My break is not quite over, but I wanted to share a few thoughts and images, before I hibernate again.

I have been driving South to spend time with family, taking occasional photographs when nature allowed – between the heat and hazardous smoke everywhere, it was not easy to find solace in nature.

I have been mourning the rather sudden death of a close friend, and I have been pouring energy into creating and editing new montage work that is (re)imagining our world past, present and future.

As chance would have it, I came across a poem that embraces a similar approach, down to the details of using a bit of fantasy or surrealism to get across some of the points.

The poet had dragonfly choppers hovering above Walden Pond. The ones I saw were unusually static, likely as fatigued as I was, with temperatures in the 100s, in dried-out, dusty Sacramento wetlands. Their images will end up in future landscapes envisioned while thinking about what the hell we are doing to our country, our planet, most likely.

If just one of the montages approaches the brilliance of this poem, I will be content.

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Why Is We Americans


We is gator teeth hanging from the rear-
view mirror as sickle cells suckle at Big
Momma’s teats. We is dragonfly
choppers hovering above Walden Pond.
We is spinal cords shedding like the skin
of a cottonmouth. We is Psalm 23 and
the Pastor’s chattering chicklets. We is
a good problem to have. We is throats
constricting and the grape juice
of Jesus. We is Roach and Mingus in
Birdland. We is body electric, eyes
watering with moonshine, glossy lips
sticky with lard. We is half brothers in
headlock, arm-wrestling in the dirt.
We is Vaseline rubbed into knocked
knees and cracked elbows. We is ham
hocks making love to kidney beans. We
is Orpheus, lute in hand, asking do we
have a problem? We is the backstory
of myth. We is sitting horse and crazy
bull. We is brown paper bags and
gurgled belches. We is hooded ghosts
and holy shadows roaming Mississippi
goddamned. We is downbeats and
syncopation’s cousin. We is mouths
washed out with the blood of the lamb.
We is witch-hazel-coated backs sucking
on peppermint wrappers. We is the
spiked antennas of a triangle face
praying mantis. We is barefoot
tongue-tied hogs with slit throats and
twitching bellies. We is sun tea and
brewed bitches. We is the crying
pussies that stand down when told to
man up. We is Radio Raheem and Zoot
Suit Malcolm. We is spit-slick low cuts
and fades. We is scrappy black-masked
coons and turkey-necked bullfrogs. We
is the pits of arms at stake, the clouds
frothing at the mouth. We is swimmers
naked, private parts allegedly fondled
by Whitman beneath the water. We is
late lurkers and castrated tree limbs
on the Sunday before last. We is red-
veined pupils and piss-stained knickers,
slack-jawed and slumped in the
bathroom doorway. We is whiplash
and backhanded ways of settling grief.
We is clubbin’ woolly mammoths
upside the head, jammin’ fingers in
Darwin’s white beard. We is comin’
round yonder, pigeon-toed and
bowlegged, laughin’ our heads off.
We is lassoed cowboys swingin’ in
the sweet summer breeze.

BY ALISON C. ROLLINS

Music appropriate for dragon flies and otherworldly scenery in general can be found today here.