Linzy Lyne

Songs in Search of a Tune – Cold November

Linzy Lyne

Songs in Search of a Tune – Goodbye

Susan Bull Riley

A story about a bird lost to extinction... or not? 

Susan Bull Riley

Using Gold Leaf in Bird Paintings

Susan Bull Riley

Jack-in-the-Pulpit watercolors

Welcome to March 5! 

This post will verge on comical. 

Some of my subjects make me so happy to study that I want to paint them over and over. And OVER.

Such is the case with Jack-in-the-Pulpits.

This is the current one-- unfinished. Started maybe in 2021, picked up again last year, and still very current:



Continuing with the theme of yesterday's post concerning how long a painting takes to make: my Jack-in-the-Pulpit watercolors started with a plein air sketch done a couple years ago, in a wet area near a brook. The experience left me with a sore back, stiff neck, soggy pants, but plenty of resolve to try to make a portrait of these beautiful wildflowers:



 I carefully dug out the next subjects so I could paint them in comfort, then transplant them on our property after they served as models (happy to report that they have thrived):



... a friend of mine said a Jack-in-the-Pulpit specimen this magnificent would be better named a "Bishop-in-the-Pulpit": 



Leaves starting to wilt -- painting as fast as I can before transplanting: 



..adding, adding:



This is what I mean by comical: can't quite stop: 



... so you can understand why I try simplification: 



....but that doesn't last long: 



..too much fun: 



...and since it's watercolor, I can't change what is done, so I started over again, and that was the first photo I posted. Maybe THIS time it'll ring all the bells I want to ring, and possibly I'll even know when to stop!

All the best to you all
Susan

Nicola Morris

Dragons

The sea can freeze into sludge, God’s slurry. And this has always happened so we find ancient rose petals at the bottom of sea canyons, where dragons linger with sharks. Their frosty attitudes sparkle in thin streams of sunlight. They’re ready to catch us and keep us and eat us, sprinkling us first with powdered ginger or, following a Chinese recipe, flavoring us with ginger root. The dragons, especially, favor Chinese food because, the dragons say, the Chinese appreciate them and are never foolish enough to deny the dragons’ existence. But even the Chinese, the dragons say, don’t realize that dragons have gills and can live in marine depths as well as dream depths. These are antique matters, things to be pondered over generations while we worry about a paucity of snow or too much rain or heat, the earth’s upheavals. God leaves the possibility of survival to us, as God always has. It’s one thing to create, another to ensure survival.

R.D. Eno

THE BRIDGE

You build the bridge even as you cross it   hammering
the next plank on your hands and knees   crawling
over open air   the murderous torrent thundering
in the abyss   the impossibility of what you’re doing
but your situation leaves no choice   It’s dare
or drop   And so you hammer on   attention
fixed on the plank before you   Nearly there
you stammer   knees raw   hands losing sensation
And where is there?   To ask this begs the question
Once there was a place   named you   now only air
and the abyss remain   an impossible situation
nameless and suspended   and yet you’re here
bridging your way to nowhere   where you’ll find
nothing but no next plank   no planks behind

R.D. Eno

FIFTH AVENUE, 1949
for my mother

The toddler hanging from your capeskin glove
squinted into the January afternoon beaming
splendidly up Fifth Avenue as if the sun
were coming in for a landing in front of Scribner’s.

Black silk shadows did their swaying cartoon hula
along the sidewalk, dangling from the feet of grown-ups
bulked in important overcoats, furs, fedoras and veiled hats
strutting about their important grown-up business, 

while double-deckers lumbered past Steuben’s, lowing
in gravelly contrabasso: I’m basking here! I’m basking here!
majestic in their languor amid the jam of impatient taxis
and gazing over the traffic all the way to Lord & Taylor

and the windows of Bonwit Teller radiated opulence
into the grim, unsquinting face of Atlas, sentenced
in heroic bronze to keep heaven aloft forever
so the world might be born, new and golden, each day.

So much gone, such opulent winter afternoons,
so much heroic splendor, those double-deckers
manly fedoras, veiled women in furs and capeskin gloves,
you, Mother, the toddler (me), and Scribner’s, gone.

