Weightless on a Thought (from the journal)

No leaves yet.  

Lots of room for you, 

black-capped chickadee 

in the honeysuckle.  4-1-13

 

Closed this morning,

all of bloodroot’s little faces

point to where they last saw

yesterday’s sun.  4-3-13

One wood poppy is joined

by another,

both hug the cold ground. 4-3-13

Sailing,

vulture in the air,

me in the car.

We go, weightless

on a thought.  4-3-13

The dark blue evening light

weighs across us

rich with warmth,

April’s color.  4-9-13

The air.

It moves.

It’s warm.

It carries chickadee’s voice.  4-9-13

Tomorrow

today’s dark clustered silhouettes

will be pink, crab apple’s own

spring sneeze.  4-10-13

One rock cress mustard,

two columbine seedlings grace

the decaying pot.  4-10-13

So close is mourning dove,

I sit inside the periphery

of his hollow voice.  4-11-13

They don’t want to let it go,

the beautiful day, the birds.

Evening song.  4-15-13

Red maple flowers,

white pear flowers

float on the turning rust.

Spring colors.  4-15-13

Crab apple

wholly pink

admired by bees

and me.  4-17-13

Side by side

wood poppy’s yellow faces

radiate with perfect pitch.  4-20-13

Left over from winter,

inkberry’s crystal light rises

unsheltered under opening

maple umbrellas.  4-24-13

Elaeagnus angustifolia

The morning wind blew the words

right out of my mind.

Empty flower bells quiver.  4-25-13

Mugu Rock

Mugu Rock, lithograph, 16 x 20"

From California:  Thoughtprints and Footprints

The Pebbled Path to Rocky Nook

 

The Pebbled Path to Rocky Nook, lithograph 16 x 12"


We used to live above the Mission in Santa Barbara in the original stream bed of Mission Creek.  The stream had been diverted by the Spanish monks to irrigate their olive orchards.  This old sandstone boulder sat right outside my studio window with sycamore trees growing around it.  It had come to rest there in a prehistoric flood.  This litho was one of a suite of fourteen prints I did after I moved to Virginia, "California:  Thoughtprints and Footprints."   The new stream bed ran along the southern border of Rocky Nook Park and we used to take the cats for walks there.  They loved to wade in the fast moving water. 

Mourning Dove Comments on the Changing Light (from the journal)

Blue is what the

brown winter

dreams of.  3-2-13

Vibrating left and right,

the cold winter light.  3-4-13

Daffodil’s yellow winter dreams

are climbing up the cold winter air

one green leaf at a time.  3-4-13

Pressing up the earthen umbrella,

green fingers its way through.  3-6-13

Tree-hugging snow rounds

the tall woods one trunk

at a time.  3-6-13

Catching the wind,

catching the light,

this tiny shrub’s

new green buds

lean over thin snow.  3-7-13

One, just one,

one poem to go with March’s

soft breath, bright light, dancing wind.  3-9-13

The diagonal sweep of trees.

The sun drew it up one

cell at a time.  3-13-13

Light pours sideways over the paper,

skips over yesterday’s thoughts 
lightly embossed in gray.  3-14-13

Our golden sunrise

keeps rising,

color coming down.  3-14-13

Mourning dove

comments on the changing light,

the new colors.  3-16-13

Holding winter’s snow

all the little green

leaves.  3-18-13

The particulars of troubles

lay beneath it—

the white oneness of snow.  3-18-13

Everywhere the earth

is peopling out with swollen,

rounded buds.  3-20-13

So bright the winter sun—

maple trunk provides

a finger of shaded relief

stretching from the hill

to my face.  3-20-13

From both sides of the road

the flowered maples defy

the lingering winter.  3-23-13

In the sun—the beautiful city,

the many-colored city

rising like a crystal

over the blue harbor.  3-23-13

It’s a long wait for warmth.

Daffodils wait too,

their chins down.  3-23-13

The snow has stopped,

but it drops down now,

from the trees, down in fistfuls.  3-25-13

Breaking off from the weighted holly—

clumps of the unexpected snow.  3-25-13

The white roof

is sprinkled with squirrel’s footprints

turned to shiny ice in the slanting snow.  3-25-13

Green and rust

honeysuckle leaves ignore the cold,

unfold in their own time,

under the blue sky.  3-26-13

An earlier morning.

The trees move like yesterday

in the warming wind.  3-27-13

Waiting for warmth.

The small birds are not waiting.

They speak quietly as they hurry.  3-30-13

The Road Home

A long linear desert.

Here and there a flower of words,

floating up on the updraft.  3-30-13

Rising Light in Midwinter (from the journal)

Rising light

in midwinter.

Spring buds swell.  2-4-13

Nestled in the low winter wood,

the golden ball shares

liquid light.  2-5-13

Splatted like rain

in the moving wood--

a light burst.  2-6-13

Daffodils

Erupting from the frozen earth,

the blunt-nosed, jeweled crystals

push up, the yellow dreams

folded inside.  2-6-13

The first moment greeting 

the morning light.  It bathes the eyes,

this brand new light.  2-7-13

Fluffed, redbird

comforts himself

in juniper’s winter green.  2-9-13

The midnight wind

blew itself a brilliant day

with sparkles all around.  2-9-13

Holly holds her hands up,

meets the horizontal sun

with cupped vertical leaves.

A touching moment, at dawn.  2-10-13

It’s like a shower,

today’s light.

A milk shower.  2-16-13

There was a shuddering

out in the woods.

What passed through left

a wake.  2-12-13

Morning time in the light,

waiting for warmth and breath,

sweet breath, shared.  2-12-13

Soft like snow,

the light rests

on hollies.  2-13-13

Somewhere there is a verb

to describe dried pokeweeds

hanging dark and vertical over

the horizontal juniper splattered

with snow.  2-14-13

I recognize the shoveler in the leaves—robin.

And then—a friend.  2-15-13

Between one tree

and the next, squirrel counts

all his morning moments.

Just for fun.  2-16-13

Weighted with the world,

lady bluejay sits unmoving

in the bare crab apple.  2-18-13

The wild raspberry cane

has turned itself red.

Time to breathe the light again.  2-18-13

Falling from the cloudless sky—

snow petals.

Redbird stretches her wing.  2-19-13

Dancing in the winter sun,

hollies moved by a circling wind

celebrate.  2-20-13