The Poet and The Photographer

The Poet and The Photographer Where wild hearts meet wild places. One lens. One pen. Countless stories. He captures what the world forgets to see. She writes what the soul won’t say.

Together we bring nature to life—real photos, raw poems. Follow for art, wonder, and wild beauty.

•Foreign Colors•For years they named me after absences…the missing blue,the insufficient gold,the sky I could not hold t...
06/13/2026

•Foreign Colors•
For years they named me after absences…
the missing blue,
the insufficient gold,
the sky I could not hold together.
I learned to fold myself small as a dead leaf,
They handed me mirrors made of their disappointment
and I learned to see only the grey, the lack, the shrinking.
Too much, they said, and so I folded my wings…
pressed them flat against the body of myself,
made a small, apologetic shape
that would not disturb the air they breathed.
to apologize for every root I grew.
Love came with rulers then,
measuring what I owed,
counting every breath against a debt.
But you… you speak of me like a field guide to something rare.
You name the colors I had stopped believing in.
And here you are,
looking at me as though I am some impossible bird…
stitched from twilight and seawater.
Now I raise my face the way a bird lifts into the sun
not to burn, but to be witnessed in the warmth.
Cloak me in a million South African suns.
Let me be bright without apology.
Beneath it, I lift my face heavenward,
petal soft and trembling.
I do not want to be their smaller thing,
their bloodless mirror, their convenient dark.
I want to perch here, full of impossible color,
and let you be the one who sees it first.
No one told me. All these years, no one told me.
That I was not the absence of the light…
I was the one who held it in my feathers,
waiting for a voice to call it true.
Let me bloom here,
in the light of your believing.
Let me wear the colors you discovered
before the world convinced me they were gone.

•Everything Matters•I drink pinotage,your country blooming darkly on my tongue.Clouds drag their velvet hemsacross the t...
05/31/2026

•Everything Matters•

I drink pinotage,
your country blooming darkly on my tongue.
Clouds drag their velvet hems
across the throat of the sky,
and the warm wind lifts my hair
with the careful hands of a ghost.
Above me,
the moon hangs wounded and beautiful,
a silver bruise upon the sky.
Everything is speaking of you.
The night pours itself into my glass.
The stars loosen their buttons.
Even the darkness seems softened,
as if love has taught it mercy.
How fortunate, to have found the one
who would race laughing toward the impossible
who would lay me gently upon the moon’s cold
and love me so completely the craters bloom with light.
And you…
you would run with me toward it,
toward that cold and shining loneliness,
and love me so completely
that even the emptiness would become a home.
Everything matters tonight.
The ache.
The impossible luck of finding you.
I, who built myself from caution
and locked every door against the dark,
stand open as a field.
The moon watches,
you love me until even my shadows believe in light.

If He Is Waiting“Do you love him?”The question opens like a woundthat never learned to scar…a mouth in the chest, asking...
04/14/2026

If He Is Waiting

“Do you love him?”
The question opens like a wound
that never learned to scar…
a mouth in the chest, asking, always asking,
wet and red and wanting.

They ask it like weather,
as if love were not something
I learned to polish until it shone
like a blade held to the throat of memory.

Look…
the clover lifts its green coins
to the mouth of morning,
three soft shields
against a world that crushes luck
between its teeth.

A small jeweled insect balances there,
thin legged, trembling
on the rim of disappearance…
still trusting the leaf
as if falling
has never been its only certainty.

I have walked through rooms
where the walls remembered
what I begged time to bury,
through years that tasted of burnt wire
and silence thick as ash.

I swallowed whole the cruelest seasons…
each one a stone,
each stone a year,
each year a small death
I dressed in ordinary clothes
and sent into the world pretending.

But yes.
God, yes.

If I knew…
if some merciful and terrible voice
leaned close and whispered
he is there, he is waiting,
he is the warm thing
at the end of the long burning…

I would go back.

I would crawl through every jagged memory,
barefoot on the coals of my past,
press my hands into every wound
like a woman searching rubble
for something still alive.

I would relive every cruel hour…
every slammed door,
every swallowed scream,
every night that lasted longer
than a life should…

if I knew
he was the last light
at the end of that long corridor,
the quiet mercy
waiting at the mouth of ruin.

Hope is a fragile thing…
a glass winged body
balanced on luck so thin it hums.

Still, I keep it.
Still, I cradle it
like a bruise I refuse to hide.

Because if he is waiting…
if he is the warm hand
at the far edge of suffering…

then none of it was wasted.
Every cruelty was a road
I was meant to survive.

And I will stand here still,
like that small shining insect
on its trembling clover,
holding the green world
beneath my fragile feet,
whispering into the morning:

Yes.
Yes, I love him…
enough
to live it all again.





