Old Photographs

Image Description: A photograph of the night sky. At the bottom is the black silhouette of a ridge with a tree. The rest of the photograph is a field of stars, with a cosmic dust cloud visible across the majority of it.

Boundaries

Image Description: A black and white photograph of a dam lake in a rocky valley. There are two pump towers visible in the foreground. The water level is low enough that there is a clear line of white rock around the edge of the valley, with darker rock above it.

Ever Onward, Ever Forward

Image Description: A large steam engine pulling Union Pacific train cars. There is an American flag on one train car and on a backup diesel locomotive. It is traveling across a grassy field under a clear sky.

The Steel Mass

Image Description: A large steam engine pulling a train painted in yellow Union Pacific colors. There is an American flag on one train car and on a backup diesel locomotive. It is traveling across a grassy field under a clear blue sky.

Untitled 08

Image Description: A black and white photograph of a mountain valley. The botton of the valley is filled with grasses and shrugs with a road and stream running through it. The valley walls are covered in trees. In the distance are snow-covered mountain peaks with white clouds overhead.

What If We Were Kind?

Image Description: A black and white landscape photograph of a valley. A road travels from the bottom left edge through the valley, disappearing around a corner in the center. A winding stream travels alongside the road through the valley. It is sunny with whispy white clouds in the sky. The sky itself is very blue. The bottom of the valley is filled with green grasses, and the sides covered in evergreen trees. In the distance are rocky mountains with snow across their flanks.

A Brief Window of Time

Image Description: A landscape photograph of a valley. A road travels from the bottom left edge through the valley, disappearing around a corner in the center. A winding stream travels alongside the road through the valley. It is sunny with whispy white clouds in the sky. The sky itself is very blue. The bottom of the valley is filled with green grasses, and the sides covered in evergreen trees. In the distance are rocky mountains with snow across their flanks.

Yearnings of Cooler Times

Image Description: A landscape photograph of a valley. A road travels down the center. It is sunny with whispy white clouds in the sky. The sky itself is very blue. The bottom of the valley is filled with green grasses, and the sides covered in evergreen trees. In the distance are rocky mountains with snow across their flanks.

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.

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 (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.

A Name of Life and Fire

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/a-name-of-life-and-fire-d26f3d00bb9a Image Description: A small stone chapel is in the foreground. It has stained glass windows, and a steeple with a cross at the top. The walls are made of stones of varying sizes. In the far bottom left, a staircase goes up and around the back. It sits on a rock. In the bottom right, green bushes are visible. The sky is a vivid blue, with orangish white clouds throughout. They are stretched across the sky, with a brushstroke-like texture.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Zippers Stretched From One End of the Valley to the Other