Growing in the Between Places

Image Description: A close-up photograph of black tree bark. It has a heavily cranulated texture. Bright yellow lichen covers the tree bark in streaks and spots across the entire image.

The Light Overcame Us

Image Description: A picture of a landscape at night. The land takes up the bottom third of the photograph. Patchy snow covers the land as it stretches to the snow-covered mountains in the distance. A sign is visible, but not legible, near the right edge. The sky has a few clouds, and hundreds of visible stars. Galactic clouds are somewhat visible. On the left side, on the horizon, the sky glow of a distant town is visible.

God's in His Heaven, All's Right With the World

Image Description: A picture of a night landscape. The bottom quarter of the photograph shows dark, snow-capped mountains. A frozen lake is also vizible, stretching from the bottom left to three-quarters of the way to the right edge. A few building lights are visible at the foot of the mountains in the bottom right. A star-filled sky fills the top three-quarters of the photograph, with several galactic clouds faintly visible. A few clouds are visible in the bottom left of the sky.

Have You Forgiven Yourself Yet?

Image Description: A skinny person is standing in the middle of a snow-covered road, facing away from the camera. The person is wearing an orange jacket, blue jeans, and a white hat. Their arms are in the jacket's pockets. The road stretches out of sight and around a corner. It is lined on both sides by evergreen trees. The sky is perfectly blue.

Bring Me to the Edge of My World, For I Won't Grow Otherwise

Image Description: A photograph of a frozen lake situated in a valley. In the background, green evergreens are visible. Behind those, stretching into a blue sky, are a snow-covered mountain range. The tops of the mountains are bare rock. One mountain on the left has a distinctly triangular shape.

We Wanted to Say Something Profound, But Were Left With Bromides

Image Description: A photograph of a night sky. At the bottom, the silhuoettes of trees are visible. Behind them, part of the galaxy is visible. Hundreds of stars dot the sky. Behind the trees, though, the white haze of a city's light pollution clouds part of the picture.

When We Smiled, It Was On Stolen Land

Image Description: A photo of a wide panoramic landscape. In the distance are tall mesas and structures made of red and orange rock . In the far distance on the right, the Rocky Mountains are visible. Shrubs and trees dot the mesas, along with the canyons below them. The sky is bright blue and full of fluffy clouds. One cloud on the left is visibly raining.

When We Smiled, It Was On Stolen Land (BW)

Image Description: A black and white photo of a wide panoramic landscape. In the distance are tall rocky mesas and structures. In the far distance on the right, the Rocky Mountains are visible. Shrubs and trees dot the mesas, along with the canyons below them. The sky is full of fluffy clouds. One cloud on the left is visibly raining.

Cool Story, Bro

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/cool-story-bro-840bb3690a31 Image Description: A photograph of two bighorn sheep. One is in the foreground, staring at the camera. He has two small horns and a white snout. The other is behind him, staring off camera to the right. There are green bushes in the background.

Stranger at the Fence

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/stranger-at-the-fence-983a43701634 Image Description: A black and white portrait of a highland cow, with the head slightly to the left of the center of the photo. It has two curved horns, and one has tufts of hair at the end of it. The cow is covered in shaggy fur and is looking directly at the camera. There is a tag near its right ear, where the number 26 is visible. The background is blurry grass.

Positivity Culture Is A Sham

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/positivity-culture-is-a-sham-6eeedc61bcd1 Image Description: A black and white photo of a desert-like landscape. The curve of a road can be seen from the far bottom left of the photo to near the bottom right, with another curve going up the middle and disappearing around a rocky ridge. This rock ridge extends from the left side of the photograph to the middle, tapering off. Beyond that in the distance is another rock ridge, extending from the center off to the right of the frame. Beyond that is a flat landscape where a town is visible several miles away. The horizon line is a landscape of mountains with sheer rock cliffs. The shadows of clouds cover these mountains. The sky is filled with dramatic, fluffy clouds that extend to the horizon, with clear sky visible at the very top of the photo.

Find Your Way, Or Keep Trying

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/find-your-way-or-keep-trying-3ced0cf9b7b3 Image description: It is a black and white photo of a pond. There is water in the bottom quarter of the image, with snowy land behind that. Halfway up the image is another narrow band of water. The top quarter of the image is more snowy field. Drinking from the water are two male elk, facing toward each other. They are on opposite sides of the image facing toward each other.

Alphabet Soup

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/alphabet-soup-7f36e99d698e Image Description: A line of land is visible at the very bottom of the image. The foreground in the left half of photo is dominated by a stylized wind turbine. It appears as a large slender tower with a full circle of turbine blades around the top, forming a nearly complete circle. Fourteen identical wind turbines dot the horizon in the distance behind it, interspersed along the land at the bottom of the photograph. Just to the right of the main turbine are a pair of small birds. The entire foreground is silhouetted. The sky is filled with purple storm clouds that fade to reddish-orange at the horizon. The clouds are blurred with motion across the sky.

