Tag Archives: poem

Cat & Rabbit Go to Town

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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.

Digital illustration + text: One Lovely Afternoon

The Hours of the Day

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Some pieces of music have an especially profound affinity with particular times of day. Those composed deliberately for such hours are of course likelier to fit so well, but even among them there are certain works that are so miraculously fitting they almost seem impossible to separate from their appointed times. Much music composed for the divine offices and devotions of the Roman Catholic church recognizes such affinities because, like many prayers and devotions in other faiths, these practices are meant to be performed at specific times of the day and evening. Like the muezzin‘s call to the mosque, a moving chant or song suited to the hour sets the heart and mind in just the right place for the meditations and oblations of the time.

I wrote this poem long ago and came across it again, remembering that it was written while listening to a specific Angelus played on the organ—Marcel Dupré’s, if I’m not mistaken—and being struck by that wonderful meeting of sound and spirit in it.Painting + text: The Angelus

The Miniaturist’s Challenge

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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.Graphite drawing + text: Movements in Miniature

A Full Menu of Absurdity

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Digital Illustrations + text: A Full Menu of Absurdity

Be that Light

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Photo montage + text: Mirror for Contemplating Possibility

Photo + text: Toward Light

Photo + text: Solrosbarna

Photo montage + text: Solrosbarna 2: Greatest Gift

Altered Pates

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Photo montage: Mycological MysteriesMycological 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.

Why Wait?

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Digital illustration + text: Itch

I hope, at the least, that the ibex lives in Washington state or somewhere it’s been legalized, for it’s rotten enough that Irv’s being such a nuisance makes anyone prone to overindulge in anything at all, let alone that they should get locked up for it. Lousy lizard.

I do realize that it’s a long time yet until St. Patrick’s Day returns, and no, I am not Irish. But sometimes one just needs to emit a silly Limerick or two, and who can stand the suspense of holding off until mid-March? So I’ll just go with the urge—the itch, if you will—and let my Limericks out to play a little early. Or very late, as the case may be.

Digital illustration + text: Quick & the Dead

PS—Foie gras is one of those foods I never had an urge to try, if you happened by here during my Tuesday recitation this week. But it sounded funnier in the Limerick than pâté, even though the latter *looks* cooler with its accents sprinkled on top.

 

And let this be a reminder to all of us to avoid being pests and nuisances to others. As my young nephew once shouted at the screen during an epic animated film in which a number of insects were being exceedingly awful to a number of other insects, “Be NICE, Bugs!” Or you could get in big trouble. Nicer is definitely safer.

Sing Comfort to Me

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Digital illustration: Wild Daisies 1Sweet is the Song

However cold and sharp the wind may be,

As wild and deep as darkness ever falls,

From utmost edges of the storm still calls

A song that stills, that draws and comforts me—

Though battles rage, the world in sorrow drowns,

And trials threaten life and hope and light,

That gracious call still guides me through the night

As long as I will listen to its sounds—

No danger is so great, no ill so dire,

Nor pestilence and terror so extreme,

That it cannot be mended by the stream

Of melody from that angelic choir—

Now when amid the depths of dark and pain,

I’ll listen for that heavenly refrain.Digital illustration: Wild Daisies 2

Fixity

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“Why?” is a beautiful question, even though it terrifies most of us. A wise soul once said that the opposite of faith is not doubt but certitude. When we grow too attached to a belief and its perfect correctness, we disallow not only our own reexamination of that belief, which if it’s so perfectly correct should pose no threat to us and if it’s not, should allow us to become wiser and more faithful to our convictions; we also fail to show respect for the belief itself, if we are so fearful of its being exposed as wrong.

Standing fixed in a position of faith is only impressive if that belief can be defended in a calm, intelligent, reasonable conversation with someone who doesn’t yet share the same convictions. A shouting match or the refusal to discuss respectfully is as likely to convince and convert an unbeliever as punching someone in the nose is to prove that you’re smarter than she is if anyone’s questioned it. It’s more useful to ask, whenever any disagreement arises, whether one is genuinely defending one’s belief or just feels personally threatened. Egos so often get in the way of rational, logical conversation when we reflexively mistake the call for proof or persuasion of our beliefs for personal insults. It might be useful to remember that when someone asks for evidence of something we cherish as fact, we could give them the benefit of believing that they really want to know why we accept it as truth. A genuine discussion might actually lead to common ground.

It might also, if we let it, lead to greater insight on our own part. The dispassionate process of a logician is aimed not at debunking everything in sight but stripping away falsehoods and irrelevancies and fallacies to expose the facts in the matter. Truth can withstand all questioning. It trumps politics, rants, bullying, diversionary tactics, disinformation and pure human foolishness, if we dare to examine all of the input carefully and patiently and with respect for those who may have so far missed the mark. A reasoned and quietly stated truth will finally have more power than all of the smoke and mirrors that deniers propagate and cling to, or we will have to admit we’ve lost more than our own convictions.Digital illustration from photos + text: Zoanthrope

Hiccuping All the Way

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Digital illustration + text: Hiccuping All the Way