The Eye of the Iridescent Fly

Lithograph on gampi, 8 x 6"


The words,
My words,
are only the symbols,
tiny reflections of you
in the eye of the
iridescent fly.

The symbols,
My symbols
are the tools of my trade
to speak with the voice
of the many-tongued hydra;

And when these symbols
come off my eyes and
tongues,

Smile. It is not you
that you are seeing.

You, who have come
across the dust

with me--

A universe of beauty.

Smile.


Poem and lithograph from POPPYROSE.

Poppyrose (the frontispiece)

Lithograph on gampi, 8 x 6"



My recollection is that these were plants I brought to Reston when we moved here from California. The prints for POPPYROSE were printed on my handmade sheets of gampi. I learned Japanese papermaking from Sukey Hughes at an extension course through UCSB. The gampi fibers were soaked, cooked, cleaned, and beaten with a wooden mallet. When I teach kids to make Japanese papers, I always tell them the most important thing is to listen. Do they listen? The one moment of listening is usually followed by many giggles.

Soft Vine Charcoal (for Gary Brown)

Two ways to see
seems to me.
Take the mind eye and
knowingly caress
leaf angles and surfaces.
Move along the river of color.
Mind eye seeking texture,
strength, mass.

Once in a while,
all in a flash,
the heart eye moves out
in cosmic synapse,
and in this electron haze
knower and known are encompassed
in the fairy arms of being.

And it is being that is known.

Easy to draw
loved angles,
loved shapes.

Hard to draw
the glint in your own eye
when the mirror is your self.



This is another poem I wrote the first week of art school. This one was for Gary Brown, our legendary art professor who opened up all the windows, all the doors. In his drawing class we did etchings and learned about papermaking and we kept journals. I included this poem in POPPYROSE with a litho I don't like nearly as much as the charcoal drawing of my apple tree in Camarillo.

Poppyrose

Lithograph on gampi, 8 x 6"

I used this image for the cover of POPPYROSE and for the poem "In the Afternoon" which is posted below this and was included in the book. Many of my early lithographs were printed on my handmade sheets of gampi.

In the Afternoon (for Dee Dee)

When I was a little girl I knew my father
came across the country from Iowa
when he was a boy.

In my mind it was very long ago, a history.
In my father’s mind it was long ago, but something recalled.
In my grandmother’s mind the trip from Iowa with her new young
husband in the Model T her father gave her for her
high school graduation was only yesterday and she
remembers today how the prairie smelled
as she washes the dishes this afternoon.

We can drink our coffee, the light coming in the window,
the window my grandfather built fifty-five years ago
and it’s all different.

Time doesn’t run smoothly, it wraps itself around
and gets thick in our childhoods
and evens out when we’re grown.
Then when we’re old it thins out,
except when we remember—
when an old woman remembers
the way the prairie smelled.

And then time gets thick again and wraps itself around
a grandmother’s cup of coffee
in an afternoon in January
when the sun comes in sideways.


I was very homesick after I moved to Virginia. I wrote this poem one afternoon when I was wishing I could be back in North Hollywood in the kitchen with my grandmother. It was included in a handmade book I made called POPPYROSE.