please take a moment to sit back, rest and reflect. you have such a way about you filled with drama and soft moments of quiet and this year you really shone like only you can shine. you brought record highs of heat and allowed us to revel in the sunshine but you couldn’t let the sun take centre stage as winter’s blizzard snow was becoming quite jealous wasn’t she? so you allowed her to fly across this province with bitter winds and dancing snowflakes. you gave me moments of cozy warmth and wool socks, sweaters and flannel movie watching. you gave me moments of dancing in the outside planning my garden and walking on the promise of green.
today i awoke to say good-bye to you and saw that you were not quite finished with your drama as rain drips down to reveal fields of green grass and an explosion of green buds. you leave behind a freshness that feels exactly right, exactly like a good-bye should be. you allowed me to grieve for my losses. you allowed me to rejoice in all the exciting new beginnings that are happening in my life. you showed me that if i believe in my dreams that they will happen because they are happening.
thank you april for honoring all the contradictions in me. for showing me that it is okay to feel two very different ways and to know that one day the sun can burn down and the next the snow can tumble around me; one day i can feel absolute joy and the next i can cry in pain. we hold it all in ourselves don’t we and that is a wonderful way to live i think.
april brings spring showers
or snow storm’s blizzard
paths blazed across a fire
demon’s slayed in corners
of dust
introspection and thought
tears falling across dirt
and suddenly an explosion
grand and furious
green buds revealed
a month of words
formed across a page
inked into soft skin
echoed in thoughts
stretched and pulled
drawn out in colour
revealing
hidden
lost
found
defining a month of heartbreak
living days of relief
coming to resolution
hope’s sunlight dance
a smile for the wind that carries words across miles of flowing river dipped in raindrops soaked in crystals of ice
lavish me with air beaming swirls of life catching the tail end of a cloud’s winged feather as i move into may
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…” (ralph waldo emerson)
soak me in thought
heart lifting to sky
toes curved upwards
polished eyes sparkle
drunk off the light
arms embracing magic
fingers thrumming energy
loving the dance
of butterflies wings
swirling in air
warmed by you.
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” (thomas merton)
bright blue skies of sunshine’s warmth
i can see but not touch
as i jump through the puddle
into another world’s dream
finding photos
of myself floating through
stream’s highway. a yellow line
scarred and flawed.
swimming through water
tiny bubbles mask my distorted view
somehow graceful
in intent and clumsy in descent
i pull myself up
gasping for soft yellow air
cotton candy coloured breathe
grasps hold of lungs inhale
clouds grey
suddenly filled with rainbow’s bright smile
i bore witness to your beauty
tiny fingers grasping
warmth
the smell of your soul
crushed tight against mine
as you rose through the air
and left
me
frayed and peeling
tired and lost
today
i honor the day you left
to join your brother
my sister
and others
bright skies of blue pink
cradles you
while my skin peels backwards
to reveal a weary winded
mind.
tomorrow i hope for light
but today i honor pain
without it, i would have no joy.
i sunk my teeth into your skin
soft yield of flesh
your juice dripped across my tongue
filling me
consuming me
tart thoughts filtered
a weave of shadows
spun by your mind
my lovely husband posted this photo yesterday and it created such longing inside of me. this is my home, where i was born and raised, this is where i used to go to rage with the waves, cry with the rain, dance with the sun. on moonlit summers, i would shed my clothes and run naked into the warm waters of night. i spent hours laying in my bikini, the sand on my skin, a poetry book in hand, noodling dreams and not realizing that i was living a dream that i couldn’t wait to escape.
i was living a dream that i couldn’t wait to escape.
we have these amazing moments in our life, these moments that we sometimes don’t realize are so incredibly beautiful that they will live in our hearts forever. perhaps that is why it is so important to live with every ounce of our being, to smell the air around us, to feel our environment, to reach out and touch the textures in our spaces. to see the way the air clings to us or floats by us, to notice how each little grain of sand creates a uniform look but in actuality are shaped so very differently, to listen to the hum of life, the water rushing, the rustle of the leaves, the ant walking across the rocks.
