Month: July 2026

Some landscapes quietly become part of our lives. I took this photograph years ago on a midsummer walk through Sourland Mountain in New Jersey. The poem that follows grew from that same summer afternoon and carries with it the deep green stillness of July.

Sourland Mountain in July

The asphalt fajita pan
sizzles,
white papal smoke ascends
from black aluminum,
scorches
naked feet,
temperatures climb, calibrated
for the appointed broiling
of flesh—

Sourland Mountain at noonday
in July:
I listen to the psalms of emerald leaves
upon twigs and branches
uplifted in praise,
the songs of the scarlet tanager,
melodious with the orchestra of Monét clouds
in this gated city of chlorophyll,
a uniform green madness—

Though I walk
through the hardness of rocks
and boulders,
I will not take this green
for granted,
I mumble on every single leaf
of fern, weed and tree,
revel
in the uncomfortable warmth,
while the green is teeming

at this very moment

before the gradual accumulated
turnings of the universe,
of sun, moon and stars
awaken
the coldness from its slumber,
before the leaves turn
into empty brown
paper bags
blown by the wind.

—Deirdra Vachal

From the poetry collection Where Love Dwells (2025) by Deirdra Garcia Vachal

Photography by Deirdra Vachal