Category Archives: Stories

Another Pastorale

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Yesterday after running errands, we were reluctant to head directly home and do serious Work on a sunny Saturday afternoon, so first we took a couple of brief driving detours into the surrounding ranch-lands and enjoyed a uniquely lush and verdant north Texas spring outing, luxuriating in the marvels of denser woodlands, fuller runoff creeks and richer grasslands than we’ve yet seen since moving down here. Needless to say, we are reveling in the wealth of meadow and pastureland in the surrounding counties, as are all of the horse and cattle herds that didn’t get sold off or butchered outright to evade starvation and thirst in last year’s drought. It’s a beautiful prospect, this well-watered magic we have right now, and inspires the poetic in one’s spirit no matter how it defies other work.mixed media + text

Spring Pastures

Far back among the rolling hills, Where prairie grasses sweep and bow

And the sweet wildflower spills Pour down the slope, the Angus cow

Set farthest back along the line Draws up her calf to join the herd,

Slow-swaying, toward a stand of pine; The rancher there, without a word,

Appears to bring an evening feed, And all the cattle on the clock

That balances content with need, Some time before, began this walk . . .

The faintest glint of sidelong rays Begins to tint the brush with gold

The way late Spring colors her days, As if instead of growing old

She’s only burnishing her tone The more to show her graciousness,

Inviting birds that fly alone To join a choir whose notes confess

A radiant love of living things, Of all that’s sweet and warm and new,

Of leggy calves, of seed that brings That grass now banking up the slough . . .

The cattle walk, now, in their line, Their black flanks shaded in the dusk

With blue-tinged shadows, as a fine Light scent arises like a musk

From all their footsteps tapped in clay, Veils of the thinnest dust laid low

Between the sorghum rows’ array And that tall hayfield yet to mow,

And not one calf among them all Drifts off the center of the trail,

Because they sense their supper-call As sure as seasons never fail . . .

O Death, Where is Thy Sting?

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As long as I can crack jokes about it, there can’t be anything gruesome or terrifying or unnerving at all about dying. I hope. (She said, winking and smiling slyly.)digital painting from a photograph

Pretty Little Graveyard

Pretty little graveyard,

How all your headstones gleam!

How delicate and marvelous

Your mausoleums seem!

It’s sweet and quaint and dainty,

The peaceful way you lie

Filled up with rotten corpses,

Under the sunny sky.digital collage

Funeral Arrangements

The way the flowers grew in shade,

I knew at once that one fine day

They’d make a funeral bouquet

All prearranged, as though pre-made

By funeral mutes in plumed top hats

And wearing bombazine black sashes,

Their pearly skin as pale as ashes,

Accompanied by coal-black cats

Between the funeral-wreathed front doors,

Their carriage drawn by sleek black steeds,

With passengers in widows’ weeds

As fitting as the hellebores’.

Curtseying & Polishing My Tiara Madly

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digitally-painted photo

Now, there's really no need for you to go putting up any monuments in my honor or installing any statues of me . . .

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. . . and while I love a good concert and the after-parties are outstanding, it's not necessary to write compositions in my honor and get the marching band ready for a parade . . .

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. . . and while I do love a good monetary recognition, it's hard to explain any sums sizable enough to be really impressive when our fine friends from the Internal Revenue Service start paying attention to the numbers . . .

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. . . so I think I'll just say that my heart is warmed immensely by the kind light you've shone on me, and that in return I hope that I can be a little brighter and a little more generous with my light to the rest of you, and that you will all pass it along as well . . .

Once again I have been receiving kind and generous notices of recognition over the last few weeks from my gracious blogging friends, and I’m overdue to say appropriate thanks in response. So here I am at last, with another lovely gift-basket filled with Genuine Blogger, Versatile Blogger, Sunshine, and Kreativ Blogger Awards and feeling overwhelmed as always at the munificence of the online community. These latest are conferred upon me, regardless of my deserts, by my fellow poets, artists, foodies, gardeners, essayists, music lovers, travelers and others with whom I’ve so fortuitously crossed paths out here in the ether and am enjoying the marvels of mutual entertainment and discovery.

