• lucid slumber of sadness

    i need you to come now
    and whisper in my ear
    of heartbreak and tragedy
    rap on the walls of my soul
    and shake things up a bit
    wake me, rudely, from
    this lucid slumber of sadness –
    it’s almost morning now
    and there is no time
    in the bright sunshine
    for tears and sorrow
    so come now, quickly,
    before the sun rises
    and fill me up with
    all the agonies i can bear
    so i can wring them out
    and then start anew.

     

    © lotus carroll 2014, all rights reserved
  • sunrise, sunset

    each day the sun rises, the sun sets
    the world turns to create this illusion
    your day may be my night
    my calm, descending orb may be
    your burning, rising fireball
    all the while, the ground we stand solid on
    is actually spinning relentlessly under us
    whatever you “see” is perception driven
    beauty and sadness
    tragedy and joy
    heartache and elation
    all of these things shift forms
    based on what the angle is
    my lens is different than yours
    yours is not the same as
    his and hers and theirs
    even common details
    become blurry, ultimately
    arguing absolutes and opinions, equally pointless
    spend more time accepting
    try harder to be aware and awake
    be ready to receive whatever
    put your energy into love
    open your heart and mind
    prepare to view from a different angle
    try to avoid shame and judgement
    see and feel and embrace all you can
    expand and let in as much light as possible
    before the last revolution completes
    and the shutter closes forever.

     

    each day the sun rises, the sun sets the world turns to create this illusion your day may be my night my calm, descending orb may be your burning, rising fireball all the while, the ground we stand solid on is actually spinning relentlessly under us whatever you “see” is perception driven beauty and sadness tragedy and joy heartache and elation all of these things shift forms based on what the angle is my lens is different than yours yours is not the same as his and hers and theirs even common details become blurry, ultimately arguing absolutes and opinions, equally pointless spend more time accepting try harder to be aware and awake be ready to receive whatever put your energy into love open your heart and mind prepare to view from a different angle try to avoid shame and judgement see and feel and embrace all you can expand and let in as much light as possible before the last revolution completes and the shutter closes forever. ____________________ All Rights Reserved No use allowed without a license. For licensing inquiries, email me directly. thelotuscarroll@gmail.com

  • Darkness, Light… and Human Development

    I have the gift of being able to capture my son’s life, and his essence, in images – already I look back through them and marvel at what happens when passion, love, skill, and an observing heart & mind come together. I can see his life unfolding and see his different personality traits emerge as I look through this growing archive. It blows my heart and mind.

    Talk about bittersweet. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

    Darkness & Light
    Braden, Age 7, September 2014

     

     

    By the time I recognize this moment this moment will be gone, but I will bend the light, pretending that it somehow lingered on.
    ~John Mayer, Clarity

    *****
    © Lotus Carroll, All Rights Reserved
    To license commercially, please email.

  • She Emanates Serenity

    there is a pulse to all things
    waiting for us to connect with it,
    to feel it vibrate throughout;
    some souls can inherently focus to
    identify with this never-ending rhythm;
    one must be stoic, centered,
    like an egyptian goddess
    who breathes in light
    and emanates serenity. 

    .

    model: Leslie Flinger

    All Rights Reserved No use allowed without a license. For licensing inquiries, email me directly. [email protected]

  • so it comes and so it goes.

    today, i unexpectedly found something of yours lying in the depths of my heart;
    i wanted to hold it, to turn it in my hands, feeling the shape of our abandoned dreams in all of its angles.
    i thought i might bring it close to my face, breathe deeply, and be reminded of your scent… maybe close my eyes and somehow see yours once more.

    might you even feel me across these tortured years, gently probing in some synaptic way?
    i held my breath and reached out… it crumbled like cold ash from a long gone fire the moment my fingers tenderly grazed it, drifting away, mercifully, on the winds of change.

    i cannot recall the sound of your laughter.

    ...

    All Rights Reserved No use allowed without a license. For licensing inquiries, email me directly. [email protected]

  • quantum heart murmurs

    a few yesterdays ago
    in the hours between the deepest of night
    and the rising warmth of the sun,
    when i was feeling how heavy
    the weight of forgetting is,
    i wrote you a letter.

    it holds all of the secrets
    i wanted you to know about my heart,
    and the way that you left things
    like the scattering of leaves
    after a storm that never
    showed up on anyone’s radar.

    it tells the story of how many nights
    i held your shape in the dark with my soul,
    waiting,
    and the way that i could make my breath
    actually say your name even when i held it.

    i wrote about the way that the moon
    reminds me of the shiniest part inside of me
    that you found and then stole
    but that somehow still lights my way home
    when i feel alone.

    when i was done with the damp pages,
    i folded it into a tiny, star-shaped heart
    and carefully postmarked it
    to a future you, who may or may not
    someday care.

    a few yesterdays ago

    All Rights Reserved No use allowed without a license. For licensing inquiries, email me directly. [email protected]

  • My Heart Skips None Of These Beats

    The last bit of summer vacation is pressing in on us, and it has largely become this: the frantic run from pool to platform on repeat, a near maddening loop of frenzied obsession, the intense need to squeeze in as much flight, falling, plunge and ascension as possible before the school bell once more rings.

    He is reborn over and over again in an unrealized effort to slow the sinking of the sun.

    It is both beautiful and somehow tragic in its simple impossibility; it is all at once the sweetness of youth and his slipping grasp on it. My heart swells and tightens as I watch him hurry to soar and float once more.

    I feel him breathing life inexplicably into me as he powers through his, and I realize that I love the bittersweet pulse of this life.

    To license commercially, please email.

  • The Beauty of Change

    We collected a rather large batch of caterpillars that were threatening to skeletonize my sunflower garden recently. I housed them in a small plastic container with slots for air designed to hold buggies and fed them sunflower leaf rations (they turned their noses up at other types of leaves) saving most of my garden from destruction while still feeding them. After several days, they all suited up in their respective chrysalises and made with the metamorphosing. We dug witnessing this, and awaited the unfolding of their wings as they became Bordered Patch Butterflies (Chlosyne lacinia).

     Processed with VSCOcam with m5 preset

    For the past couple of days, they’ve been greeting the world anew, and as they do, we open the hatch on the container and set them free into my (flower filled, butterfly orgasmic) back yard. It is an incredibly joyous feeling to watch one of them lift out of the housing and ascend into the air and off to freedom, somehow making my heart more buoyant even though it is my lungs that fill with air while I breathe in and watch them float.

    Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset Processed with VSCOcam with m5 preset

    This little flapper needed some extra time to dry its wings and visit with another creature who has been rapidly changing right before my eyes lately.

    The Beauty of Change

    I have a tender love that floats on wings of expectation and wonder for them both.

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