alas the bully

Shakes it off

Struts and frets

And kicks it right back

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Patris's avatar

Ha!! Charlie!

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Weston Parker's avatar

I always get a kick out of the comments, you never know what's coming. thanks David

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Alisa Kennedy Jones's avatar

A most vivid beach bully!

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Bliss Grey's avatar

Would you rake the poor stranded Jelly Fish back into the ocean?

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Weston Parker's avatar

I would frantically try to get them back somehow unless they were going to sting me, then, nope, they are one their own. Bliss, do you see the woman figure in the man's shadow?

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Bliss Grey's avatar

Yes, in an impressionistic sort of way. Think -Mary Cassatt in black and tan. The shadow is wearing linen pants. She is standing with her feat planted a bit apart, but just a bit., so unlike the women she usually painted . Now I realized that she is in fact the ghost of Mary, since Mary was a woman who stood her ground and painted portraits of children play in the sand on the beach.

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Bliss Grey's avatar

I have wanted to do a book of shadows, for a long time, using my photgraphs, and writing what I see. Thank you for your question! What is that box of sand and sparkles with the small depression inside? who's in there?

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Weston Parker's avatar

Thanks Bliss

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Weston Parker's avatar

Thanks Bliss

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Jessica Rath's avatar

So sweet, to rake the sand so antlions can have a better life! But you really have a thing with the pidgeons, don't you. Is there a story/poem for the reason? And BTW, I see the woman shadow now, but only after I read your comment below. NOW it's very obvious! Can't un-see it! And one more thing -- I love that so many of your readers comment with their own poems. Maybe it's like a language -- do poets TALK poetry? 🥰

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Weston Parker's avatar

The truth is I love them very much and always have since I was a boy. I am crazy about all birds and so it seemed the height of goofiness to characterize such lovely creatures as rascals. I started writing about them in this one https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/pigeons.

About those comments via poetry, pretty crazy huh? I think all poets are a little bonkers.

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Jessica Rath's avatar

BEST way to be, a little bonkers! Keep it up, Wes! I think the pigeon in the photo of your poem is a mourning dove, NO it's not; you sent me down a rabbit hole, mourning doves DON'T have a collar. There's a 'Mourning collared dove', which lives only in Africa, and yet -- where I lived in NM there were LOTS of the ones with Collar. So: it's the Eurasian collared dove, which lives everywhere in the U.S. except the northeast. All I wanted to say that they came to my bird feeders in NM, I loved them.

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Weston Parker's avatar

They are such an elegant bird with such beautiful colors but then again so are ALL birds.

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Richbee's avatar

There is a ring neck dove from Thailand. A couple mated on my kitchen window sill. Made their nest in a bonsai dish. Considered lucky. I was blessed. Even my two cats left them alone.

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Weston Parker's avatar

How cool that is.

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Richbee's avatar

Zen meditation.

Circles waves.

Never know

What to find.

Shadow transitions,

Details spring

Rakes tines.

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Stanley Wotring's avatar

Find your joy!

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Jack Berg's avatar

Oh you are a rake

I am swept up

By your pile of words

I have been raked in

By your smooth words

I used to be perpendicular

Now I am a dissolute fool

Uncombed

My soul scoured and ransacked

Help me

Pass once over my soil errr soul

Take a way the hole

Make me whole

The Wes Whisperer

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Weston Parker's avatar

I thought you might be inclined to enjoy these words.

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Patris's avatar

So like the antlion to persevere and forge structures - that if paralleled by us would astound and even terrify. What a beautiful contemplation of a humble yet elegant skill, to reframe nature to accommodate man.

(That shadow confounds and kind of frightens me…)

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Weston Parker's avatar

I know, that shadow is weird.

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Debi Hassler-Never Forsaken's avatar

Those rascally pigeons strike again! Cool picture too

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Weston Parker's avatar

thanks Debi. Do you see a lady in the shadow?

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Debi Hassler-Never Forsaken's avatar

Is she behind you?

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Weston Parker's avatar

I'm seeing a shadow that arises from the man with the rake. Her feet connect to his feet. I took this photo yesterday. It's so peculiar that it resembles a woman looking the other way. Can you see it or am I going bonkers?

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Debi Hassler-Never Forsaken's avatar

I see the same thing-obviously the man who is raking is doing it the wrong way, so she (probably his wife) is turning her back on him in exasperation. 😉

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