•Proximity•I did not mean to want you.Want was never the plan.Want is dangerous…it loosens the bolts,it invites conseque...
01/28/2026

•Proximity•

I did not mean to want you.
Want was never the plan.
Want is dangerous…
it loosens the bolts,
it invites consequence.
I came disciplined.
Contained.
A woman who knew how to keep her pulse
from giving her away.
My breath changed first.
A subtle, treasonous thing.
As if my lungs recognized yours
and adjusted themselves accordingly.
As if oxygen itself
leaned toward you.
I felt it then…
that slow, intimate undoing.
Not hunger, not need,
but the unbearable awareness
of being seen
without being handled.
You did not touch me.
That was the danger.
You stood there,
and my vigilance…
began to tremble.
Not from fear,
but from the temptation
to lay myself at your feet.
With you, calm came
like a held breath finally released
into another mouth’s silence.
My body softened
in places I did not give permission to.
My spine forgot its armor.
The stars above us burned indifferent,
but my skin listened.
It learned the sound of you standing near.
You became the place
where my vigilance laid down
and dared…
for the first time…
to sleep.

•The Lake Where Lovers Go•They say there is a lake at the world’s edge where two white pelicans glide at dawn, their win...
10/31/2025

•The Lake Where Lovers Go•

They say there is a lake at the world’s edge where two white pelicans glide at dawn, their wings catching the light like promises. No one remembers when they arrived… only that they move as one, even when the wind divides the water.
Once, they were travelers… wanderers of wild seas and narrow roads. A woman with hair the color of sunset fire, and a man whose laughter made the stars hesitate. They chased storms together, daring the edges of maps, devouring life as though it would vanish if they stopped. In their wake bloomed salt and story and tenderness too fierce to speak aloud.
But love, when it grows that bright, draws envy. The Gods, who cannot stand to see mortals love so completely, summoned a storm to test them. The man was cast adrift, the woman thrown into the silver heart of the lake. Still, she called his name… again, again… until her voice became part of the wind itself.
Hearing her, the man begged the Gods for wings, for a way back to her. Moved by the ache in his voice, they turned him into a pelican… white as devotion, patient as tide… and sent him to find her. When he reached the lake, he found her waiting, already transformed, her eyes knowing.
Now, each dawn, they sail side by side across the quiet mirror of the world. Sometimes they rise together, breaking from the water into the open blue… a rebellion against their curse. From below, it looks as if they are fleeing gravity itself, their wings carved from hope, their bodies lit by memory.
Villagers say that if two lovers visit a lake at dusk and whisper their truest wish, the pelicans will circle once overhead before vanishing into the horizon. And for a moment, the air will hum… like the sound of wings brushing skin, like a heartbeat underwater.
Some loves are not meant to be bound to earth.
Some are too wild, too infinite, to die.
And so they live on… in flight, in reflection, in the place where adventure and tenderness meet: the lake where lovers go.

•I am the Forest•The forest receives me like a secret…its breath damp, mouth full of moss and want,smelling of earth and...
10/24/2025

•I am the Forest•

The forest receives me like a secret…
its breath damp,
mouth full of moss and want,
smelling of earth and animal and rain.
My feet find the loam’s dark heart,
its sponge soft pulse giving way
as though it remembers me.
The air is cold silk, sharp with rain.
It tastes of crushed mint, of iron sap,
of the small, clean death of autumn leaves.
Cold air slashes my cheeks clean.
The wind is a wild conspirator,
wrapping its hands around my hair,
dragging the scent of pine sap,
lichen, and the faint metallic ghost of frost.
The world is a blur of greens and ghosts.
The branches whip like nervous thoughts,
brushing against my arms
with the intimacy of forgotten prayers.
I know the scent of everything…
wet stone, lichen, rot, fox musk,
the ghost of smoke caught in a fallen log.
Even the shadows breathe,
slick and alive, brushing my calves
like unseen creatures curious of their kin.
The forest is no longer around me;
it is inside me.
I am the sap that crawls toward light,
the frost that kisses a spider’s web,
the cry of something unseen yet ancient.
The ground opens and I pour into it…
root, marrow, mist.
I lose my name in the shadows.
When I finally stop,
the sky hangs heavy and low,
a gray veil torn by crows.
The world smells of storm and rebirth.
I press my palms into the soil,
and the soil presses back,
steady, knowing, eternal.
When I stop,
the forest exhales me.
Mist curls around my ankles like forgiveness.
The silence hums, not empty but full…
a great, breathing presence that knows my name.
And for one trembling, triumphant moment,
I swear I am part of it…
the green, the shadow, the sound, the wild.
I am the forest running through itself.

•Plea•The reeds bend like spines broken in confession,and I am the small green whisper clingingto the black mirror of th...
10/06/2025

•Plea•

The reeds bend like spines broken in confession,
and I am the small green whisper clinging
to the black mirror of the pond.
Above me, you split the sky open…
a blue blade, a symphony to distance.
You were made for departure,
I was made for pleading….
Please…
let me press myself into you,
fold against the thrum of your ribs.
I will be the laughter caught on your mouth,
the hush that melts into your kiss.
Do not let the air swallow me whole
while your wings carve freedom
as if I were nothing but shadow.
I know what I am: too much,
a fever sealed inside a fragile shell.
You wanted solitude, a horizon unchained,
yet I beg to be folded beneath you…
pressed against your ribs like a secret
you never meant to keep.
But I would bleed myself into your mouth
if it meant you’d taste me forever.
I would stitch my laughter to your lips,
let your storms tear me open,
if only to belong in the wreckage of you.
Once, I swore my inheritance was silence.
But then you…
your light burning the same color as mine…
tore through the sky, and I knew:
I had always been waiting
for the violence of your brightness.
If freedom is your cathedral,
let me be the echo trapped in its stone.
If flight is your kingdom,
let me be the shadow haunting its gates.
But please…
do not leave me behind.
Do not make me learn the cruelty
of a world emptied of you.

