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| Succulents on my back stoop |
Saturday. Insanely 70’s. The cactus are happy with the heat, but probably not the
dank cloying air. Flies will be hatching I fear.
Dearest Readers,
I harbored a low-grade temperature in my body for over a
week. I’m laying low, walking Etta as little as possible, and erupting in caged
creativity. I’m getting better.
My regimen involves no power walks, no strength or
stretching exercises, a dose of 20-minute meditation per day, hot camomile tea
near bedtime, lots of water, one 8-hour ibuprofen, a glass and a half of red
wine and 1 oz of dark chocolate as a chaser. Except for the cold (not the flu),
it’s been almost pleasant. I have lots of time to create. A neighbor gave me
some oranges, and another looped a bag with a container of veggie soup and a hunk of cornbread around
my door knob. (Thanks Marcia and
Mary Alma)!
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| Unknown carnivore (maybe not), grain, long needle pine, stone |
Meet the Death Ikebana. It reminds me of the gargantuan
person-eating plant in the musical “Little Shop of Horrors”. On a dog-walk, I sheared off this dangerously spiky
plant growing alongside a chain link fence. I wore gloves, but it still drew
blood. I harvested the pine sprigs at the base of the arrangement from a long
needle evergreen growing near the curb, and I snatched the tuft of dried grain where it popped up between the sidewalk and the street. I used my mother’s wide
frosted glass basin (a wedding gift from 1942) to counterbalance the boldness
of the killer plant, and added a round river stone to anchor the pin holder against
its forward thrust. In a strange way I like this beast of an arrangement, and
the flowers are surprisingly fragrant.
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| In progress August 2012 |
I’ve resumed a painting I started in Vermont last summer
entitled “Cradled in the Nest of Loving Kindness”. Here’s where I left it in Vermont, and below, where it stands at the moment.
It’s a cross between digging underground and being in the cosmos.
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| In progress January 12, 2013 |
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| Detail |
Finally, this week I began a segmented story of an old woman
who reaches for the stars. I’ve been standing on my back stoop at night with
Etta, dreamily staring across a little patch of backyard at the concrete block
wall of an adjoining warehouse, and then up at the stars.
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| View across the interstice |
Here is a first draft
entitled
The Interstice-
Part 1 Jan.8.2013
It’s set in verse. I’m not sure why, but it’s a
narrative and will probably and eventually flow as prose.
An irregular moon lit up the brushy grass
On the strip of lawn
That sliced a treeless path
Between her condo complex
And the back of an old car dealership,
Recently transformed into a swath of trendy shops.
Her daylight view was not the trendy end.
Concrete blocks painted two shades of dirt brown,
And streaked by careless roller marks
Formed a wall along the boundary
Beyond her kitchen window.
A haphazard rebar grate
Slouched across four industrial windows at the far end.
A tiny hole punctured one pane, surrounded by a sunburst of
shards
Held together by some fluke of physics.
During the day panicked squirrels raced the narrow gauntlet
In a mad dash for the tangle of vines and privet at the
short end of the property line.
But it was night now, and the clutter was muffled.
The old woman slipped out her back door and stood silently
on the stoop.
She unscrewed the swirl of bulb in the outdoor fixture.
The building beyond the alley was now cloaked in thick
black.
Its aluminum roof shone in crisp linear ridges of light and
shade.
Overhead, a circuit board of constellations and planets
Flickered in the depths of the evening sky.
She leaned over the metal pipe railing
And grabbed the end of a sparkling black string that dangled
from a star.
She reached for another, and another, and a fourth one for
good measure.
She tied them together in a knot with two loops
And gingerly stepped inside.
The woman bent her knees and
Made cautious leaps like a baby in a Jolly Jumper.
She clutched the strings like a swing.
Slowly the contraption ascended
Through a sea of swaying sky lines
That tickled her face as she was pulled higher and higher,
Each one tethered to its mother star. ...to be continued
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