Last Dance at the “Last Chance Saloon”

 

“The memory of a long forgotten dance should still scuff your boots” a friend told me in Arizona.

… After 13 years in Arizona, I appreciated the cultural meaning of cowboy/cowgirl hats and boots. Walking in those boots undoubtedly signals autonomy. Leather becomes identity, self-reliance and comfort in who you are. The stacked heels affect your stride and gait, and make you taller. And the bow in your back feels smoother.

The once utilitarian heavy leather boots still protect from rattlesnakes and desert brush, but the dress boots point their toes with pride on the dance floor, or under the restaurant table.

Desert mesquite thorns tore through and the high noon sun dried the leather like an old saddle now shaped like your ride. But your ride through life got more meaning. Found identity. And you felt good.

Dress boots sound like the August wind through Juniper trees when you slide on the pine floor. They are worn, broken in but you are never broken. They have stayed from the sand, the hiding snakes, and the stubborn rocks. They are black, red, or saddle cream. And you feel good.

But there is always a last dance in the Last Chance Saloon. You are still self-reliant but the bow in your back has arched your stand and makes you look inside yourself. Your swagger tells you have carried your years by putting the weight of the passage on the heels of your boots. You still enjoy smoky saloons but somehow the old stories you hear do not make you laugh.

Yet, you still want to dance, the last dance you kept for yourself.

In private.

 

 

Photos and thoughts

 

The cowboy boots of a departed Sheriff are immortalised in a sculpture in front of the Court House in Prescott, Arizona. It was not his statue that was sculpted, but his boots only. Worn, high shafts wrinkled, and the Sheriff’s posture apparent.

My cowboy boots – the pair on the left is heavy leathered and ready for the high desert or ranch work. While I walked thousands of miles in the desert over a decade, I resisted the temptation of scuffing these boots. Perhaps I kept them for my last dance in the desert.

The black boots, on the right, are urban and stylish. I have used them extensively as my favorite “cultural” attire in Arizona. Maybe I will polish them again when the “Last Chance Saloon” opens up again, so we can laugh once more at old stories.

  

Cowboy boots, walking sneakers and summer high-heel shoes at a street market in Denver, Colorado.

Shoe identity that came together for a split second when I was walking the streets.

 

July 8, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

Cicatrici Nascoste : the Scars We Hide Under the Many Layers of Who We Are

 

This morning, with the Colorado Rocky Mountains still keeping their caps warm under snow, I searched for contemporary Italian poets.

My discovery was works by Elisa Biagini, a poet from Florence, who writes about invisible wounds and their relationship with existing identity or how we modify them.

One poem, called L’ospite (The Guest) has imagery that I had not encountered before. And in one sentence Biagini touches upon so many aspects of being wounded, hiding your wounds, consequently projecting different identities (“you’s”.)

Those lines are:

"Quante tu sono in te, come chiodi sotto strati di colore, cicatrici notate solo al tatto, chiavi rimaste in fondo ad un cassetto?"

("How many you’s are in you, like nails under layers of paint, scars evident only to the touch, keys left at the bottom of a drawer?")

Beautiful!

 

… And I recalled my embryology teacher from 45 years ago. He was an eccentric who always managed to associate science with literature and philosophy. His style helped some of us to not only understand science but remember that knowledge when navigating through the arts in search of meaning and paths of communication.

The line from Biagini brought back the memory of one embryology class when we were learning about how facial features were being formed around the 8^th week of pregnancy.

“Today we will talk of migration” the professor started.

 

“Migration is not only for animals and humans – cell populations also migrate during embryonic development and come together, meet and fuse creatively.”

“Who knows how the Philtrum is created?”

Most of us did not know what a Philtrum was.

“It is the groove between your nose and upper lip. It is what makes a woman express things without words, and a man struggle every morning to shave clean under the nose.”

“A Philtrum is created by the migration and fusion of cells from three prominences: from the frontonasal and two paired maxillaries. That north-south and east-west migration of cells fuse and the Philtrum is formed.

Sometimes the fusion is imperfect and you get facial deformities. It is like a wound that heals. Maybe like a scar.”

