A SLOOP of amber slips away  

  Upon an ether sea,      

And wrecks in peace a purple tar,    

  The son of ecstasy.

Emily Dickinson

Some years ago at a tertulia (a Spanish word for a gathering of people who will converse about music, culture, politics and even futbol) at Subeez, I said, “I cannot find any woman at least over 50 to pose for me with nothing on.” The short haired and elegant Ambre Dakota Hamilton looked at me and said, "I will." I  remember that she was about to publish a book. She was in the process of writing a novel, Freedom's Just Another Word (Harper Colins - 1998) about women in prison and at the same time telling us her name was no longer Ambre but Dakota. I jokingly gave her the name of Dakota Formerly Ambre (sort of trying to relate her name to the 1944 romantic, and quite racy, novel Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor).

Like many of my subjects in my files she has vanished.

In situations like these I like to cite the New Testament words of Christ, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

I remember you well and thank you for these photographs of which I can only place these two here because of the era we live in. Sometimes I wish I could paint.

More Emily Dickinson
 
Sleep
When August burning low
Pink Small and punctual
A slash of blue
I cannot dance upon my toes
Ah little rose
For hold them, blue to blue