I Remember

Original Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/i-remember-5a1c45680cd5 Image Description: An image of a snowy lake, taken from ground level. The frozen lake extends from the bottom of the photo to the halfway point between the bottom and top. Part of a creek is visible in the bottom left third of the photo. The water is black under the rocks and snow. Evergreen trees line the lake on both sides up through the background of the photo. In the background, rocky mountains rise into the clouds on both sides of the lake. People are hiking across the lake in the distance along the trees on the right side.

Heal Thyself

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/heal-thyself-d34ba93e154d Image Description: The image is of a frozen lake from above. The top half of the photo is taken up by evergreen trees. The tops of evergreen trees ring the bottom of the photo. In the middle of the photo, which forms the bottom half of a circle, a hiker can be seen walking out of view toward the right.

Psalms

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/psalms-597bb46c073a Image description: Image Description: Black and white photo of a snowy field. On the left are a few evergreen trees. A mountain rises from the other end of the field to the right of the photo, out of sight. It is also covered in evergreens. A trail can be seen through the snow towards three people walking away from the camera in the distance. The sky is grey and featureless.

But I've Got Unlimited Data

Full Poem Here: https://medium.com/@wdibble/but-ive-got-unlimited-data-bcf8ec01cd3 Image Description: The picture is low to the ground. Train tracks stretch from the bottom to a third of the way up the photo. Yellow bushes line both sides of the tracks. The tracks are rusty and old. A mountain rises from the horizon line to two-thirds of the top of the photo. Evergreen trees dot the landscape and mountain. The sky is bright blue with whispy clouds.

This Moment Burns Us Alive

For full poem and image description: https://medium.com/@wdibble/this-moment-burns-us-alive-7fc1ce08f9d0

Need to Live, No Solution

Poem at link: https://medium.com/@wdibble/need-to-live-no-solution-7cec04cba43a

The Valley

It's my first day on the new job I used to teach. Today I'm doing class photos. Little girls, daughters of the parent volunteers, run in circles around my feet. I'm smiling but it's a facade. Yesterday, seventeen people needlessly had their lives uprooted and destroyed. Today people are telling me it's rude to demand gun control and infringe their rights Fucking rude. Today people are telling me it's they're classmates faults for not knowing of the coming hell. There are too many poems about people being shot but we stand here again. Every year the reaper thanks the NRA for padding their wallet. The reaper gets paid a commission of death. They care not that some of the victims haven't known love or niceness, haven't gotten to see their graduation day or get their first job. The politicians got their wages in private jets and personal gifts. They only pay out in meaningless thoughts and prayers while taking payment from the NRA. We fund death and ignorance instead of saving lives. Every school shooting is our reward for complacency. How many souls do we owe to the gun manufacturers? How many souls to the right to take lives at eight hundred fifty feet per second? How many souls to this worship of death machines while our future bleeds out in front of it's locker because we can't bring ourselves to confront the cause? I go to work scared that something will happen and a shooter will show up. It doesn't matter if their reason is because this school has a high Latino population or because they're just another angry white man. Because the reaper doesn't care. They get their pay and we get our heartbreak Either way we just lose and lose and lose Don't give me this thoughts and prayers bullshit if you aren't willing to help solve it Image Description: A rocky mountain valley. A railroad crosses a small steel bridge in the bottom left corner. Most of the plants are either evergreens or scrub-type plants. There’s a sliver of a stream or river in the right bottom third. A big rocky mountain comes down to meet a dirt road in the left half of the photo. A blue sky with fluffy clouds takes up the top third.

That Old Specter

You are in pain, Let me help you I’ve known you a short time I feel like I’ve known you since mammoths walked I feel like your pain is my pain and the only way to relieve it Is to grieve and hurt with you You, my lover, my friend, stranger on the street who let me into your soul Let me help you shoulder that pain Nobody can cure the holes in our souls, fill them in with dirt, right away But together, we can start. And they might still look like fresh graves in a month or in a decade But we all deserve help stamping down that dirt, or putting flowers on it Whatever grieving and help look like, we all deserve love We all deserve that light Grieve. Let the feelings happen. It is okay. Find someone who loves you. Let them comfort you. If you feel like doing so is a burden, let me tell you, one heavy heart to another I know how hard it is to reach out I know that the shadow of depression leeches out your soul It’ll tell you that you are dragging them down It’ll help you put your hand down, it’ll breathe your voice for you, it’ll move your mouth And it’ll say, for you, “I am fine” You and I know otherwise. We aren’t okay. Fine is a liar. That old shadow hangs around every word, telling you lies Your friends don’t care You’re alone You don’t deserve help. It’s a liar. It’s a specter convincing you that you don’t deserve niceness. You do. You deserve someone sitting next to you Standing next to you Messaging you “You are not alone” You deserve someone who listens Who cares Who is willing to help you shoulder your pain That old specter will always be with us, taunting us Haunting us Let’s try to keep them at bay, to help each other weather their assaults Because you deserve that. You deserve someone who helps you take a break. You deserve help, and you deserve happiness. Image Description: A wide valley with snow-capped mountains from one edge of the frame to the other. The top half of the picture is a blue sky with fluffy clouds. The bottom third is a snow-covered frozen lake. There are pine trees along the center of the photo, coming in from both edges and stretching toward the mountains. A lone snowman is near the center of the frame.