It was the word cicatrici (scars) in Biagini’s poem that somehow found this almost half-century memory stored in a corner of my brain.

“Like nails under layers of paint”…

She did not write “layer”. She knew that our scars are hidden by experience, time, and mostly by ourselves under many layers of protection.

Many layers of self-protection. Of identity.

 

June 28, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

The Nest Under our Porch; Robert Frost’s Poem, and Nature’s Resilience to Human Compassion

 

This is my first posting from Colorado.  Leaving the desert of Arizona for the Rocky Mountains and green spaces provides a new perspective, and hopefully new musing and photography opportunities.

But the initial experience was with a mama robin bird. During my first morning coffee on the covered porch of the new house, a robin flew away from under the ceiling, just before sunrise. I looked up and saw a large nest in the corner, well protected from the high winds and predators.

So, we were expecting the eggs to hatch.

After a week of tireless trips to the nest and gauging if we were a threat to her eggs, mama bird decided that even my large Akita would be unable to reach the eggs she was keeping warm. And the week after that she started coming back with worms in her mouth to the faint chirping sounds in her nest.

The eggs had hatched.

Two days ago the first chick took its first leap out, onto the porch railing. Soon after two others joined and gave us the delightful experience of seeing how healthy, fluffy and unafraid of humans they were. So, we minimized our stays on the porch and let them discover life at their own pace.

This morning all three of them took their first flight to the tree 5 meters away from the porch. They stayed together on the same branch while mama kept bringing worms to them.

In a day or two, they will fly away, and mama will finally take a rest, perhaps perch behind me to snack on worms, have a cold drink, and watch the Football World Cup games with me!

 

… And I thought about Robert Frost’s poem “The Exposed Nest” (circa 1916). Frost recounts his stumbling upon a bird’s nest that had fallen to the ground filled with vulnerable fledglings in it. He and a young boy build a cover to protect the young chicks, but he wondered if mama bird would abandon the nest because of their interference.

About the harm their empathy could provoke he wrote:

“Dared not spare to do the best we could

Though harm could come from it”

 

… The moral dilemma was not as pronounced for us regarding the robin nest under our porch cover. Mama and the fledglings were never in danger, yet we decided to protect them from our own interference into their routine and space. And, seeing the young birds take their first leap, feel comfortable with us (and the dog) made us feel part of nature’s flexibility. Its acceptance of compassion, even when it was a gamble.

In a couple of days the fluffy feathers will get more rigid, the wings will trust stronger muscles, and the young birds will hunt for their own worms.

Mama robin will recall her now empty nest once filled with the welcoming chirps of hungry chicks. And she will be proud of having done what any single mother hopes to do: be there around the clock, forget all the pain of sunrise to sunset back-and-forths to protect and feed her chicks, and the celebration of three healthy chicks who took their first leap to our porch railing, then their first flight to the tree nearby.

Robert Frost ends his poem reflecting on survival. He realises that human empathy cannot always change the natural order of things. That their makeshift cover for the nest may not have provided support for the survival of the chicks, but perhaps had left them alone in the field. And he does not want to witness the result. He writes:

“We changed the place from bad to worse

Or maybe better-a wish-it-were-better”

 

So, he and the boy leave hoping, but uncertain, that they did the right thing:

“We left the place without a look behind”

PS/ I took a photo of the nest when mama was away. And two weeks later photos of the chicks on the tree branch. This capture shows how they still stay way as they were in the nest. But each chick seems to have its own identity – one of them keeps flying around and sitting on the other two. Is he/she the dominant, future alpha robin?

June 25, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

PS/ I have written about robin nests and how they have shown parallels with human experiences. Here is one from 2013 that adds a personal touch from my own life:

https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2013/06/robin-of-urban-woods.html

 

The Earth Laughs in Flowers (Hamatreya by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1846)

 

 

"The desire for ownership of what will eventually own you, is a basic human attribute." He told me the first time we fished next to each other on the same pier.

 

I met him in Baltimore two decades ago, on a fishing pier. A man in his 60s who held an unlit cigar at the corner of his mouth while patiently waiting for fish to take the frozen shrimp he had

offered to striped bass.

