The sunlight that pours in, falling over the sash like crisp, clear water, washing the walls, spilling over the coverlet and floor, refreshes like no rain has in years. I acknowledge the need for, even the longing, sometimes, for rain, but nothing comes close in rain, at certain other times, to giving me the reviving strength I find in showers of sunlight.
—or recompense, at least!
Silliness is never an entirely baaaaad thing. I can always find more room for it in my life; it doesn’t get my goat, and I am neither sheepish in the face of it nor cowed by such things. So mooooove on over here and join me in the laughs.
Speaking as a person whose sense of direction can barely get me from my own front door to the kitchen and back without assistance, I have a certain empathy for even the fictional characters who lose their ways in the world. Not so much so that I don’t laugh up my sleeves just a little at their plight all the same, since they are, after all, make-believe…
My sister’s cat Mercer has been sick and suffering for a while lately with some mystery malady, and his symptoms have thus far refused to explain themselves to his faithful veterinarian, so we’re in a watching, waiting and hoping phase. It’s sad and frustrating, and poor Mercer needs some serious respite from his ailments. I’m afraid I haven’t the skill to give him anything more palliative than the occasional pettings he allowed me to give him while we shared living quarters this summer. So I send out this little ditty to bring him good vibes of well-wishing long distance, as it stars the two most faithful fellow fur-babies who live or visit in his home, Ruffian the cat and Basil bunny.
When my family and friends were conscripted to help install the artwork for my master’s thesis exhibition, they could not help but note that it would have been a kindness on my part to specialize in something a little more manageable, say, postage stamp illustration. Hanging murals of up to nine by thirty feet in dimensions is admittedly more unwieldy than mounting a bunch of tidy little framed life-sized insect portraits or installing a series of elfin sculptures made from shirt buttons and walnut shells. Alas, though I did segue into much more portable forms in later years, it was not soon enough for my loved ones’ sakes.
My verbosity is a similar burden on my circle of acquaintance, as I am not famous for knowing when to shut up any more than I am known for limiting my opinion to those who have actually asked for it. But just as I have learned to appreciate and work at smaller and less physically demanding visual media along with my enjoyment of massive and messy kinds of art, I have a fondness for smaller and less epic essays and poems, too, and have been known to craft these with similar avidity. While scale in no way guarantees quality or lack thereof in any medium I know, it is sometimes a relief to me as much as to my friendly audiences when I get my kicks by producing petite expressions of my inventive urges.
Mycological Mysteries & Mishaps
A mushroom-hunter in the woods
has grasped the essence of the goods:
Ingesting whilst she picks and roams,
she damages her chromosomes;
Yet, happy, hopping, fails to know
she killed those brain cells long ago,
And thus can skip through vale and copse
quite blithely, nibbling mushroom-tops—
For nothing is so esoteric
as munching on a Fly Agaric,
But she knows not she shouldn’t eat a
bit of tasty Amanita—
Thus goes the world, and with it, sense,
when fungus fans face recompense.
Art-Colored Glasses 