continued from my previous post… The Vietnam/American War resulted in a sharp increase in orphaned and abandoned children. Between 1966 and 1974, the number of children cared for by orphanages more than doubled (The War Cradle). Thousands of abandoned children, especially Amerasian children, were evacuated because of the fear that they would be killed by…Read more Grappling with the American/Vietnam War, Part 2 (of 2)
Photography
Grappling with the American/Vietnam War Part 1 (of 2)
When I mention that I have traveled to Vietnam, I am acutely aware of still-festering wounds endured by many. Although the “Vietnam War,” as we call it in America, ended before I was old enough to comprehend the intricacies of international politics, I grew up aware of the conflicting rhetoric and high emotion that surrounded…Read more Grappling with the American/Vietnam War Part 1 (of 2)
My Truce With the City
Turning down the obscure alley on my way to Modbo and S.P.Q.R., twin galleries in downtown Colorado Springs, my memories slip to another time and place. I see a much younger version of myself, laughing with friends in a city-scape of clanging metal, hissing manholes, and steam curling into clouds. At first, I skidded into the city like…Read more My Truce With the City
Held
I am battered, a bereft leaf loosed in murky mayhem, kicked up by frenzied heels Of moon and wind. No mooring remains in this, last corkscrew hour before dawn. I am a burnished shadow, a swirling swan song to inky nihility. Falling. Suddenly! Madness slivered, snagged in the hem of earth’s evergreen garment, quivering on the…Read more Held
Learning from a talented photographer
One of my great joys in joining the blogging community is connecting with talented artists all over the world. I enjoy following the blog of Otto von Munchow, a photographer and workshop teacher based out of Norway and Seattle. I learn a great deal from him, especially from his very generous offer to critique photos…Read more Learning from a talented photographer
All This Falling
In weakness cling to brittle bones. Blaze, molten orange on leaden sky. Kiss the sun one last time, summer’s fire leaks from your veins. Pulse thin and aching, cast yourself into this fall, all this falling. No loud dispute, no furtive begging, can postpone this fall. Like a shooting star, exploit this drift to set…Read more All This Falling
Song of Us
Warm scent of thriving green veiled in creeping grays of dusk; inky washes fade in sweep of vastness - yet touching me, touching you. Vast the intertwining of two journeys into one wandering of this forest of shadowed trails. You and I rambling to ruins hidden on a mountain, crumbling in the clash of yesterday…Read more Song of Us
Lament for Colorado
Today is an anxious day. The largest air rescue since Hurricane Katrina thrashes air currents over Colorado skies. Searches for hundreds of missing people continue, even as gray clouds smother us in fear of what we cannot control. It seems utterly inconceivable that a state surrendering its ashes to scathing hot, cloudless blue only months…Read more Lament for Colorado
The Most Important Path
Recently, within a twenty-four hour period I climbed the “Incline” and wandered a prayer labyrinth. The juxtaposition intrigued me; two paths could not be more different. The one-mile Incline hike ascends from Manitou Springs at an average grade of 40%. Formerly a tourist cable car route, it slices straight up a mountain, visible across Colorado…Read more The Most Important Path
September Winds
Like yellow edges of purple sky, through the years we intertwine, defy, ever-widening, roiling sky as long as we can side-by-side. Until leaves like portents sigh... Amber swirling through the green, we cling to fading songs of being, face-to-face with sinking sun, still side-by-side. Here, in these wistful fields of September wind, it is you…Read more September Winds
Colleen Briggs Images & Writing 