It is with a humble and happy heart that I thank Meg, Susie, Mark, Mars, Kofegeek and Tamara. Some of these have been friendly correspondents of mine for a lovely while now, and others are quite new to me, and I highly recommend that you have a look at all of their blogs! Meg is a veteran traveler for her relatively few years’ opportunity, and always posts marvelous pictures and original thoughts and ideas about places visited and things done there. Susie writes with great good taste, artful illustration and photography, and shares stories and samples of fabulous food and outside-of-kitchen adventures, too. Mark, an outstanding graphic designer in the UK, sometime DJ and constant educated music listener, gardener and traveler, always has a wise and witty twist to his posts. Mars has lived a rather cosmopolitan life but keeps a grounded and sensitive point of view, traveling, writing moving and insightful observations about life’s vicissitudes, and seeking beauty and light in the world. Kofegeek brings ingenious humor and insightful discourse to matters of science and math, cats and coffee, and much more. Tamara is a marvelous gardener from Ljubljana who is working to create intergenerational conversation about that earthy art.

Meanwhile, I am required by the rubrics of these awards to do a little personal sharing with you, my readers, and to introduce to you other worthy bloggers, and so I am going to combine my efforts and ask that you have a good visit to some truly worthy sites elsewhere as well. Share the love!

First, 10 blogs and bloggers worthy of your attention:

Cynthia @ http://lesplaisirssimplesdelavie.wordpress.com/ (photos, thoughtfully captioned with brief yet expansive and often lyrical text)

Natasha @ http://comeduemaiali.wordpress.com/ (seriously, how can you not enjoy eating ‘like two pigs’? I know I do, oink oink) Important update announcement: I am clearly not as smart as even one little piggy, because I completely missed that Natasha had been one of my award benefactors in the first place. But I’ll pretend I Meant to Do That just so that I could pass on the other awards back in her direction! Because, and I am not making this up, she really deserves them anyway!

Becky @ http://beckyfrehse.wordpress.com/ (a longtime friend, Becky is a tremendously versatile mixed media expert, visual artist, collaborator, teacher and all-around cool person)

Lorelei @ http://incidentallearner.wordpress.com/ (rediscovering her incredible painting gifts, she’s a watercolorist and storyteller extraordinaire)

Bente @ http://bentehaarstad.wordpress.com/ (no, I’m not prejudiced just because she’s from my ancestors’ homeland, Norway–she’s a really fine photographer!)

Sue @ http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/ (another distinctive and fine photographer, capturing other parts of the world, caught my eye)

Pat @ http://rantingchef.com/ (making all sorts of stellar and luscious foods sound and look fairly simple to make, and worth the effort even if not so easy)

Maggie @ http://thelittledesignstall.wordpress.com/ (a Pinterest-style blog full of gleefully over-the-top and often spectacularly inventive and gorgeous design images from all over)

Maenamor @ http://antiquityandadventures.wordpress.com/ (guiding us around scenic bits of England and Wales and sharing special local events with their fascinating stories)

Robi @ http://kabyahe.wordpress.com/author/robijiz/ (introducing cultural and natural beauties of the Philippines in outstanding journalistic and artistic photography)

Meanwhile, back to talking about myself, because I’m so incredibly exciting!

I think almost anything could be improved by the addition of browned butter (beurre noisette), possibly including a plain spoon about to be stuck in my mouth;

&   I have rather excellent printing (lettering) skills because my cursive handwriting, though perhaps interesting to look at, is almost indecipherable even to me;

&   If I don’t sleep at least nine hours a night I am not very likeable company;

&   Classical music is often my go-to choice, but there are others that have particular allure for me at different times or under varying circumstances, i.e., Blues music during physical labor, vintage ZZ Top, Oingo Boingo and Van Halen on road trips, reggae on a beachy sunny day, jazz and swing for hanging around people-watching in a cafe, and so forth;

&   The smell of coffee is heavenly to me, but I don’t drink it often and then only as flavoring for lots of cream and sugar;

&   Perhaps because of my temperate Northwest upbringing, I think of green as a perfect neutral color, just as much as the traditional black-white-grey-brown palette;

&   I’m not particularly girly (in the ruffles and bling and pink sort of pop-culture way) but I am fond of being female and even sometimes live up to sex stereotypes, if accidentally;

&   Not much of a crier (maybe I tend to try to be stoic when genuinely sad), except at the most silly sappy stuff, but I am an inveterate hugger and hand-holder;

&   I’m so old that I went to a school where there were no lockers, only a cloakroom; that the houses and cars in the neighborhood were all generally left unlocked; and that the older kids piled loosely in the backseat of the car while the baby sat in Mom’s lap up front;

&   I’m so young that I think Bucket Lists are for people thousands of years older than me because I have all the time in the world and naively believe that I will get around to anything that matters enough, eventually.

