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Vegas, Baby

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Scenes from my favourite neighbourhood garden

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Karlštien Castle, Czech Republic.

Photo by @tntjukebox

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Jessica Hayllar (English, 1858-1940): From the Greenhouse (1911) (via Bonhams)

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"Bellona (detail)"

1633

Rembrandt

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The Holy Trinity

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Photographer Jimmy Mac

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Het Verdronken Land van Saeftinghe, the Netherlands

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Bridgetown, Barbados: Bridgetown is the capital and largest city of Barbados. Formerly The Town of Saint Michael, the Greater Bridgetown area is located within the parish of Saint Michael. Bridgetown is sometimes locally referred to as "The City", but the most common reference is simply "Town". Wikipedia

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Barbados Lily (Hippeastrum vittatum)

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Descendant

66 years ago, a woman boards a plane and exchanges heat and hibiscus flowers for frosted tips on coniferous trees.

Nearly every day for 45 years this woman boards a train  into the city.  She bears witness to the towering sky scrapers  being built pane by pane.  A glint of pink and shimmering blue that shines in the sun like the scales of a fish  swimming just below the surface.

For 64 years this woman is devoted to a man, she swore she’d never marry, who is just as equally devoted to her. An unbreakable knot fastened tighter than a clove hitch

One then two then three daughters they raise — independent, strong, steadfast. And then a beautiful boy.  A family multiplies

So now her child’s child, her granddaughter, boards a plane  back to Barbados,  to the salt and sweat and rain. She bears witness from where she once came.

And every year she visits the sea, albeit a black one off a different coast, far from her grandmother’s land.

As she hurls herself into the waves that push her down and up and down again, she roars with laughter, surrounded by water and wind.

This where we come from. The ocean, our origin.

Nov 29, 2024

I wrote this poem in honour of my grandmother, Betty Yvonne James (1937 - 2024).

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Train ride through Western Bosnia & Hercegovina May 2014

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