A Writer's Exercise

Writers! Try this: Walk about. Find 5 images—objects, scenes, etc. Free write in any form about these images—poetry, sketches, photographs, history of the images, etc.  I chose the The Mission Inn, in Riverside, California.  From the roof, near Writer’s Row, I found a spot near the Alhambra Mirador Suite. I wish I had taken a photograph…but this is what I saw…



Alhambra Mirador

Two cypress trees

Spiral green flames

Stand on guard

Small domesticated

Versions of Van Gogh’s

Black torches

In

Starry Night



This is not a wild place

But an oasis of order

Solidly built by man

Above the brown tinged

Air of city streets

Below



Half a dome

Defines one corner

…I wonder

Does its under belly reflect

Blue

The early spring sky

Flecked with lavender and

White clouds

Above me



The largest dome stands

Solid

Across the courtyard

Jack-o-lantern eyes

Pumpkin colored shape

Harvested from the architect’s Halloween memories

Childhood’s verdant fields



Another nearby

The dome modestly sized

Modestly adorned—the third in the trinity



Christ’s cross rises in between

The color of sand and rust

A broken spirit perches atop



Lemons

And the Madonna and her child

Share the same sun drenched square

The smallest, yet brightest residents…

Wreathed in the impossible yellow

Citrus

Blue cornflowers.