K e n  H o c h f e l d
F i n e  A r t  P h o t o g r a p h y
 All Rights Reserved
Ken Hochfeld ©2023

Waiting
A collaboration with words by Gay Walker
Embedded fossil-
primeval sands.
500 million years
waiting to be found,
surrounded by ribbon of,
        veil of,
        carapace of,
        gathering of,
Life.

Sitting on the fence
caterwauling to the sky.
Soothed by grains
        and texture
        and nails.
Hunting for my mate,
waiting for my life,
sitting on the fence.

I could, or I could not.
On the edge of the world,
cloistered on the inside
yearning for the outside,
touched by the domestic
wanting hearth and burlap,
lacking glass and polish.
Waiting for a movement
        on the razor's edge,
        on the cusp of the world.

I grew here-lump of stone,
settled in my nest of sticks
waiting for an Irish spring,
waiting for a four-leaf clover
        to kiss me awake.

Nile Nile Crocodile,
glorious among many,
nose to the sky,
calm among the seething
        of brothers and sisters.
Still.
Lying in wait.

Trekking in the desert.
Sand dune ridge--
        striations,
        stoss upwind,
        lee downflow,
        slipface,
        creeping,
        saltating,
        barchan,
        transverse,
        blowout,
        linear,
        composite.
Dunes, piles, grains.
Quicksand.
Rock dominates every grain.
Grains wait for rock.

World tree, of course.
Rock in the middle
reaching in all directions.
Rough bark,
smooth stone.
The middle essence,
        the center,
        the heart,
balancing forever,
a fulcrum,
waiting.