mark twain

Stella

2015 

10" x 12"

Graphite on paper

Notes on cancer survivor awareness:

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the dog."

mark twain

HANDMADE

There was something old as time that called me to the thread,

spinning memories with each pass across colors both alive and dead.

Things long forgotten rose up and sat lightly on my mind,

while friends and foes danced at my side.

I was connected, as if someone was thinking of me.

talking to no one, invisible air waves, devoid of time I passed messages.

were there older lives that I had lived but could not recall?

rich in thoughts, a peacefulness slowly set in beside me,

just as the sun shed it's crimson violet light behind me.

What great adventures I must have traveled in those times,

famous places, great spaces unique to mankind.

remnants of them sometimes drifted through my mind.

now I know I have lived at least nine lives.

who would you be if you could live again?

Picasso, Cleopatra, or Valentino, a romantic hero

I think I will choose something completely new,

maybe Vivaldi so I could live musically,

boldly painting the beauty of the world with sound.

In this way my life is handmade,

each day I start, gathering all of my old lives, 

again and again reconfiguring

into something new. 

 

Good to be Alive

It is good to be alive

Sometimes I can feel the trees grow,

Have you felt it?

I can feel the moon glow in shades of iridescence,

My puppies impatience as she banters with me,

A friend’s pain one thousand miles away…

Some days feel like years in one.

This is how one can be sad, happy, contemplative, content and mad,

Within twenty four hours. 

Ah! so this is how we stretch our lives,

by stretching ourselves, 

wrapping our minds around others and the world.

Early early in the morning before the city is awake,

as I am outside with the dogs,

The air is cool,

As the sun is rising, I sense a million colors shifting through the air,

As the golden light slowly filters in.

It is spectacular. Yet,

There is an uncommon silence while all are sleeping.

I smell the dew and woodiness of the moist air amongst the huge old oak trees,

It seems that I woke the frogs in the distance near the stream. 

I feel the world arise anew.

A gentle light spreads across the drive,

and I feel, it is good to be alive.

by Leslie Rosenberg

Dazzled 10 thousand times a day

oh to be ....Dazzled 10 thousand times a day

Corona at 13 months

corona 1 |kəˈrōnə|noun (pl. coronae |-nē, -nī| )1 Astronomy the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars. The sun's corona is normally visible only during a total solar eclipse when it is seen as an irregularly shaped pearly glow surrounding the darkened disk of the moon.• (also corona discharge)Physics the glow around a conductor at high potential.• a small circle of light seen around the sun or moon, due to diffraction by water droplets.ORIGIN mid 16th cent. ( sense 4): from Latin,‘wreath, crown.’.....late 19th cent.: from Spanish La Corona, literally ‘the crown,’originally a proprietary name.

It has been more than a year since I last posted. I have been busy recovering from chemo and living life. I feel 100% now and am still so grateful every day for my health, family, and friends. Recently, I have returned to motherhood with the addition of a new puppy, Corona, and have realized how nourishing it is to my soul to increase my circle of love and renew life. I have also recently had a close friend in a terrible almost fatal ski accident who is now struggling to regain control over her body and mind. This reminds me again that each day is a gift we are given and each day should be spent with this in mind.  A very talented poet, Mary Oliver, captures it in this poem:

“Hello wren,” is the first thing I say.

“Where did you come from appearing so 

sudden and cheerful in the privet? Which,

by the way, has decided to decorate itself

in so many white blossoms.”

Paulus is coming to visit! Paulus the dancer, the potter. who is just beginning

his eightieth decade, who walks without shoes in the woods because his feet, 

he says, 'ask to be in touch with the earth'.

Paulus who when he says my poems sometimes

changes them a little, according to the occasion or his own feelings. 

okay, I say.

Stay young, always, in the theater of your mind.

bless the notebook that I always carry in my pocket.

and the pen.

bless the words with which I try to say 

what i see, think, or feel

with gratitude for the grace of the earth.

the expected and the exception, both.

for all the hours I have been given to be in this world

the multiplicity of forms! the hummingbird,

the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the otter, the dragonfly, the water lily!

and on and on.

it must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least 

ten times a day.

slowly the morning climbs toward the day.

as for the poem, not this poem but nay 

poem, do you feel its sting? do you feel

its hope, its entrance to a community? do you 

feel its hand in your hand?

but perhaps you’re still sleeping. i

could wake you with a touch or a kiss.

but so could i shake the petals from the wild rose

which blossoms so silently

and perfectly,

and I do not.   Good Morning by Mary Oliver