Guest blog by Wayne David Hubbard, with original poetry

Creativity defies fixed boundaries. So does travel. Many of my creative works are born while in transit.

This pattern took shape early in my life. At age 19, months after 9/11, I found myself at Miyajima, Japan, a sacred island just south of Hiroshima.

Digital cameras were new in the early ‘00s. I had little money, and less to offer. So, I roamed whenever possible, recording life with my eyes, ears, and senses. I saw things no picture could rightly capture. I did not know these experiences would be priceless.

I began to write.

If life is a journey, between fixed limits of time -- one’s entrance (our birthday) and one’s exit (our death-day) -- the arc of creativity stretches beyond even this. Works of art strike at our hearts, sometimes, decades after the artist is gone.

Talking about creativity is difficult, but for me, talking about the people and places who make creativity feel most alive in me is easy.

ARIA, No. 16

~ for Rumi

a season

of yearning

complete

would i beg now

against fullness?

the lover

who loves you

is near

a sun

swallowing

a sun

After Miyajima, the next pivotal place on my writing journey was Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree is in the high desert, east of Los Angeles, where the Mojave and Colorado Deserts meet.

Why did I go to Japan, and how did I land in California? Simple: I joined the marines and received orders. Severe difficulties were unfolding in the nation and around the world. From the Mojave Desert, I was sent to the Syrian Desert to participate in the Second Gulf War. I kept a notebook in my war pack.

I hated the desert at first. I grew up in New Jersey, a short drive from midtown Manhattan, accustomed to noise and human activity. I felt intimidated by the vast landscape of earth and sky in all directions. Silence unsettled med.

My attitudes about the desert changed one night when I looked deeply at the stars.

When I finished my military service and returned to the East Coast, I thought I would never see Joshua Tree again.

But recently, after two decades, I had a chance to return. I drove directly to my favorite overlook and walked to a favorite spot. I tried to take a picture, but I knew I would never be satisfied with it. So, I sat down and began to write a poem of gratitude.

Without my knowledge, a stranger took a picture of me sitting with my notebook. Later, they approached and offered it to me. They said I looked peaceful and very happy.

KEYS VIEW

where at twenty

he prayed

overlooking

coachella

the salton sea

san jacinto’s

eternity

where virga split

the desert’s mouth

where starlight

quenched

what war

set aflame

that he returned

at forty

must mean

it heard him

triumph of quiet

and the deep

The city of Geneva is my favorite literary destination. Geneva possesses a range, depth, beauty, and diversity which I find very attractive, if not spellbinding. It is a city of contrast. I blend in here with a surprising ease.

At the city center is Saint Pierre Cathedral. This historic church sits atop generations of archaeological ruins dating back to 1st century BC.

On the city outskirts lies CERN - the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world’s largest and most cutting-edge laboratory of science and technology. One site offers a rare window into civilizations past, the other is unlocking the future.

Geneva is also home to the United Nations Headquarters and the International Red Cross Museum – two sites of importance which aspire to keep humanity grounded, amid an imperfect, political present.

With luck and diligent planning, you can see these places in a single day. But the scale and gravity of each place is quite immense. It is best to select the right moment for a visit . . . to take one’s time.

My poems are an amalgamation of memory. This one came about in 2023 following a period of reflection and recovery resulting from overwork and stress. Oddly, I was thinking about the peace of the desert and the cathedral.

PROOF OF LIFE, No. 6

now that i am out

as a poet

nothing stalks me

in my sleep

i fear not spilling

dreams tonight

tomorrow

there may be more

i became the shell

that fell away

i flew two

thousand miles

to touch

a bougainvillea

with my eyes

if ever i could stop

my heart again

this spire

would still rise

without me

Last spring I had a profound experience near Porto, an old city in northern Portugal. I stumbled upon the Livraria Lello Foundation. The main site sits along a pilgrimage path where an ancient monastery, a castle, and a modern sculpture meet.

The Lello Foundation, the steward of these grounds, calls itself “a cultural entity devoted to promoting critical thinking, facilitating access to knowledge, and empowering relationships between communities and heritage”.

What might this mean in practice? And how might this relate to writing?

The foundation did not provide direct answers, yet it left clues. It was a serene place designed for the contemplation of current issues. Its art exhibits addressed subjects like media literacy, the impact of technology on social life, and our ever-changing relationship with the past in light of what feels like, to many, a turbulent future.

I took a picture of the sculpture. It stood three-stories tall with two doors and no conventional windows. Yet light poured into the structure from varying angles, thanks to a novel arrangement of openings where one would expect walls.

Unlike a conventional piece, where a viewer may take in an object from multiple perspectives, this was a sculpture you could walk inside. In one sense, it took you in as much as you took it in.

No directions were given on where to stand, or what to do, or not do. The autonomy it offered was appreciated, which may have been the point.

Before I left, I found a stone bench in the castle garden’s and sat for a long time. Thinking through the swirl of complexities that my life had become that year, I drafted this poem:

EPIGRAM

chaos

is change

without memory

a coal canary blinded

at the cavern’s mouth

New York City is the anthesis to the desert. Life in the city is a fierce competition to determine how much density can be packed (or extracted from) its continuously contested spaces.

Unlike Geneva, which makes subtle references to its contradictions, New York makes a famous show of them. For writers of almost any culture or tongue, New York is where much comes together.

My father was born in Manhattan. My grandfather lived on Central Park West for 50 years. I never lived properly within city boundaries, but I went to college in one of its famous boroughs. In the ‘80s, I

grew up mirroring its dance moves and reciting its hip-hop through the 90s. I have gotten substantially lost in nearly every neighborhood, most often trying to find a shortcut around traffic. I still listen to 1010 WINS – just to hear what is happening.

New York is the city I understand best: constantly changing, evolving, collapsing, rebuilding, and redefining itself, simultaneously. For me, this is what creativity feels like.

THE MAYFAIR

horizons

in a single frame

on east 74th street

manhattan

between 2nd and 3rd

my grandfather

is on the corner

assisted to walk

from her lenox hill

apartment to melon’s

his wife flags

an ice cream truck

to buy him a sweet cone

cabs assail the boulevard

their horns blaring as one

towards pedestrians

defiant in a crosswalk

his gray eyes shine

to be outside at spring,

to draw new york

inside himself

and this is where

the memory stops

he turns

to look at me

Born and raised near Newark, New Jersey, he lives in the Shenandoah Valley and works in air traffic control.

Website: waynedavidhubbard.com

Instagram: @wdavidhubbard

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Photography Notes: All photographs were taken by Wayne David Hubbard, except for two: the Tori at Miyajima (Wiki Commons) and the photograph at Keys View (anonymous).

This original work of authorship is protected under copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or use of this material without prior written consent from the author is strictly prohibited, except for brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by law.

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