 

"They like moving action to strike, and rarely take the shrimp.  But it is most challenging to catch the ones who do not behave like members of their school. "

 

And I fished next to him a few times, as he always sat at the same pillar; used frozen shrimp for bait; and never lit his cigar.

 

I saw him catch striped bass once. He said a few words to the fish I could not hear, and to my surprise, released it to the waters.

 

"That is where it belongs" he shouted to me. "She smiled at me before going back."

 

... I read pages from Waldo Emerson this weekend. As I re-read Hamatreya, the line

 

“Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys/ Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs”

 

made me remember the man on the pier, in Baltimore. He was not boastful. And he taught me that no one owns the ocean.

 

The flowers are the Earth's laughter, according to Emerson. They laugh at us humans when we believe and claim ownership of the earth, of nature, and all surroundings through which we live our ephemeral life, and return to the land and sea we thought we owned.

 

And the man on the pier, whose name I have long forgotten, thought that the smile of a fish, freed of the hook in its lip, is the gratitude of the ocean. 

 

He admitted and celebrated that we are transient. And that nature - rock, dirt or water, will never be owned by humans.

 

... Maybe one day, secretively, he will light his cigar before his passage is being owned by the ocean, next to a pier, in Baltimore. He will be the human from whose lips  the hook of life had been taken off.

And he will be smiling and grateful.

 

PS/ I wrote these lines while in the waiting room to meet my new Primary Care physician, in Colorado.

 

June 17, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian 2026

 

 

The Gravel Trail

 

 

On a trail

Early in the morning

I kept my pace steady

To hear

The gravel slide

Under

Each shuffle

 

A prairie dog

Came out of a hole

Whined and hissed

And that

Sounded

Like a name

I once knew

 

I kept my pace

To rhyme with

The moment

All gravel

And

Dust

 

Then I thought of

A poem

I would scribble

About

That name

When prairie dog’s chirps

And squeaks

Get lost

In the morning 

Dew

 

… When I wrote

The name

I once knew

I put my pencil

Back in my bag

 

For it that name alone

Was the poem

Untitled

Yet visiting

From times

When the paths I walked

Were of concrete

No gravel

No promises

And no 

Pledges

 

I recited

That name

Again

 

And my walk changed

Into a secret

Dance

 

June 14, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

The Two Words

 

 

And there are no rules

Just the whisper in a misty night

That stays with you

Through

Sunshine

 

Old houses

Put on time’s maquillage

Like a Gaudi touch

To sparkle

With the moon

And bathe

In the dark

 

Old faces

Have no rules left

No maquillage to hide

The scars that forget their own wounds

Never too deep

Rarely too dry

Once closed

And open again

 

But old houses

And old faces still whisper

The old two words

On misty nights

As slowly

As before

 

June 7, 2026

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

Grass Pollen

 

 

Once the fields were of that yellow

And the morning wind made waves to shake

The sleepy stalks

Where lonesome hare

Had shut an eye

The night before

 

Once the cities of steel

Cleaned their streets of brown bags

That shaped bottles of the green fairy

And made unshaved men dream

Of names they once knew

Before they slept alone

In a cardboard box

With their dog

 

Once I walked these fields

My boots covered in that yellow

And got lost following concrete streets

My soul touched by the grace

Of men who slept alone

 

And became who I always was

 With intention

 

PS/ These will be the last lines I write from Arizona, where for the past 13 years, I lived under large skies, firey sunsets and open desert spaces. Colorado is where my path is leading me to snowy mountains, new muses, and new musing.

... When I first came to Arizona, over a pint of beer, a man who kept his leather cowboy hat on in the bar, told me:

  "Remember, they never made a two-person saddle -- you always ride your horse alone"

I am still thinking about that line.

