Author Archives: Melinda Green Harvey
my way to be free
The first photo I posted in this series from White Sands was of a picnic shelter, with long early-morning shadows, sun-tipped white dunes, and skinny clouds.
Or rare occasions, symmetry appeals to me, so I’ll close out this run of monochrome White Sands images with another shot of that same picnic shelter – this time, a close look at the shelter’s structure. The rivets caught my attention for reasons that I hope are clear. Or if not clear, then maybe clear-ish.
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.13.2025
reaching for the sky just to surrender
For reasons that I don’t understand, Leonard Cohen’s music became my personal soundtrack while I was on the dunes. I don’t mean that I was listening to the music through my phone. I mean that bits of his lyrics would appear in my brain from time to time, unbidden yet still welcome.
In this case, I heard the line “reaching for the sky just to surrender.” This yucca will lose its battle with the movement of the sand, as have the ones that were there before and the ones that will come after. All of them reach for the sky for a time before their inevitable acquiesce. It’s the way of things.
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.13.2025
the center of everywhere
On the drive into the dunes, I was thinking about how much I like to see how wind-whipped grasses carve shallow concentric circles into the sand. And this one came with a scattering of bird tracks for a nice bonus.
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.14.2025
in the stones of your mind
Mind games.
Even while I was standing right there making this image, my brain kept trying to believe that this was drifted snow. It was, in fact, quite insistent.
But it was then and still is drifts of gypsum. But you can see the confusion, maybe?
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.14.2025
it intersects past the end
The long shadows and the clouds above seem destined to meet, somewhere on the other side of the dunes, on the far side of the mountains, maybe in Mimbres or Silver City or even Upham. Or maybe they decide to stay there, on an alkali flat in the middle of the gypsum dunes…
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.14.2025
One Day | One Image 