In the stillness of being
feathers ruffle, answering the wind–
a place of becoming, of seeing.
Not sleeping, not dreaming–
on each moment twinned
in the stillness of being.
Intense silence teeming–
gathered complete within–
a place of becoming, of seeing.
While watching, a keying–
breath held as if pinned
in the stillness of being.
On edges a freeing–
unmoving around the rim–
a place of becoming, of seeing.
Wings sudden, untreeing–
a shift, an opening, begin
in the stillness of being–
a place of becoming, of seeing.
This hawk spent many hours on the tree outside my office window a few weeks ago. Then all of a sudden with an opening of wings he was gone. I first tried printing on a patchwork sky I had collaged (my photos of the hawk show a background of an almost unreal blue sky) but that didn’t work too well, so I ended up painting over it in acrylic. I like the way the paper buckled up to give a texture to the feathers.
I also did a watercolor on rice paper. The stillness a hawk can embody is a surprise and delight each time I encounter it. And with open wings…
The poem is a villanelle, a challenging form for me. I recently read an anthology of contemporary poetry and found its poetic insistence on formlessness and unrhyming to be wearying, even though I liked quite a number of the poems.
And Happy Draw a Bird Day! It’s always a good day to celebrate birds.
method two madness 
Recent Comments