Award-winning writer Ruth E. Walker’s first short story submission won $1,000 and publication in Canadian Living magazine. With poetry and fiction in Canadian, U.S. and U.K. journals, Ruth hasn’t looked back since. Her novel Living Underground is in second printing, she’s a sought-after editor, popular workshop leader, and facilitates writing retreats at lakeside locations.
Ansel’s Winter on the Merced River
Black and White Photograph 1938
It falls a frozen moment
seen from Sentinel Bridge
January snow frames banks, skirts
longing pines
limbs edged in white
water verged on the cusp of ice
Half Dome waits – slice-sheared granite
cranium grey and white
Merced runs to it and away
a picture doesn’t lie
and never tells the truth
never gives up the sounds
whispers of cloud
crack of avalanche or the long ago
split – the fall away of igneous rock
birthed up and out to be torn apart
evidence released and scattered to riverbed
Have mercy on this receiving watershed
that asked nothing but a path
to or from – it never mattered
hold compassion for this shattered mind
that only asked for existence
instead was cut in two and
left for a photographer’s eye
to escape and find its way to this
page in shades of grey
shadows of white and black
Ruth E. Walker
Ansel Adams (Feb. 20 1902 — Apr. 22, 1984) was a photographer and environmentalist. Born in San Francisco, California, his black and white photographs became symbols of wild America. Adams was renowned for his technical mastery but his passion was for preserving the wilderness, particularly the Yosemite National Park. For more information about Ansel Adams and to see the photograph that is the subject of Ruth’s poem, follow the link: http://anseladams.com