On that note, I really must finish this up for today and get it posted, because despite my limitless future I find that blogging is a time-consuming joy and can easily eclipse numerous other activities that may well turn out to be worth the doing if I don’t get too obsessed and distracted leaping around the meadows of the Internet in the grand company of my many admirable blogging playmates and mentors and companions.

Perfectly Imperfect in Every Way

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In a comment on my gardening post last week, Ted reminded me of the inimitable Mary Poppins, and I was in turn moved to recollect her frank self-description as ‘Practically Perfect in Every Way‘. In the case of that charming fictional character, it was simply and inarguably the truth. The rest of us, mere mortals, can’t quite go that far if we’re honest.

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Saints Cury, Cecilia & Goar. I selected these for portraiture in this modern-medievalist piece because of very earthly interests: Cury is one of my birthday saints and famed mainly for his 'miraculous' hospitality; Cecilia is the patron of musicians (for my husband, of course) and even sometimes purported to be the inventor of the pipe organ; Goar's feast day is celebrated on our anniversary and he, sometimes portrayed as a potter, was thus also an artist. He also happens to have a lovely little town on the Rhine named after him. There *can* be perks to being a saint, even a minor one, apparently . . .

Which is why I like saints. It’s doubtful I’d really enjoy meeting them in person, to be precise: it’s the nature, the character of them, that really fascinates me. Because, as I understand it, what separates the saints from the rest of us ordinary slouches is not that they were born or made saints but that they became saints by rising above the ordinary way they began. Unlike superheroes and the majority of fairytale protagonists, it’s not often a transformation that’s accomplished by the wave of a wand or inadvertent exposure to radioactive substances, but rather is brought about by internal change and will and choice.

There is hope for me in the idea that most saints–and I gather this is true of the heroines and heroes of many significant belief systems, along with many of the major religions–start out as plain, simple, unimpressive and very mortal humans and for one reason or another are moved to do the things they do that gradually re-shape them into extraordinary beings. Some of those avatars, indeed, start out as pretty sketchy characters, if not outright jerks, despots, and other first-rank varieties of meanies. It’s the process, the journey, and the ultimate commitment to do and be something else that makes them extraordinary.

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Saint Monica could be the perfect example of overcoming obstacles--much of her sainthood was earned just through working to see that her ne'er-do-well son shaped up, the outstanding troublemaker who eventually reformed enough to become himself Saint Augustine of Hippo. Apparently her efforts did not go unrewarded . . .

Chances are beyond-excellent that I will never become a saint of any sort. But the real hope and inspiration in the lives of heroes, saints and exemplars is that nearly all of them began their lives as someone or something far less extraordinary than the way they ended them, and if so there’s always a possibility that with a little thoughtful effort I might actually improve along the way too. Don’t hold your breath, but I might just turn out slightly better than expected. Apparently, miracles do happen.

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Saints Valery (a French abbot) and Finian (an Irish bishop)--hereafter known as the Feastie Boys since they're also among my birthday saints. They remind me as well that one can come from different places, times, backgrounds and any number of unique circumstances and rise beyond them all to distinctive heights . . .

Wish I were There

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memento assemblageMuch as I adore where I am at any given moment, I’m not above reminiscing about and longing for other places I’ve enjoyed, or fantasizing about ones I’ve yet to try even in the midst of the current Happy Place. It’s not a matter of comparison, of course, just that persistent tickle at the back of the mind that everyone suffers who has ever been two places–opposite ends of the couch or of the world–that are both pleasing and desirable for their own reasons.memento assemblage

So I can sit in a ray of gilt sunshine, in a high-backed soft chair, sipping cool water and feeling quite contented–yet my brain keeps flitting around, from Praha to Portland, from Boston to Berlin, from San Juan Viejo to San Antonio. In my heart, I may be tucked up in a mews in Wexford or striding along the West Side to find a small concert venue after dark in New York. Perhaps inhaling the dazzling steam of glorious Indian food in a surprise find restaurant in Oslo, watching the koi slide through their semi-tropical pond under the snow-frosted glass pyramid of the conservatory in Edmonton or testing the tenderness of lovingly handmade pasta in a cozy family ristorante in Bolzano.memento