The Sunflowers Bow See how the sunflowers lean,their heads a choir of ghosts against the skys shadow.They are not ruined...
09/03/2025

The Sunflowers Bow

See how the sunflowers lean,
their heads a choir of ghosts against the skys shadow.
They are not ruined. They are remembering…
they are exquisite in their surrender,
their backs arched in reverence,
their spines still singing of past sunlight.

I stand among them,
hair aflame like a secret fire,
eyes caught between innocence and daring,
my mouth curved into a question,
a promise,
a beginning.

I fell in love with myself here…
in the ruin, in the dusk,
in the way my body became part of the field’s last breath.
For what is more seductive than survival,
more romantic than standing whole
after every season has tried to break you?

There is someone my heart runs to…
his shadow lives in my veins,
his name tastes like wild honey
at the back of my tongue.
For him, I burn quietly,
a field set alight not in chaos,
but in the slow devotion of seasons.
I am both storm and tenderness,
both flame and open hand.

The sunflowers bow,
but I do not.
I unfurl, I rise, I burn…
not as I once did,
but brighter,
truer,
a woman who has made peace
with the ache of her own beauty,
and found happiness not in perfection,
but in the daring act of loving.

•The Lighthouse Keeper’s Son•Once upon a northern shore, where the waters of the great lake breathed like a sleeping gia...
08/30/2025

•The Lighthouse Keeper’s Son•

Once upon a northern shore, where the waters of the great lake breathed like a sleeping giant, a lighthouse stood sentinel on a cliff of stone. And within its quiet heart lived Gage, a young cat with fur the color of smoke and eyes that mirrored the waters agates.

The lighthouse had belonged to his mother once. Her paws had polished the brass, her voice had soothed the storms, her light had kept ships from shattering on the rocks below. When her time faded into memory, the lighthouse did not mourn, for it had Gage… and Gage, though young, carried her spirit like a lantern within him. Without being asked, he became its keeper. The flame, the bell, the turning of the gears… he learned them all, and in his solitude he found a rhythm that was almost like peace.

But in the stillness of night, when the lake glittered with stars, Gage felt the tug of something larger. A whisper of adventure, of voices he had not yet heard and souls he had not yet known. He loved the lighthouse, yet he dreamed of forests where he could chase fireflies, of villages filled with laughter, of meeting creatures who would teach him the language of friendship.

Still, guilt curled in his chest like fog. If I leave, the lighthouse will falter. If I leave, the waters will swallow what I was meant to protect. He pressed his heart against these thoughts until it ached. But one day, staring at the horizon, he realized what his mother had always wished for him: not to be a prisoner of duty, but a seeker of light.

Choosing himself did not mean betrayal. Choosing himself was an act of love… both for the mother who raised him and for the self who longed to live. And so, with trembling paws but a spirit fierce as the storm, Gage whispered farewell to the lighthouse. He promised it would always carry a fragment of his soul, glowing in the glass like an ember.

Then, under the rising sun, he leapt down the cliffside path, each step echoing with destiny. For a lighthouse is built to guide others home… but Gage, the cat who once kept its flame, was finally learning to become his own.

•The Garden Beneath My Skin•The arch is not made of stone…it is the hollowed curve of my collarbones,grown slick with li...
08/13/2025

•The Garden Beneath My Skin•

The arch is not made of stone…
it is the hollowed curve of my collarbones,
grown slick with lichen
and the slow drip of years.
I have carried this threshold
like a ghost in my chest,
its hinge rusted shut
a locked door aching for a key.
It opens into a light
that has never touched the sky…
but the glow of something buried,
something ancient
that has been waiting for me.
The air is a muted gold,
thick as honey,
poured slowly over the breeze
until every breath tastes of memory.
The trees here watch.
Their bark splits to reveal
every secret I swallowed whole,
and their roots knot themselves
around my silences.
Each leaf is a whispered confession,
green with the ache of survival.
The path coils inward like a serpent,
drawing me deeper.
I walk it barefoot,
past blooms with glass thin petals,
that turn their faces to follow mine…
past shadows that slither at my heels
and curl possessively around my ankles.
Here, the garden’s hands are everywhere.
Here, the shadows slip beneath my skin,
hungry as a secret.
I am both the one who guards the door
and the one who dares to cross it.
I am both trespasser and treasure,
claimed the moment I crossed.
The arch lingers behind me,
its shadow tugging like a tether,
but I do not turn back.
For I have found the place
where my soul blooms feral…
and it will not fit back into the world
I came from.
The garden is patient…
it will keep me
until I become part of its bloom.

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