if i close my eyes, i am transported backwards. i can feel the heat of my skin, the way the sand dries and scrapes across my calf; the sound of the waves; the buzz of a fly and the far off laughter of children playing. i can hear the birds and the smell of raspberry bushes, sweet in the light; the way the sun bleached my eyes and rose in waves up from the sand distorted the far off figures walking. I remember the way the sand felt beneath my running feet, slapping the water dancing sparkles. laying staring up at the stars as the water gently rocked me in warm thoughts and feeling as thought the earth knew my heartbeat better than I did.
There were a lot of things I didn’t like about where I lived. The oil business, the boom mentality, the transient motion of young rough men that leered at a girl of twelve. The money and the drugs and the poverty that stood alongside the wealth. The anger and the hate.
But …
the beauty that was minutes from my doorstep, the trees that went on forever, the lake that gave peace, the sand dunes and the spongy muskeg ground that smiled at the river that flowed through, that is where my heart grew and lived and learned to love.
Its easy for me to see the ugly in life. I saw a lot of it growing up and could tell you stories that would bring tears to your eyes. Luckily, it is also easy for me to see the beauty in life because I saw a lot of it growing up and I could tell you stories that would bring tears to your eyes. Its a contradiction that I am learning, ever so slowly, to be comfortable with.
*this is what i love about photography, how a photo can pull a memory and reveal a life inside of ourselves, reveal bits of who we are as it pulls at our emotions.
you came for a brief visit
and i wandered in your rays
laughing in the sunshine
of your attention
did i say something wrong?
am i not pretty enough?
smart enough?
witty enough?
talented enough?
did i do something you didn’t like?
because you closed your eyes
and your mind
and decided to leave
and i wake
in darkness
not deserving
wondering
was i somehow not deserving
of your attention
did i have nothing to offer you
but a smile and a skip of my step
you decided to turn your fair face
eyes sparkling fun
to some other girl
some other boy
someone with better style
a better file
and i sit here in the cold
summer canceled
this year.
so, the lighting is bad and the expressions, eek! but i want to try and do this more so here is my first attempt, i just turned on the camera and went for it and decided that while i could have practiced and tried a few more times to get it right, there is something to be said for just doing it in all its imperfectness. hopefully, i’ll get better at this but honestly when you start something new, it is totally okay to not be perfect otherwise what would be the point?
Last weekend, we had weather in the high twenties, all the snow was gone and green was starting ever so slowly to poke its way up through the earth. This weekend, it snowed and snowed and snowed some more, actually its still snowing as witness to these photos I took today. Last weekend, my son burnt his shoulders while shooting hoops behind the garage. um. yeah. I got home from work with frozen ears. Last weekend we had record highs for april and we currently broke the record for lows for april.
“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” (cecil beaton)
in my ordinary life
flowers emerge from floorboards
bright coloured spring
dances in sunbeams
across a polished dance
in my ordinary life
i walk a thousand miles
and find beauty in every corner
crack and thought as trees
rise up and sway me in
their shade
i awake to moonbeams smile
and skip across cobbled stone
covered in feathers of white
i drink from a clouds soft
squeeze
and eat from the green gabled
gate
as i make my way home
to drop the world at my feet
and float on dreams
of air
in my ordinary life
juice drips orange
and lemons scent float
eyes sparkle
wings flutter
and you kiss my nose
softly
in my ordinary life
i stretch out toes
and reach the sky
warmth of the sun
tickles
quietly
in my ordinary life
the extraordinary
becomes mundane
and the mundane
winks mischievously
and i laugh outloud
a blue breathe of soft
wind. sinking into
clouds soft pillow.
warm winds sigh across the desert’s bloom.
icy thoughts whisper across a frozen
meteor. superman’s cape
cries a streak of blue
through a white ribbon. lost
in the hot jungle green
of two leaves entwined.
hands grasping the iron metal
of lust’s wanton sweat. frozen
tears crackle open. green ocean
water rises up fire. melting
marshmallow’s ghost story. lovers
smile in the heat of nights drifting
cloud.
words lost in a stain glass window
covered in dust. forgotten beneath
a cracked footstep. close your eyes
and remember. distracted by
the colours of the rainbow.