Wherever I may be, my thoughts will always drift. It’s not the least a sign of dissatisfaction or discontent, but rather that I’ve found delight and happiness in such a wide variety of places that they all compete for attention even (or perhaps especially) when I am full of well-being. There is so much beauty to be enjoyed in the world and there are so many great sensory experiences to be had that the soul grows restless for them.memento assemblage

Much as I like my reminiscences and the memories of all of those fantastic places I’ve journeyed, the astonishing and dear people who have welcomed me there and introduced me to each place’s peculiarities and pleasures, and the thought of all of the songs, foods, walks, sights and adventures that have enriched every one of those times, I am always hungry for more. The sweet sense of something marvelous that’s yet-to-come is as poignant and piquant as the promise of any other sort of romance, and my wishes always lean toward the more-ish, especially when the outing is made hand in hand with my dearest companion. Though the old-fashioned postcard tradition for travelers may have been to write to friends and loved ones saying ‘Wish you were here’, the truth is more often that I wish I were nearer to them, wherever they are.memento assemblage

Lightheartedness in Springtime

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Aside from things like my having been chewed upon ungraciously by a bunch of skeeters and having very indelicate and unladylike rivers of sweat inundate my poor little eyebulbs, the inside of my glasses lenses, and every single item of clothing upon my personage, an afternoon of gardening like today’s is a very welcome thing. I finally got after some of the weedier segments of the flowerbeds, planted some of my sprouted babies, moved a plant or two, and did some watering, and by golly, the place looks a tad more presentable.

In honor of that, herewith: a little Texiana and a Garden Fairy for your delectation and/or amusement. Tomorrow, perhaps, a batch of garden update photos. Just to prove I did something, don’t’cha know.

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Once Upon a Time in Texas: the Genesis of Big Hair & the Ten Gallon Hat . . .

poemgraphite drawingpoem

Clarity (Klart Blikk)

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photoLet me make one thing crystal clear: all of my world is seen through my filters, colored by my way of thinking, its perspective all my point of view. And that’s not either strange or bad. It’s how we all operate. It’s just important that I always remember that simple reality.digital image from a photo

I finally had time to sit down today and go through a backlog of seemingly gargantuan proportions in my email inbox. Among the items that were most enjoyable to unearth, there was a note from my sister carrying a link to another blogger’s post about her son’s (our nephew’s) band Honningbarna’s first gig in Dublin, with the requisite embedded YouTube clips of their performance there–which, in turn, linked to other Honningbarna clips, including a couple of very informal interviews between a young journalist in Germany, if I recall, and nephew Christoffer and his bandmate Edvard Valberg, the band’s cellist and frontman. Besides that I get a kick out of seeing our relative as a successful rocker and hearing the band’s wildly kinetic and screamingly energetic punk/metal performances, I am reminded every time I see and hear them that Honningbarna represents a particular brand of cynical idealism that only the irrepressible and wiseacre young can so ably embody.digital image from a photo

Like many a punk band before them, they sing/shout about the wrongs and stupidity and injustice in the world, calling attention to it all and making us want to clarify, if just a little, our own view or stance on such things. One of their biggest hits, to date, is in fact a number called ‘Klart Blikk‘–it translates, approximately, to ‘Clear View’–a call to stop being passive about the world’s imperfections, to get up and ask bold questions, to act. The link on the song title right here is, wonderfully, a Norwegian 5th-graders’ video workshop animation of the song, a perfect (and artfully executed) answer to this very call to intelligent response. And I think it a wonderful, if laughable, serendipity that my computer’s auto-correct recommendation today for ‘properly’ spelling Honningbarna is ‘Housecleaning‘.