R.D. Eno

NECESSARY MEASURES

They found a hole in time and scrambled through
refugees from the future   It’s over up ahead
they told us as they streamed along the road
dejected and bedraggled. We couldn’t send
them back   we didn’t know how   and they wouldn’t go
along with us   needless to say   So what was left?
We might have interrogated them   But who
needs to be told there’s a cliff when you’ve just stepped
off it?   Leave them   some said   They’re deserters   just rabble
They’ll turn into harmless soothsayers   wandering   adrift
criss-crossing the highways   begging and babbling
to no one who’ll listen   till they drop dead in a ditch
But on the off-chance these malingerers might stall
the progress of the whole campaign   we shot them all.

Terry Cleveland

Alexandra Noyes

Margaret Blanchard

Nora’s Ark

Grandmother Tree
by Ann Blanchard




I am a tree.
 They call me the great grandmother tree.
I’ve lived in this one spot for over 200 years.
I’ve spanned generations.  
I’ve seen many changes.
First, i was surrounded by a vast woodland wilderness.
Native Americans would wander through the woods silently.
Deer, porcupine, bear, lynx, bobcat, coyote would visit,
beavers would swim in the nearby pond, fish were in the stream, herons would fly overhead.  
Then other humans came, hunting, fishing, settling
small farms were cultivated.
trees were cut, stone walls built,
a meandering path, a dirt road,
a small house built nearby with a root cellar
I was there, witnessing.  Time passed.  
Eventually farms faded and trees grew back.  I had young arbor friends again.
And many years later a group of eight adventurous women came to the land I lived on.
They settled into the old fallen down shack
,and built wigwams and unique shelters in the nearby woods.  
They were astonished at my presence, my growth, beauty,
They hung decorations on my limbs and meditated on the forest floor around me,
They chanted, sang, and did rituals under my boughs.
We celebrated life together.
I felt content, a quiet and deep joy.
And i still do,
still standing,
still growing.

Margaret Blanchard

Margaret Blanchard

Nora's Ark

By Inez Martinez

Angela Grace

March 1st

Welcome Family and Friends,
My signature tree: I stopped my car suddenly as I turned my head to see this spreading, seemingly lifeless tree. As I creeped onto the meadow, more like trespassing, I was taking photos, not realizing I was being observed. As I turned to go, an older gentleman was standing behind me and said, "Delightful, isn't it?" he remarked. Immediately feeling connected to this gentle man as I did to the tree, I said nothing. He related how many years ago there had been many, many apple trees in this meadow and now this is the only this one standing. He and his siblings had helped cultivate them over the years, played in and around them and enjoyed their sweet fruit. The man had come out of an old, classic white farmhouse nearby where he said he had lived his whole life with his family. He is now alone, but still productive, working with wood and caring for his home and land. We talked of life and losses like old friends. The tree is a gentle reminder for him of life's past and even though both stand alone now, they support each other in strength and beauty.




Love, Angie

Angela Grace

March 4th'

Welcome Family and Friends,


OK, I'm busted! These trees are not dead. But they look dead. I couldn't resist their uniformity, formation and bravery. The black and white in a color world defies nature. For the same reasons, my mind went to the sculpture in Washington, DC of the soldiers of the Korean War.


These 7' sculptures of the Korean War from 1950-53 were sculptured by Frank Gaylord of Barre, VT and cast in stainless steel by Tallix Foundries in New York. It was dedicated in 1995. The sculptures include an ethnic cross section of 14 soldiers, 3 Marines, 1 Sailor and 1 Airman. 54,246 died, 103,284 were wounded, 7,140 were captured and 8,177 were missing.
Thank you the American Battle Monument Commission and Wikipedia. (not my photo.)

Somehow, the connection between the two visuals brings out feelings for me of the ability to survive the elements together, standing tall in difficult situations and still have the ability to be beautiful.
Love, Angie

Angela Grace

March 8th

Welcome Family and Friends,

"The Hitchhikers"
(Supporting us with imagination and fun)
'

"I told you hitchhiking was not a good idea and no one's even stopping probably because you look like the great unwashed not to mention your hippy clothes which you probably haven't changed since you wrestled our pig to the ground before she could go AWOL because you were forcing her to mate with Porky even though pigs seem to be the only animals that truly like sex, speaking of how do you expect a woman to snuggle up to you when you haven't danced on the head of a pin to attract her while she's busy scraping the peanut butter off the toaster as anyone knows you spread AFTER you toast it which reminds me that last week when you fell off the ladder you put up to get the opossum and her 7 babies out of the drain pipe and God knows how they got there breaking your shin bone and forgetting to put the ladder away which was unfortunate because it fell over onto the neighbors llama and injured its mouth so it couldn't spit anymore, not a bad thing thank you, and I don't know why I love you as I could have married that Moses "Shorty" McRandy who now owns the "Take Her Home, Please Bar and Knitting Supplies and wait...someone's stopping and I bet that car was made in 1942 but bloggers can't be choosy so stand up straight!!!"