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” (oscar wilde)
did you ever have one of those days, days when hope seems to have forgotten how to fly. days when darkness cries tears of why
and you wonder if the light is worth shining. when the headlines tell a story of a loss that cuts your heart in threads just because
we all deserve more than what we sometimes get. imagine sitting with your husband of 29 years. imagine sitting with your frail hands, veins soft and grateful to be celebrating your love. imagine emerging into the sunshine of a warm spring day, the light bouncing off the sky, a twinkle in his eyes when suddenly with a flick of a knife stain and a wrench twist, a life flies to the clouds. imagine having your life cut short at 77 years of age while your love watches her eyes unable to comprehend that this is what is to become of an anniversary celebration. meanwhile out there somewhere a young man walks with a bloodied knife, pain gutted thoughts, stealer of love and i am on the verge of tears, my heart wounded at the thought.
somedays it is hard to live in this world
of gasping breathe
and painful sighs
of waste and consumption
a lighted mall filled with the suffering of
another man’s wage.
and beauty creeps about
tangled vines
and a heart’s smile
searching for a water drop
of fresh water
to cling to my skin
and burn fire’s cleanse
and we search for hope
and build on love
because some days that is the best
we can do
for ourselves
for the seed of a thought
the smile of a care
the warmth of tomorrow.
who am i to stand
and gaze at your reflection
as if you knew something
more than i did?
in the beauty of your fallen tears
there is pain that slices through
angry clouds broken cross
ignoring those pieces
of my heart
chosing to see the mirrored reflection
of someone else
crushed eggshell pieces
lying gently on a pretty pink
frill of paper discarded
in yesterday’s trash
i find a snow crusted mirror
and take a photo of yesterday
bound in a thought of today
and tied with the coffee grounds
of this morning’s rush
and there she is
beauty
in the smile
of tomorrow
and i wonder
who are you to love me
gently
hold my anger in your arms
and wipe away my tears?
There’s a lot of stuff going on in my head right now. Some of it beautiful and wishful and dreamy and some of it piled high like garbage and some of it just observations. I feel the need to do a brain dump and while I could dump it into a leather encased journal, I need the satisfaction of the clicking of the keys. I am thinking a list, a random bit of a list which will fly from my fingers and I will not think about to much.
1. Our city is filled with garbage. It makes me want to cry and rant and wail. The snow has melted to reveal piles of garbage everywhere, up against shrubs, in the streets, lingering in potholes, floating down the river, hung high like an ornament in trees, resting lightly on grass, in piles on sidewalks and yards and along freeway ditches. Is it because we have garbage cans littered about the city with no lids on them so the wind picks up the garbage and dances it down the street? Or is it because people don’t care and throw their leftovers out of car windows as they zip along in their gas guzzlers merrily humming along on their way to their homes or dreaming of the province they came from and resentful of the fact that the money and the work is here? I don’t really know. I suspect there are a lot of reasons for the garbage and today on my way out of the house, I stuffed some bags into my bag and as I am outside, I pick up a bit here and there in the hopes that others will care enough to do the same. This is where we live people, have some respect for where you lay your weary head.
2. Blogging. I just don’t know where I stand on it these days. I have read some pretty compelling blog posts over the past month that make me wonder what I am doing here. I mean I love it, it is a part of my life but does it interfere too much with the real life outside of computer screen? These are the questions I am asking myself. I have never been one to follow the trends, to buy the latest fashions, to listen to the music that everyone else was listening to. I have always thought it was important to make my own decisions and follow my own instincts and I have always been fairly successful in this but recently I am wondering? I love the very real friendships that I have made with a few people whom I can count on my fingers and I love the friendships that I can see with a few others that I can count on the rest of my fingers and one thing that I notice with these is that we are different and we sometimes have differing opinions, interests, passions and that is so wonderful and okay and normal for me.