May 18, 2026

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

Adiaphora

 

 

 

When I learned to drink spring water in my palm, I gave my cup to a thirsty soul

 

When I searched for words to paint a poem, I found all the shades my passage had already left upon my path

 

And under the summer rain, I heard the whisper that became a song, upon a warm pillow where dreams had once slept

 

In welcome shy, and in hope for the tender embrace of unkept promises

 

And I heard nightingales sing, at noon

 

May 3, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

Harvesting Love When the Fields of Time are Scorched

 

 

My shoes are worn

But the travel

Taught me to look

Not to see

But to find 

Perspective

 

Secret meadows 

Invite to rest

The unrest

Yet they only lead

To cities of steel

Where my shoes dreamt

Of mountain

Sides

 

Where the nightingales

Sing at sunrise 

Uninvited and shy

To forget 

The night

Before

 

 

My shoes are worn

But I still keep

Them on

To keep going

Through uninviting

Fields

 

For the harvest

Without season

Without reason

 

For what is broken

Is protected

From new 

Breaks

And

From

Itself

 

April 22, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian

Eternity is the Half-life of Passion

 

 

Like a drop of water

That becomes ice

In the desert 

 

Like the first cry

Of an unborn

Name

 

My hands hold on

To the promised

Dance

 

My Eternity

My forever

Is 

Now

 

 

April 19, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian

PS/ I was reading "La piel" (The skin) poem by Uruguayan poet Idea Vilariño. Then I wrote the few above lines inspired by her.

It made my Sunday morning more introspective.

When to Leave the Table

 

My studio has a corner where infrequently used, but still dear to my memories, items are kept. Among these is an old Panasonic portable radio/cassette player, a 9 inch screen car plug-in TV with a built-in DVD player, and letters from old friends who have passed.

Next to that area are the wall shelves where I keep most of my vintage mechanical cameras that I still use for my B&W photography. So, I call that corner of my studio “the place where time has taken a respite.”

Last night I decided to do some spring cleaning to free up space in “the place.” Instead, I took out the Panasonic radio and inserted a cassette tape from the 1970s that was labeled “Aznavour.”

 

… Charles Aznavour was a famous French singer, and his songs were poetry delivered with the thoughtfulness of a person who had lived his songs. He was one of three such singers who sang in French and touched my teenage years – Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour and Georges Brassens.

On that moment, I did not need technology – just the sound waves to take me back decades.

One of the songs is “Il faut savoir” (one must know) and its lyrics meant little to me when I was a budding young man. But yesterday, the message of the song seemed to touch on many of the life experiences I have had since. Here are the famous lines where Aznavour gives a life lesson he had learned the hard way:

 

“ Il faut savoir quitter la table, lorsque l'amour est desservi" (One must know how to leave the table, when love is no longer served).

"Sans s'accrocher, l'air pitoyable, mais partir sans faire de bruit" (Without holding on, looking pitiful, but leaving without making noise).

 

I listened to the song twice, hanging on to the words of those two lines. And I realized that the imagery of being on the table where love is served (or no longer served) had stayed in my view of life experiences through my photography and past writings. Indeed, one of my books’ cover (circa 2000) showed a woman sitting alone at a table next to mine in a dimly lit Fado restaurant, in Lisboa. I had a Nikon F2 with me, rested it on my table, set the shutter speed to 1/15^th seconds and zone focused. It remains one of my favorite shots. The title of my book is “Table for One”….

 

Over time, Aznavour’s lesson has also applied to instances when dignity, empathy and kindness were no longer served. When the table served no food for the soul. When holding on was ignorance.

 

The photo atop the page includes a woman, seemingly thoughtful, perhaps disappointed, at the lonesome table listening to Portuguese Fado which always is melancholic and full of longing. But was I reflecting on my own feelings? Perhaps she just came alone to the Fado restaurant. But why were there two wine glasses, yet empty, on the table?

 

Here is another photo that I took in Bellagio, Italy that follows Aznavour’s philosophy:

 

 

In the country of love and romanticism, an empty street and lonesome trattoria tables seem out of place.

 

Finally, below a poem I had published in 2022 (https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2022/02/i-did-wait.html) that perhaps shows how the lyrics of a 1961 song can stay in us and resurface:

 

 

April 10, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

I Did Wait

 

 

 

Then

 

I held 

each worry bead

for the space

of a name

 

Now

 

a bottle of Cava

and a window

without

a frame

 

Often

 

I let

one bead slide

as I held

the next one

 

a while

longer

next to

a round table

 

where the space

of a name

was lovingly

left

lonely

 

February 19, 2022

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2022