Newborn

Where there’s life, there hope–
your tiny hand is full of promise,
growing into luminescence,
reaching out, moving towards light.

Your tiny hand is full of promise–
it opens like the sky,
reaching out, moving towards light
like a flower awakening.

It opens like the sky,
complete and infinite–
like a flower awakening,
dancing with the wind.

Complete and infinite,
you sparkle the darkness–
dancing with the wind
like a trail of stars.

You sparkle the darkness–
a mirror, a pathway
like a trail of stars–
everything all at once.

A mirror, a pathway
growing into luminescence–
everything all at once–
where there’s life, there’s hope.

Merril at dVerse asks us to write a poem incorporating a proverb.

where there’s life, there’s hope

somehow the blank piece of paper becomes something else

my hands drawn
into lines—tensely
embracing
escaping
furtively from fear, riddled
with hesitation

erasing
beginning again
layering
accruals
disguised by repetiton
over and over

and yet not
the same these motions
these attempts
to capture
a moment streaming tracing
the outlines of time

I’ve used the image from National Geographic provided by De at dVerse as inspiration for my watercolor/quadrille using the word stream.

Also linking to earthweal, where Sarah discuss the harvest festival of Lammas and asked us to think about how we harvest and transform in our own lives.

Aggregated

Why must we always quantify?  4, 3, 10.  Add, subtract, multiply.  Divide.

My prose poem, Aggregated, based on a painting by Hilma af Klint, was among those selected as a finalist in The Ekphrastic Review Women Artists contest. You can read the entire poem and see all the finalists here. The three winning selections are here.

also linking to dVerse OLN

incohesive

“Ecosystems are so similar to human societies—they’re built on relationships.  The stronger they are, the more resilient the system.”—Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree

we keep dividing
designating
a hierarchy
to pull what we share
apart

and so each
of us is missing
parts
each of us is
incomplete

why do we cling
to our separation
our isolation
who we think we are
alone?

the foundation
is faltering
and still
we hold
on

collapsing
into
the deep
hole
of ourselves

During a presentation Suzanne Simard made, early in her career, about her research into the interrelationships between trees and other species in the forest, and how all were necessary in order for the forest to thrive, she mentioned also the threat to climate from disrupting these systems. “Climate change means nothing in Canada” one of the audience said afterwards.

For earthweal.

Manifest

Life is difficult.

Well of course it is.  Easy is monotonous.  Uncomplicated is boring.

What is possible must first be imagined.

Am I looking for the Land of Milk and Honey?  Am I waiting for my Ship to Come In?  Do I yearn for Promised Lands?  Do I search for the Pots of Gold at the Ends of Rainbows?

Do I ask to be One of The Chosen Few?

No.  I do not.

Weep at the world.

I am too busy.

Sharpening my oyster knife, so to speak.

Calling to the ocean, sailing on its moontides, seeking kinship on its shore.  Culling only what still contains life, nourishment.

Cutting through the shiny exterior.  Prying open the closed doors.

To see.  What has been kept from me.

Secret, hidden, suppressed, denied.

A pearl or a grain of sand?

You can’t have one without the other.

Jade at dVerse has provided a quote from Zora Neale Hurston from “How Does it Feel to be Colored Me” in World Tomorrow for this week’s prosery: No, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

Indeed she was.

space is the place

The Oracle got a makeover from MagneticPoetry.com. It’s going to take getting used to. I used the new “happiness” category. I can use some, after reading the news this morning.

When I saw the Oracle’s message, I immediately thought of Sun Ra, an artist of living, not just music, that my older brother introduced me to when we were teenagers. “Space is the Place” was a title he used for many different pieces of art.

I had titled these birdling collages from my archives “birdlings in space”. The birdlings make me happy no matter where they are.

where is wonder?
make time for space
alive with possibility–
between comes whispering–
soon surprise will follow

lost languages

these names that have lost their origins
names that have lost their sounds
that have lost their meanings
lost meanings without references
without words words that once rolled off
the tongue rolled off the tongue
immense with meaning
with meaning now lost now
untranslatable immense and untranslatable
these names without meaning

these names belonging nowhere
belonging nowhere to no one to no one
at all invisible undernourished
undernourished and withered into invisibility
without a way a way to put sounds together
sounds that together form words
words that become names
these names that are lost

canvas back 1s

these names without scripts
without scripts or context without
the context of language a language
of mirrors mirrors now empty
mirrors that yield no answers
answers to questions questions
without context how and what and where
and why are they lost and where did they go
who knows the names the names the names
the names that have lost their meaning

canvas back close up s

For dVerse, where Bjorn has us chanting,

what is/is not

everywhere
falls apart
mind to eyes
expanding

falls apart
becomes its opposite
expanding
into stories

becomes its opposite
days into nights
into stories
the sun intersecting the moon

days into nights
future and past
the sun intersecting the moon
enlarging the horizon

future and past
the surprise of delight
enlarging the horizon
to leave is to arrive

the surprise of delight
mind to eyes
to leave is to arrive
everywhere

Brian Rutenberg Low Dense (SOLD), 2010, oil on linen, 63 x 158 inches

The Kick-About prompt this time was a painting by Brian Rutenberg, Low Dense, above. The colors immediately made me think of Monet, which made me think of the grids I did based on Monet’s work. And so I decided to do a grid.

This is a very intense way to look at art, and I learned a lot from it as I not only did some of Monet’s paintings, but an entire book of other artists for The Sketchbook Project. The subtleties of color are amazing when you look closely at them. Rutenberg clearly has an eye for color.

And my second pantoum for the week. Abstract, like the art.

You can see my work with Monet here and here. And my Sketchbook Project book, Art I Like, here.

who am/are

finding myself
I open the cages
I travel on paths
where I once was we

I open the cages
calm and unafraid
where I once was we
everything begins again

calm and unafraid
as intersected species
everything begins again
inside and out

as intersected species
abiding in before and after
inside and out
following life’s tides

abiding in before and after
I travel on paths
following life’s tides
finding myself

Sherry posted at earthweal this week about Jane Goodall and how her work with chimpanzees led her to start “Roots and Shoots, her program, now 30 years old, that inspires young people to plant trees and care for the areas in which they live”.

I knew I had posted before about chimpanzees as part of my endangered species series on methodtwomadness. When I went back and looked, I found that I had also talked then about Jane Goodall and her work.

Chimpanzees are our closest genetic relative. Of course we still have plenty of work to do learning to treat other humans with respect. We can start by opening the cage doors.

chimp 1s

My first pantoum of the week–there will be more.