I will not keep
the rose and ochre
shells
and ebony skate egg case.
I’ll throw them back
to the sea.
Release
and
redemption.
Backyard Sunday
I lay flat in my small, urban yard and heard the cheering fans at Camden Stadium, the young urbanites at the bar at the end of the block, and the occasional radio rolling by in a car. I sank my body into the slate footstones, trying to unfurl the tightness stored in large quantities, imagining the Earth’s warm core seeping into me. Listened. The chorus of birds sang to their young, caught in the interstices of the cacophony of the city. The new leaves and pink and white buds on the crab apple tree were splayed with sunshine. I sat up and dipped my brush into amber, sapphire and emerald watercolors. The paper was fresh and white.
Buddy, my black and white cat, meowed to come join me and I opened the door. He settled comfortably under the tree, hoping the birds wouldn’t notice him. Suddenly, Buddy decided it was his chance to jump into the neighbors yard and try to find that orange tabby that lives somewhere in the alley. Yikes! Buddy is a rescue, with no claws and two teeth. The tabby outweighs him by at least 10 pounds. The orange tabby probably eats rats bigger than my cat. I ran out the gate, captured Buddy, and threw him back inside. He was indignant, but saved from his own intentions, as we all need to be at times. I went back and completed my painting. It was a glorious Sunday.
vows
11/14/2013
Geese call
southward flight
early sun glistens
on shorn corn fields
stalks short and gold.
This quiet moment
I sip coffee,
ignore the day’s work,
wish for flight.
3/14/2015
Geese call
early morn
turquoise sky.
Returning
ready to
dance courtship
exchange vows
renew life.
Aikido
In the course of learning or teaching aikido, people often speak truth. Here are some of my favorites. The transcriptions may not be perfectly accurate, since I heard them in class, but I hope I preserved the message.
“If you’ve been wrongly perceiving what is happening for a long time, it’s difficult to truly see what is really happening.” – Shihan Chuck Weber, at Baltimore Aikido, 7/25/2015
“Use the point of your sword as your shield.” – Shihan William Gleason
“Draw energy from the earth.” – Shihan Mary Heiny
Hawk Hunting
Hawk perched high,
hunting,
surveying his kingdom
casual as any monarch.
Evil splits the land.
They poisoned the pool,
lay insecticide beside it.
The dragonflies were dead. They called us
insubordinate,
unruly,
but we fought for truth
and burned in fire.
hell and God’s right hand
“I am traveling
through the fires of hell
to God’s right hand,”
said Dan.
I knew little of his journey, but
one time he told me,
“Dad would
knock us upside the head,
beat the shit out of us.”
Then Dan joined the army.
I do not know more of his passage,
how Charon ferried him across
and how he bribed his way out
pass Cerebus’ three heads.
But
here and now,
we are
in this church of light,
learning to sit
and stand
and move in space,
learning to hear
and see
and touch
all over
again.
Cradle
Cradled in my lover’s embrace,
I dreamt of a world.
Verdant earth, azure sky,
sun warming the gentle breeze,
children shouting with joy.
3/25/2015
drawing the line in the sand
Sometimes there’s no paper but something is so interesting or beautiful or funny, I just have to draw or write about it.
pottery
This week I got back some pottery I had recently glazed, although the pieces were thrown on the wheel last spring. I learned how to throw and glaze pots a few years back from Joe Vitek at the Cheseapeake Arts Center. Joe, who has become a good friend, is a master potter and marvelous teacher. The pieces were fired in his gas kiln. Joe puts them in the kiln himself, since the air must flow evenly around all the pieces to fire correctly at extremely high temperatures over several days. Firing takes skill, a bit of luck and alchemy. The glazes don’t look like the colors they will become through fire and chemical reactions so the colors seem magical when they are finally taken out of the kiln.
Knit Together
I love trying new things and a knitting and crochet store just opened in my neighborhood. [www.thatsthepointneeedlecrafts.com]The yarn is seductive. It’s achingly soft, with marvelous colors, from muted, natural colors to bold, primary colors, which are actually used sari fibers spun together.
The store offered a free lesson; I couldn’t wait. I had learned some knitting when I was very young, but had long since forgotten it. I recalled swirling in the navy blue ice skating skirt my mother knit for me. Lace doilies lay across tables in my grandmother’s house, crocheted by my great-aunts. The white doilies were as delicate as snowflakes.
Recently, I saw sculptures made from crocheted yarn in the Visionary Arts Museum. [www.avam.org] A mathematician friend explained that crochet actually makes hyperbolic arches. [http://crochetcoralreef.org/crochet-coral-reef-book.php] After knitting a bit, I realized the art is mathematical, and not just because of the shapes, but because I needed to count stitches so as not to lose any. Also, my knitting wound itself into a shape somewhat like a DNA molecule, which I was assured, was normal.
As I sat practicing my knitting, women stopped by to shop and chat. One of the pleasures of knitting or crocheting is that it can be done while engaging in conversation. The women were around my age, middle aged or somewhat older. They fondled the yarn, discussed patterns, techniques, and the perfect needle.They were professional women from a large variety of fields, from computers to teaching to non-profit management. They also had a wide range of interests. I even met one woman who also did aikido!
I went home satisfied and excited. This week I plan to learn crocheting.
gaia mouse 