Are You Free? // Philip Anderson Edsel for Free People

To celebrate April as National Poetry Writing Month, I teamed up with Free People to shoot some images and write a creative writing piece. I love projects that allow me to combine creative writing and photography, and this one was no exception!

Words and Photos by Philip Anderson Edsel

Styling by Philip Anderson Edsel 

Model: Maddison Teeuws

Are You Free?

What does it mean to be alive, to be adventurous, to be free?

What commands us and whose stories are we telling, if not our own?

For we are one with the Wild Wind,

where wild hearts tell stories in the passing of quiet moments

and the heat resonates within our tenderbones.

And when the seasons change, lush and wild

at the hope of something new, what moves us?

What stirs within and calls us forth

from desert plains to span the height and breadth of mountains?

What is it within us that yells,

Be still, Oh Earth and Sun Eternal!

Does the choir of highway cars heading West on the Interstate

keep you up at night, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming?

Does the sea, brash and thunderous, sing your name?

Does the light at the end of day pull at you like a gossamer thread?

Are you alive, are you adventurous, are you free?