Just a reminder if you’re shopping this weekend that poetry books make beautiful gifts. Some nice sales, some good reasons…
Tag: watercolor
Open or closed
My favorite word is “or,” a hinge on which possibilities can open and close securely, which is an obvious necessity when using prose. But it’s more than that to me. Ask a question using “or,” and you will understand. It requires you to imagine what might be. If you really wish to complete the thought…
Red copper gold
Landscapes fade to gold around here. Gold is their resting state, revealed only just before the dark. Whole hillsides melt into caramel. Sunrise seems to last all day long, but the light dissolves a little more week by week. Light a candle before you read a poem at night. To make anything with this landscape,…
Invented words
At least it’s an affordable luxury, this craft of poetry. Catch a phrase loitering around the alley of your mind, and find a place to keep it. Pretty phrases are as plentiful as the red-gold leaves turning the road into a bed of glowing embers. I'm pretty sure I spend more on my poetry practice…
Because insight
Yesterday at my annual eye exam, the optometrist told me to get myself a pair of reading glasses. Here they are--inevitable lenses through which I'll have to gaze at poems and paintings from now on. I'm not complaining. My blurry vision is a reminder to me -- don't take this for granted. This is also…
Beginning
The grace of starting something new isn’t mentioned all that much, at least, not as much as we talk about the discipline to get started or the inspiration to begin. Maybe it’s because grace is not in our control at all, unlike these other two. I'd like to acknowledge and give credit to grace itself…
Independent of
A tiny fawn has made a bed for itself next to the stone foundation adjacent to my porch. A week old now, and, tonight, it didn’t spring up when I came outside to water the flower boxes on the railing with my collection of begonias, verbena, dianthus, violet galaxy-streaked petunias, coleus, and mint. We have…
Roar
At least it’s beautiful when the feminine divine is completely enraged. Does someone point out the real beauty to us? Will it help us shift into what is good? My cousin sent me this viral video today— a bharatanatyam and hip-hop fusion dance. Laughing and smiling is a good break from roaring. https://youtu.be/Saj65ySCOSo This morning’s…
White petals
It’s the season of white wildflowers here: honeysuckle and briar roses and horse chestnut trees in bloom. It’s infuriating, trying to paint them in watercolor. The process requires restraint, a yielding to the blank white of the paper, which is in a way quite the opposite of a writer’s training. But I like the challenge…
How many
Do you remember the classic Tootsie Pop ad with a boy and owl? The question — exactly how much effort would be needed to reach the chewy, chocolatey center — the owl leaves satisfactorily unanswered. That’s the taste of childhood all over: the not-knowing, the sweet cloy of simple wants, the imaginary owl asleep in…
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