Joanne N. Ford and Thomas Juvik

Therapy in Photographic Time
(A Tribute to Ansel Adams)

Joanne N. Ford

Today’s therapy session will be off the record.
There will be nothing to interpret.
No scenarios of what is or might be.
Nothing to analyze; except the photograph
Of the mountain peaks and the heavy clouds
Heaving themselves against the native skies.
We’ll discuss how the soft winter light
Glides as smoothly as oil
Above the timberline and the shadows
Leaving traces on the brazen plains.
How still everything is and how thin the pockets of air are.
The trees with their stark pencil branches
Leaving sketch marks across the valley below.
We’ll wonder about the snow descending (ever so slowly)
Like yesterday’s pain blanketing and wrapping itself
Around the troubled heart and mind.
Perhaps, today we’ll learn something new.
Solve some problem hidden in the darkroom.
Photographic paper emerging from the tray of chemicals,
Erasing the deepest darkness as it ascends upwards,
Thundering, Spirit-fire flashing across the horizon.


Watching Grant
Tom Miller Juvik

From the moment that the Baumgartners moved to the cul-de-sac at the end of Conifer Park Drive, watching Grant proved to be a necessity. As Will “Baumie” Baumgartner backed the U-Haul into the driveway, he could see Grant sitting on the roof of the house across the street, a nine-year-old BB-gun sniper with red hair and freckles. more