Update: blogger/reviewer Andy Barnes has just posted an additional critique of Honningbarna and the band’s debut album, the source of ‘Klart Blikk’.photo

There’s obviously no single thing that can always serve to make any situation clear, let alone ‘cure’ it. Collecting all the facts and information and evidence and being fully honest with them can help, but sometimes perfectly diligent research and full disclosure do not constitute reformation or restitution. We’re all human. And only human. We stay muddled.photo

And some things really are a matter of opinion. The glass is half full; the glass is half empty. I like things the way they are, or I don’t.digital image from a photoNow, occasionally, providing a sharp contrast to the point under debate is just the nudge needed to push our minds toward a firmer understanding or acceptance of the longed-for truth. Sometimes, the discovery of new evidence can shed brighter light and move us to choose and accept a more accurate reality. It’s even possible, from time to time, to elucidate and pinpoint the ‘right’ merely by simplifying–by paring away all that isn’t, bit by bit, with thoughtful and insightful explication.photo

None of that, still, stops us from being opinionated, stubborn, sometimes truly stupid, and occasionally outright determinedly wrong. It’s where we derive a lot of our mortal variety, our strange human brand of exoticism, our color, if you will. It’s okay to be ridiculous and bull-headed, even when the Truth is staring us right in the face and can’t be ignored, because it’s really part of who and what we are.photo

No matter what a charming song it makes, everything does not necessarily look ‘worse in black and white‘–and light and clarity are certainly discernible, even brilliant, when we stop being so saturated with peripheral influences like our feelings and hopes and desires. But there’s so much sheer wonder in our colorful world, I say, Why not revel in it, even if it sometimes distracts us from the seriousness at hand. After all, that will always be with us and will push its way forward again eventually, even if it takes a bunch of young Punks yelling at us to get us to pay attention.digital image from a photo

Narcissical

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acrylic on paperWhen man’s-man men find womankind

especially spectacular,

it often seems their taste’s opined

as front-ular or back-ular,

and chicks who eye them back with leers

and rudeness too vernacular,

also choose looks, though dudes’ hearts bite

as badly as though Dracula-r.

How can they stand their standards thus

and stoop to stupid gravity

that pulls them down to lower lows

of foolishness, depravity

and such devotion to slick looks

that any cranial cavity‘s

acceptable, as long as ‘hot’

and needs no jot of suavity?

Must we accept only the slinky,

cute, or babe-a-licious?

Such flimsy taste is quite a waste,

and creepingly pernicious

when all the future of mankind

becomes so superstitious

as to attach to looks and limbs

values so shallow? Vicious!acrylic on paper

Whether Discomposed or Decomposing

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mixed media + digital imagePardon My Snoring

My lead-lined eyelids will insist it’s time to go to sleep,

So don’t be too insulted if I leave to count some sheep;

I find you fascinating and quite scintillating too,

So please don’t take it wrong if I should conk right out on you.

Your dazzling personality and brilliance are so bright

It pains me to, but go I must, and bid a fond Good-Night!

Pay no attention to the way I’m backing out the door,

And know your super-excellence could never be a bore.

I sigh, I yawn! But, for all that, it can’t be you that tires:

I’m sure it seldom happens that your audience expires!oil pastel on paper

Naturally, Reawakening

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mixed media + textNaturally

Following the steps of Nature, in my time I’ll go to sleep

and slough off my human stature, an appointment I must keep

whether soon or late or sudden, whether willingly or no,

taking nothing, I am bidden, as to dust–beyond–I go,

to a deep cellular cellar, shut from day and gone from night,

simple mote or something stellar, eternally both dark and bright;

I’ve no grief at this my bedding down to death as time requires,

but will go with no regretting to new lands and distant fires–

or to deep chasms’ silent spaces, nothing moving, nothing moved,

nothing touched by ills or graces or by sweetness I once loved,

for my thoughts will too lie resting, speechless, dreamless, all release;

all exemption now from testing, seamlessly wrapped up in peace–

So I’ll leave you, soft, in quiet

naturally inclined to sigh

with something of

relief, a sigh yet

not of sorrow,

when

I diemixed media + textReawakening

Winter now is past, forgotten swiftly as the melting snow,

as the things that children know slip away in quilted cotton

while they sleep: tomorrow, calling, beckons them to newer days

and to pleasures yet a haze on the edge of nighttime’s falling–

sorrow dissipates, as ices rimming rivers melt apace

in spring’s warm return to grace the Earth with all her sweet devices

Love, awake! The gentle keening of the season’s herald bird

is from barren branches heard, calling them to leafy greening,

calling from the snows of death all who have lain sleeping, dormant,

seasoned with dark winter’s torment,

to return to life

and breath