It’s another autumn of changeable skies (and weather). The Oracle is very attuned to all kinds of weather.
ask earth to see through
spirit’s colors shining deep
between the wild songroots
of moon and sun
why listens to nothing–
knowing this ancient dusk
of season and light
must be full
Every question is a riddle–
we are stuck here in the middle–
borderlined.
But still we keep on asking why,
continue waiting, standing by
for guidelines.
Answers just confuse, pretending
somewhere there exists an ending–
a lifeline.
Deceiving with complexity,
embroidering with fantasy–
we’re traplined.
In silence there are many words
unspoken and more clearly heard–
sibylline.
Grace at dVerse introduced us to a new form called Compound Word Verse. Wow! this was hard. But enough revising–at a certain point you need to let it be.
I must have flowers, always and always—Claude Monet
azalea bluebell buttercup carnation
camellia cornflower cherry blossom dandelion
how will we color
fuchsia forget-me-not geranium goldenrod
hyacinth iris lavender lilac
our world when the flowers are
marigold orchid periwinkle poppy
rose sunflower violet wisteria
gone?
Many of our color names are based upon the colors of flowers, so it’s hard not to associate the two. It is estimated that as many as 250,000 flowering plants will go extinct by the end of this century, not only depleting what we see but how we see it.
For earthweal, where the subject under consideration is biodiversity.
I paint flowers so they will not die—Frida Kahlo
and after?
emerging from fire and flood
not with wings, risen from ashes,
but immersed in suspended time–
inside out upside down
to reverse is not to return
to surrender is not to admit defeat
to be still is not to remain forever bound
Sarah at dVerse has given us the word ash for our quadrille this week. The story she told of Odin hanging from the World Tree to gain wisdom made me think of The Hanged Man card from the tarot. I’ve seen it referred to as The Hanged One in several places, and I like that name better.
Continuing my series of tarot inspired collages using Egyptian figures, I put this together quickly, using a funerary figure and the doorway the dead are said to walk through. I usually spend days doing them, so I’m sure it will end up being revised since I’m not quite satisfied with it.
I started out with a long rambling poem of half formed questions but the Oracle had other ideas. She was obviously thinking about my recent nights visiting with the moon.
how is the moon here
in the secret sky above
my dark wanderings
listen to the sound of air–
filling the distance,
tiny continuous hums–
whispers weaving nets,
forming a loose cocoon un
seen, awash, present–
between silences singing–
distilled reflection
Brendan at earthweal this week asks us to “describe an enchanted moment”. Neither words nor images seem adequate for the sound of air, but I attempted it anyway. It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes when I meditate everything else fades away and I can hear the air. Most often it sounds like the image above.
But sometimes it has more clarity.
And in rare moments, it takes colors into the layers of movement.
The images were created by taking some of the art from one of my Kick-About responses to a film about light and applying Photoshop filters. I’ll get around to posting the originals at some point.
I could not
look at it from be
fore or aft
er, only
the angle of gone, dissolved,
empty, vanishing–
not just the
material thing
that had been
dispossessed,
but what it represented–
a piece of myself,
never to
be recovered–and
here I am
left watching,
clinging to impermanence
like water and wind
“The Kick-About prompt of souvenir seemed perfect: my daughter had given me a small sketchbook, and every day I sat on my beach chair with my feet in the waves doing a drawing, and then writing a haiku to accompany it. The sketchbook would be my souvenir.
On the last day of my beach vacation the ocean was quite rough, due to Hurricane Henri passing by, so I sat far up on the sand, where only a small piece of a dying wave occasionally brushed my toes. Holding my sketchbook up to let the watercolor pencil drawing dry I was suddenly totally upended by a rogue wave that covered me completely. I stood up, soaked, clutching my pencils in one hand, but watching my sketchbook being pulled under and out to sea.
I will replay that image in my mind for a long time, maybe forever.
When I got home, I channeled my emotional turmoil into neocolors, drawing from memory the ocean that was now fixed in my mind. The sketchbook drawings were so much more beautiful though. At least that’s how I’ll always remember them.”
For dVerse, where Ingrid asks us to attempt “writing your way out of a place of pain“. I drew it first, then I wrote.
The Oracle is feeling the chill in the air. This morning is grey and cooler than recent days.
The collage is another piece of art I found while cleaning. Painted and ripped rice paper–I guess I didn’t like the original watercolors. I don’t remember it at all.
wind rustles secrets through trees–
how my roots long for
a blanket with leaves seeded
by a moon garden
every season asks us why
we follow the same
path of lonely wandering
instead of singing
1
The music of birds gathers
in the minglings of sky and trees.
2
Voices weave separate paths that cross
each other and echo into themselves.
3
Who arranges the sequences
into song, the patterns into stories?
4
Who maps the contingent journey
of roots and branches?
5
Who casts the landscape into wings
that lift spirit into light?
I’ve been wanting to try a cadralor, and Bjorn at dVerse gave me a push by suggesting the form in his prompt. I’ve also been worrying a poem for earthweal, where Sherry asked us to look for “moments of collateral beauty“. Having a specific form to work with helped me to organize my thoughts.
I know: birds again. Yes.
The stitching was inspired by the art of Joan Mitchell, as was all the art I did for NaPoWriMo 18. It seems a lifetime ago now.
rock high against
the firmament
stone smooth
against the palm–
what wishes are veined
inside each heart?
which dreams skim
the surface in currents
riding wings that touch
both earth and sky?
who can draw the line
between what is
and what might be?
Jane’s recent poems mentioning kestrels reminded me of this strange collage I made awhile ago from a kestrel painting and a brush drawn portrait, neither of which satisfied me.
It was inspired by Ethiopian healing scrolls, which contain both words and talismanic images, although except for the square face in the center, it doesn’t resemble any of the images in the scrolls. I still don’t know what to make of the collage, but now I, too, have attached words to it.
A quadrille for dVerse, where De has provided us with the word stone.