But.
I also notice that I have found myself being influenced by more popular crowds and that feels a bit gag worthy to me because I have noticed that some of this influence is incredibly mainstream and commercialized and against everything I have always believed in. I don’t want to be like you any more than you want to be like me. It is our diversity that makes us interesting or so I have always found though it is our understanding and compassion that makes us beautiful. A slight difference which I need to explore more. It is nobodys fault but my own that I find myself in this state where I am wondering if I like something because I like it or if I like something because somebody else does. I also wonder how it influences my art, am I listening to others or to the sound of my own rhythms, my own expressions, my own unique view. I want my art to come from me and not from someone else but influences are also really good because they help to shape what it is that we like and what we don’t and how we fit into it all. Confused? Yeah, me too. I will figure it out and maybe all it means is refreshing my feed reader, a little spring cleaning is always good for the soul.
which leads me to my next thought on blogging.
Influence aside, is blogging taking up too much of my precious time? I would say that at one time, it was so mangeable because it was anywhere from 5 minutes to 1/2 hour of my time which included writing a post and reading a few others. But its different now because I know too many bloggers, I read to many bloggers so while my posting time is minimal (I type like a demon ~ thanks for making me take that typing class mom), my reading and commenting time, my email responding time and my general thinking time has increased exponentially. Its a lot to fit into a life that includes working full time at my cube job; working full time at getting my business going which includes business seminars and business planning and contract development (and and and); my son’s soccer and basketball, homework and general hanging out family life; my husband’s rehearsals and gigs and coordinating it all with all our activities as well as a regular exercise routine, housework and gardening and um mundane things like cooking everyday and budget planning. whew. Just writing it out is daunting and that is before the creative passion stuff like my writing, my poetry, my art photography, my painting and collaging, my jewelry making and my little etsy store. Am I crazy? When do I sleep? These are questions that keep me up at night.
My life is demanding and on the one hand my blog is an outlet from all that busy but on the other hand could it be a procrastination, a way of hiding which is really funny since its public and all but I think we can hide in the public sphere as easily as we can in the dark of a room. I am not talking about quitting blogging here because after five years, clearly I am invested and clearly I love it *hello* I’m typing it out here afterall. I think I am talking about re-evaluating how I view it. I don’t know. Its all going to take more thought.
3. Death. April is a big death month for which is why the poetry is super helpful. I lost my sister in April and my two sons and so April tends to kick my ass a bit. While April is green flowered blossom beauty in most parts of the world, here it is all about the death. Oh sure, there are teeny buds beginning to show themselves on the trees and in amongst the straw, there are shades of green growth but the flowers and the blossoms and the leaves don’t really come out to play until May and June. Typically it is not frost free here until the May long weekend which is three weeks into May. So with the memories of death and the sight of it all around me waiting for clean up well lets just say its hard to maintain a vibrant happy attitude. I’m trying. Death is awkward and final and I suppose May reminds me that it is also cyclic and I have that to look forward to which is good. Meanwhile the river ice is gone and the water flows and I feel some hope watching it drift by.
I have more but writing this all down has left me weary and somewhat refreshed. I am surprised by the refreshed part. Somewhat. I suppose this is the goodness of blogging and partly why I continue to do it.
she closed her eyes
dreaming of the juice
of berries
dripping down her chin
as she sat in a field of softness
sunshine melting her face
red juice stained her
ripped apart with fingers
gravel digging sharply
the darkness freezing her heart
pelting water rained down
washing the garden
green shoots shining
brightly
life
pelting water rained down
raw vegetables
scrubbed clean
crying
sky
on warm summer days
beneath the light skied moon
she takes a moment
to remember. to cry at her memories before
reaching out to her garden. smiling at her life.
smeared light
windows to my soul
lost behind your lens
searching for truth
memories of the future
lies stolen
small moments
of truth
smeared concrete
cracked
bleeding ants
in the shadowed light
of a warm spring day.
and because i can’t resist smearing a little light on my walls and i see the flickr video as an opportunity to extend the photograph a bit, i may play with video more, it is an old love which i like to indulge on occasion, i may even have to do a video poetry reading given it is poetry month …
she spilled her light across a page
and drank from herself
her words strewn about
a messy room
unabashed and unashamed
and i watched perched high
in my freshly polished treehouse
as her chipped toenails
danced across a scratched floor
and i saw myself.
