December 2020

all shadow,
this season—sky-rilled,
edged in ice–
overflown
with feathers of darkening–
hovering between

Diane di Prima (1934-2020)

          …we do it for
the stars over the Bronx
that they may look on earth
and not be ashamed.
–Diane Di Prima
from “April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa”

I wanted to note the death of Diane Di Prima, a poet, social activist, Buddhist, and teacher.  A native New Yorker, she was a member of the Beat Poets, and moved to California in the 1960’s. I made this grid of the Bronx in April 2015, inspired by her poem, “April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa”.

Read an obituary with some wonderful videos of her reading here.

And here is a reading of the entire poem that inspired my grid.

October 2020 (Harvest Moon)

autumn dance
condensed into light–
I become
gold tinged with tides,
rising and falling

I did a similar grid with circles a few years ago, but I’ve always wanted to give it another try.  As with the last one, I first painted a landscape (wishing I had my gouache, but done with watercolor), then cut it up, rearranged it, and added collage dots from my collage box.  Here’s the original landscape:

David Hockney-ish I think.  Not my usual style, and perhaps a bit brighter than I intended.  But I like the colors.

I’ve done a tanka for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday form challenge, which also works for Frank Tassone’s challenge of harvest moon. The paint oracle is totally responsible for turning my moon painting into a tree.

My new view of the full moon.  I have to catch it when it passes between the buildings.

Happy October!

nineteen years (September 2020)

crisp clear sky–
leaves echo the wind
as time stops–

listen–ghostlight calls,
condensed into stars

blue light from the depths–
darkness emptying itself
into clarity

time stops once again–
leaves echo songs of the wind

 

My older daughter and I met at the farmer’s market last weekend, and sat on the Columbia campus afterwards drinking coffee and tea.  As we watched a monarch butterfly wandering above our heads, we remarked at the deep clear blueness of the sky.  It reminded us both of a September morning nineteen years ago.

June 2019

summer sky sings
away shadow music
into gardens of sealight–
daydreams shining beneath
an enormous jeweled sun

The Oracle gave me a sunny day.  I needed it.

 

May 2019

Maia, Good Goddess:
garland the earth with bouquets–
unfold us shining

A circle grid for the new month.  The flowers have arrived!

Also linking to dVerse Open Link Night.

 

April 2019

morning wakes
me at first light as
my mother
used to do,
but not with words—birdchoir sings
through me:  “rise and shine!”

My mother did not believe in sleeping in…when she decided it was time to get up, even on non-school days, she would waltz in, open the blinds, and announce, “Rise and Shine!”  One of the delights of spring for me is that my alarm is the light and the birds (I never close my blinds)–but I always hear my mother’s voice joining the chorus.

I worked on my monthly grid all week, waiting for the NaPoWriMo prompt to do the accompanying poem.  This is not really a recipe, but I think it’s close enough.  The grid was inspired by numerous photos of tulip festivals from all over the world…rows and rows of beautiful color.  April!

March 2019 spring?

 

There’s 4 inches of snow here with more to come tomorrow, but the Oracle was insistant on the arrival of spring…it’s certainly a nice thought.

Spring comes wandering
covers my sleep with flowers
blankets of birdsong

 

October 2018 Currents

 

circle stops, becomes
a point that reappears, falls
evasive, rilling

dancing with currents, a leaf–
pausing on the patterned wind

It took me quite awhile to do my monthly grid.  I wanted to do very tiny squares, but I kind of lost control of the amount.  I intended a small piece of work, but my intentions and results often have different ideas.  Also, I never realized how much uninterrupted time it takes just to go through my bins of cut up paper and decide what to use.  At any rate, it was conveniently finished in time to do a tanka for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, poet’s word choice.  I will pick rilling for one, and then currents.  That’s October 2018.

I could have spent a lot more time messing around with these images in Photoshop, but unfortunately, or luckily, I didn’t have it.  So: two versions of October’s circular grid.  The first is done from a scanned image, the second from a photo (the entire collage wouldn’t fit in the scanner).  The color and texture are totally different. Light has many ways of changing what we see.

Linked to Open Link Night at dVerse

 

September 2018/Leaf Koan

almost dusk—color
deepens and rustles insect song–
thick light frosts the wind.

For Colleen’s 100th Tanka Tuesday celebration, she asked us to choose our own words for our poems.  I consulted the magnetic Oracle in two ways for my September leaf grid–the online one, and my refrigerator one, which is currently filled with Zen words.  Two very different views of the season.

between finding out
and insight lives the whispered
silence of why not