"Yes, dear."

Love, Angie

Patty Joslyn

Patty Joslyn

Patty Joslyn

Sarah E. Franklin

7.  Diagnosis

We could say ‘Smitten with Style’
and turn away with a smile,
but I think it was more than that.
There wasn’t a scarf nor a hat
she could pass without a look, 
a quick touch.  At times it took 
some clever distraction
to conquer her attraction
to incoming catalogs—
thank goodness that our dogs
needed walking.  

We are talking 
about a visual affliction,
a craving beyond contradiction,                     
her closet so stuffed with clothes, 
it was impossible to close,
and her dressers overflowed.

Her consultations each day 
with her mirror were her way
of armoring against a world
gone mad.  With what she had,
she fashioned and refashioned 
her Self until what she saw 
was what she knew to be True—
and that’s not easy to do.

Or perhaps striving for style
was merely her way to while
away hours of separation
from her final destination
where at last we all shall rest 
in well-cut robes, richly blessed.
Style, Truth, Beauty. End of Quest.			—Sef, 6/8/2022

Sarah E. Franklin

Moving

I bought a cottage I wanted,
built in the year I was born.

Sun in the kitchen each morning,
a walk to the beach nought to scorn.
 
Comfy, familiar, safe and warm, 
all was well, but still I was torn.

Life in my city felt varied,
museums and concerts the norm,

people, horizons, ideas—
these all felt truer to form.

Then, two states away, the grandchild 
was born. Once more to move felt

far less forlorn.

			Sef, 3/13/2023

Darwin Melchiorre 

Tunnel Vision (Working Title)




If you want to see the full project it will be on my YouTube at some point in the next few months.

https://www.youtube.com/@darwinmelchiorre9302

Alexandra Noyes

"Little Wheels" written by Buffy Sainte-Marie, my voice and dulcimer. recorded with Voice Memos

Peter Bingham

Whales Are People Too

Peter Bingham

Voch Me Dzaleeg (after George Mgrdichian)

Peter Bingham

Estudio-Fernando Sor

Sarah E. Franklin

Embrace Sense

A reading. The poem's text can be found below this video.



Embrace Sense

Let the guest list be 
guided by gustatory gifts. 
Inclusion must depend 
upon active appetite.
 
Let there be lovely listening. 
Plan for a winsome woodwind trio 
in the opulent entryway 
to greet early arrivals.

Accompany the appetizers  
with an ear-filling andante,
then adorn the unfolding 
of every course with apt
orchestral offerings 
as evening glimmers 
into a gradual glissando 
of needful dark.  

Deep night feels necessary
for discreet digestion
of the glistening delicacies 
which have tempted such
sophisticated palettes
to partake so excessively.

Dawning light shall show 
mellowing of all appetite,
as birdsong swells 
to its full morning 
chorus. Bless us all
in our partaking
and our inevitable
leave taking. Amen.

				—Sef, ? ?/2022 & 11/8/2022

Sarah E. Franklin

7.  Diagnosis

A reading. The poem's text can be found below this video.



7.  Diagnosis

We could say ‘Smitten with Style’
and turn away with a smile,
but I think it was more than that.
There wasn’t a scarf nor a hat
she could pass without a look, 
a quick touch.  At times it took 
some clever distraction
to conquer her attraction
to incoming catalogs—
thank goodness that our dogs
needed walking.  

We are talking 
about a visual affliction,
a craving beyond contradiction,                     
her closet so stuffed with clothes, 
it was impossible to close,
and her dressers overflowed.

Her consultations each day 
with her mirror were her way
of armoring against a world
gone mad.  With what she had,
she fashioned and refashioned 
her Self until what she saw 
was what she knew to be True—
and that’s not easy to do.

Or perhaps striving for style
was merely her way to while
away hours of separation
from her final destination
where at last we all shall rest 
in well-cut robes, richly blessed.
Style, Truth, Beauty. End of Quest.			—Sef, 6/8/2022

Ben Witte

Eleanor Eowyn Witte: 1 Year Later, Minus 2 Days

First March of the Ent