I am loving sinking myself deep into poetry everyday. It is interesting because I am starting to see poetry everywhere, images float through my head in words singing softly through my breathe. It is in this headspace that I happily bring another blogger showcase to this space of mine.
I met a beautiful pixie on June 26, 2008 which is coincidentally the day of my husband’s birthday so what a special day to meet a special blogger friend. She had commented on my blog and imagine my delight to realize that she was a brand new blogger with words that soared straight into my heart. Smitten with her talent and as I got to know her, I became smitten with her beauty.
I have been extremely blessed to become friends with this beautiful talent and have enjoyed long wonderful conversations on the phone. Though we have yet to meet in person, my house is scattered with her lovely presence:
inside my favourite cup is yummy frothy mexican hot chocolate. she sent us some yummy pucks and then because my husband loves it so much and she loved the music from the almost leather band, a cd i sent her which he is the drummer for, she sent two yummy packages for him and lucky for me he sometimes shares with me.
and look at the cute pink earrings she made for me : )
she indulged my love of all things orange in this lovely artistic card,
and gave me a reminder of my first garden and all the yummy tomatoes i grew with this talented watercolour which lives in my kitchen and tee hee … she made me so cute,
a gift which hangs in my meditation area and reminds me to breathe deeply,
so when she recently opened her etsy store, I was so excited to add another beautiful piece of art to my little house. And this beautiful piece spoke to my heart, how could it not with its little daisy and its beautiful heart of a home. sigh.
Yesterday, I received my package in the mail,
excitement followed quickly by incredible beauty and a lovely watercolour gift which will be framed over the weekend and hung lovingly. the retablo is already hung lovingly on one of my wooden doors in my living room to remind me that my home is in my heart and that makes me a lucky girl.
Do visit the always inspring, sometimes tear worthy and sometimes giggle worthy (because the pixie, she is loving with a fantastic sense of humour) blog stories i can tell and then visit her retablos etsy and see if there is anything that sings to your heart. She is poetry.
“You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.” (henry david thoreau)
tiny shoots of green
slivers of your renewal
poke heads up through the
frozen smile of yesterday’s
sleep
today i saw you smile
i got down
close
smelled life between
the pungent smell of yesterday’s
decay
i heard you sing
across the trees
chirping dance
and flight of wing’s
flapped against yesterday’s
long flight
waking up
wiping the sleep
from eye’s bright
nightmare
letting go of yesterday’s
swaddled pain
“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.” (judy garland)
i look into your eyes
and i see me
a future dreamed. before i could dream
of you.
you wrapped your arms around
a heart filled with tears
melted stones sparkle
in eyes of love.
i dipped my thoughts
into the softness of your heart
and poetry
black and strung out
in dark days filled with sunshine
melted stones sparkle
in eyes of love.
i lay my heart
across your strong arms
weeping thoughts
sang songs of hope
and i danced in your eyes
of love.
