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Rockies Autumn Haiku; poems & photographs
© Judith Lauter 2014 21 haiku + 1 longer poem, each paired with a JL color photo 63 pp, 8.5" x 8.5" publisher: Xlibris, 2014 ebook & softcover formats order from Xlibris (softcover or ebook) ***Copies of selected photographs from this book can be purchased at FineArtAmerica.com, as greeting cards, prints, phone covers, etc.*** ***** Excerpts below include: Preface; Table of Contents; sample pages |
PREFACE
Growing up in Austin TX taught me the dramatic differences between flat land (the Texas central prairies to our east, where my family rarely ventured) and lands of glorious ups and downs (the Texas hill country in and to the west of Austin).
Thus, even though I spent my later childhood and adolescence in lush, green central Michigan, the dry, rocky Texas hills stayed in my mind. When in 1965, still in Michigan, I met the person who would become my "mountain man," we chose Tucson AZ – with mountains in all directions – as our best choice for his first teaching job and our first home. The inaugural book in my photo-haiku series, Sonora Spring Haiku (2013), reflects some of the wonders we saw in Arizona.
After Tucson we moved to Denver briefly, and fell in love with the Colorado Rockies. Although grad school and jobs conspired to send us elsewhere – to St. Louis, Oklahoma, and most recently to East Texas (Year of Haiku, 2013; and Pineywoods Summer Haiku and LaNana Creek Haiku, both 2014) – our hearts have remained in the mountain west.
So for the past several years we have spent a month or so every late summer in the Rockies of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The photos and poems in this book represent our experiences there: in the Sangre de Cristos outside Santa Fe NM; the Moreno Valley's high cool park near Wheeler Peak east of Taos; and the gorgeous country around Gunnison and Crested Butte CO.
Fall is our favorite season in the mountains. The Rockies are staggering year-round, but in autumn, they are in their full glory. Through all the transformations – from the delicious greens of "high-cool high summer," to the time when entire mountainsides of aspens turn gold, and then the gradual leaning toward winter – the peaks, valleys, and high parks of the Rockies are incomparable. This book is a small tribute to that grand beauty.
-- JLL, Angel Fire NM, September 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Last Weeks of High Summer
August Arrival
Mountain Afternoons
Follow the Emerald-Brick Road
Embodiment
Clicking Grasshopper Haiku
Continental Thermals
Intimations of Fall
The End of Summer
Footsteps after Rain
Study in Whites
Late Butterfly
The Golden Days
First Gold
Mountain Parade
Cosmic Gold
Light Show
Invitational
Volcano Memento
Leaning Toward Winter
Transitions
Aspen Abacus
Patience
When the Peaks Turn White
Epilogue
Legacy
SAMPLE PAGES
Growing up in Austin TX taught me the dramatic differences between flat land (the Texas central prairies to our east, where my family rarely ventured) and lands of glorious ups and downs (the Texas hill country in and to the west of Austin).
Thus, even though I spent my later childhood and adolescence in lush, green central Michigan, the dry, rocky Texas hills stayed in my mind. When in 1965, still in Michigan, I met the person who would become my "mountain man," we chose Tucson AZ – with mountains in all directions – as our best choice for his first teaching job and our first home. The inaugural book in my photo-haiku series, Sonora Spring Haiku (2013), reflects some of the wonders we saw in Arizona.
After Tucson we moved to Denver briefly, and fell in love with the Colorado Rockies. Although grad school and jobs conspired to send us elsewhere – to St. Louis, Oklahoma, and most recently to East Texas (Year of Haiku, 2013; and Pineywoods Summer Haiku and LaNana Creek Haiku, both 2014) – our hearts have remained in the mountain west.
So for the past several years we have spent a month or so every late summer in the Rockies of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The photos and poems in this book represent our experiences there: in the Sangre de Cristos outside Santa Fe NM; the Moreno Valley's high cool park near Wheeler Peak east of Taos; and the gorgeous country around Gunnison and Crested Butte CO.
Fall is our favorite season in the mountains. The Rockies are staggering year-round, but in autumn, they are in their full glory. Through all the transformations – from the delicious greens of "high-cool high summer," to the time when entire mountainsides of aspens turn gold, and then the gradual leaning toward winter – the peaks, valleys, and high parks of the Rockies are incomparable. This book is a small tribute to that grand beauty.
-- JLL, Angel Fire NM, September 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Last Weeks of High Summer
August Arrival
Mountain Afternoons
Follow the Emerald-Brick Road
Embodiment
Clicking Grasshopper Haiku
Continental Thermals
Intimations of Fall
The End of Summer
Footsteps after Rain
Study in Whites
Late Butterfly
The Golden Days
First Gold
Mountain Parade
Cosmic Gold
Light Show
Invitational
Volcano Memento
Leaning Toward Winter
Transitions
Aspen Abacus
Patience
When the Peaks Turn White
Epilogue
Legacy
SAMPLE PAGES
Copyright © 2023 Judith L. Lauter