“Almost all words do have color and nothing is more pleasant than to utter a pink word and see someone’s eyes light up and know it is a pink word for him or her too” (gladys taber)
my grandmother used to buy me pretty pink dresses
dresses with pleated skirts
dresses for twirling and twirling and twirling
they told me i never looked good in pink
pastels were not for me
green hues of brown
heathered in dirt
blue jeans and braids
but i dreamed of those dresses
pink ruffled
barbie dolls
fashioned from soft petals pressed quietly between pages of love
i stomped around in black boots
torn tees and faded jeans
worms and caterpillers on bark
and puppy dog licks
a dirt smudged face
longing for mascara and pink ribbons
i will have long white hair
pink smiles to match the petals
in my girl dreams
i will lay in lavender fields
and watch the sun reveal the pink in the sky
i will tie a pink flowered apron
over my faded jeans
and hide my pink painted toes
beneath my black shoes
and i will swirl under that sky
remembering her smiles
and i will know
that pink
looks good on everyone
there is a vibrant shade
handpicked just for my pink tinged cheeks.
i had planned
to spend the day
walking in sunshine
looking for shadows
i had planned
to spend the day
looking for beauty
around decayed corners
i had planned
to spend the day
out with friends
laughter’s bright sword
flashing glints
in alley’s doorway
but your wisdom
had other ideas
you said
‘its our birthday’
and we want white
icing cake’
to cloak you
to warm you in coolness
to force you to quiet
introspective comfort
you said
‘its our birhday’
and we want bright
candles flame’
to remind you
of the warmth
that lives in death
and that beauty is here
in the quiet of muffled thought
breathing in the warmth
of our arms.
“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” (rabindranath tagore)
i was talking yesterday
laughter spilling from red hued lips
and i remembered you
faded in the shadows
of a fluorescent hue
green gowned witches
wandering paths of intervention
i was talking about her
twisted limbs
her roots wound tightly
across a forced smile
broken and battered
waiting to be released
and i remembered you
new like a tiny wet kitten
lost in the litter
gasping for air
pink tongue lapping the light
as they covered you in darkness
and i wondered if you were all together
standing tall and brave
smiling at me
as i lingered in the shadows
waiting for my turn
to dance in the light.
“This is not a letter but my arms around you for a brief moment” (katherine mansfield)
she dipped her pen in ink
sunshine flowing down her cheeks
fluffy clouds softly saying good-bye
i love you
i miss you
forever tomorrow
dance with me on marble floors
curled in a petal of unfurled silk
waiting in anticipation
she dipped her pen in ink
forbidden love’s laughter
washing water across a white washed porch
kittens curled under the sun warped glass
waiting for words to whisper
softly in her ear
scratched over white paper
freshly dried linen
blue ink blotted with tears
opened in a forest of high trees
pine needles stuck to her skirt
as she opened her heart
laid it out in the moss and allowed
her cries to dance with the sparrows
i love you
i miss you
forever tomorrow
dance with me on marble floors
curled in a petal of unfurled silk
lost in reality
she folded it neatly and added it to the others
tied neatly in a pink polka dot bow
back inside the box of darkness
buried deep in the earth
under the roots of life
brushed off her skirts
walked back to the green bright manicured lawn
shook out her laundry
called in her kids
and began dinner for her husband
eyes bright beneath the heat
of boiled steam
broccoli leaflets.
“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.” (elizabeth lawrence)
in the morning stillness
a breathe
breathes life
soft and gentle
a baby cries out
as he packs his lunch
in the early light
hammer at his belt
readying for the daylight
he pauses
breathes in the softness
pats his pocket
the faint scent of mint wafting in the air
and he remembers
clinging to warmth
the warmth of a morning
the stillness
of you.
a dog barks
at the chirping of a cacophany of birds
a symphony of quiet
morning’s awakening
dew caressing a blade
wiped clean
sawed through her thoughts
as light streamed in the soft scent of lilacs
her grandmother’s soft cheek
remembered
the warmth of a morning
the stillness of you.
we are never alone
in the quiet of morning’s thought
and we are never more
alone
than in that moment
of the soft stillness of light
breathing down.
“Only those who attempt the absurd…will achieve the impossible. I think…I think it’s in my basement… Let me go upstairs and check.” (m.c. escher)
to know me is to know that while i can be quite serious and passionate, i am mostly silly and absurd and find it impossible to take myself too very seriously … anyone who spends any time with me soon gets used to my spastic elastic face making … self portrait challenge this month is absurd. i love it.
