How my body blooms from every vein
more fragrantly, since I first knew you;
look, I walk slimmer and straighter,
and you only wait-: who are you then?

Look: I feel how I am moving away,
How I'm shedding my old life, leaf by leaf.
Only your smile stands like pure stars
over you and, soon now, over me.

-From Sacrifice by Rainer Maria Rilke

Peacock

In honor of James Joyce, a telegram sent to him from Nora-

yes

my dog in the snow

You have not made me suffer,
merely wait.

Those tangled
hours, filled
with serpents,
when
my heart stopped and I stifled,
you would come along,...

-From You Would Come by Pablo Neruda

We sit at the threshold and I wonder at what it means to be a visionary at this time and place. I can only record what I see and experience now in order to translate it to a future. For me that is one of the major goals of art, to signify an experience, a time, a translation and to freeze it within the scrutiny of paint. -reflections on my work

This video is interesting and spawned a translation in my mind of my moodiness lately after some highbrow discussion about the future of education. I need to be more visionary and less mundanely adult. I am going to make an effort to get into a better place mentally and be a leader of vision and make change happen instead of just lamenting what is not. The future of art and education is one that is not at all static.

Here is the video

Brown Creeper

I am feeling a bit better which is good since I have a challenging week ahead of me. The melancholy of Sunday, endless endings of time on a small scale. I want to do this and this and well it is evening already and the hours are gone. Today I am a much better painter then yesterday and tomorrow I will be even better. I keep working not minding so much the necessary radical shifts I have needed to overcome stiffness and dull areas of my paintings. I almost revel in the destruction of it and am not attached to my unsuccessful attempts. They are lifeless and I am longing for life. I will not mourn the inevitable I have decided. The ending of days has equaled one less day of time. One moment less before the ending I worry is coming. Such an ending but can it be a new start? I will still carry this persistent tight ball of hope that at times makes me believe with such a childlike intensity in things. I believe in this thing, I do despite every reason not too. I just plain do and I cannot say why or stop it. I have given up trying to stop it, it just is. I hate goodbyes and I just do not want to say that to him ever. So here is to hope, twilight times, and little musical brown creepers who dance in my eyes.

Visitors

the brown creepers fly in
with the late afternoon winter light
a sprinkle of little bells that descend
as they dance sideways upwards
on the trees

they probe the bark
with their delicate curving beaks
finding some small treasures there
and flying off to investigate
the next trunk

their backs covered
with the feathers of bark
they appear and disappear
in the twilight
until they go
with the whoosh of tiny wingbeats

-by the Corbyhawk -just a little thought description really

Stalking Magpie

ok, post number two on this lazy Saturday. ( ok not so lazy since I have been painting since 9AM)
The alchemy idea works for me in the back of my mind. If I think of the elements in a painting as air earth fire and water and try to balance them it seems to make sense to me. I think I may have figured this one out a bit more. It has been -lighten the pants, no darken the pants, no lighten the pants. I have painted them over and over. I made the light more directional which helps. Now I am still looking at the pants and thinking hmmmm darken etc etc I cannot leave them yet. fuss fuss fuss ...I feel a bit better but my lungs feel heavy still so I took a nap which I simply never do. It felt really delicious though but no good dreams to greet me, everything is so quiet lately. I am waiting for my optimism to return and hope. Off I go less angry at this painting to get the pants right again.

I am sick again and I am angry about it. I had a high fever last night and simple things like going up the stairs make my heart pound and following any activity I am extremely tired. This is very problematic since I have so much work to accomplish that I do not have time for this. I am so angry that my body is weak when I need it to be strong. Oh your body needs a break, no my soul does my body is just a vessel for all my chaos. So I hope it does not get worse, because last time I pushed I was very sick. Now I have to take my groggy headed self and paint with tired arms and a heavy heart. I hate this painting, throw it out entirely I think. Let the snow fall on it and the canvas rot, but I have to have it in my show. I feel no loyalty to it, it was impulsive from the start and there is no magic in it. So now I have to save the damned thing, when otherwise I would leave it behind. We will be weak together this crappy painting and I; and maybe I will understand it in this mood of chaos and despair. Arg the timing of this illness makes me crazy.

Dreaming of spring

I want to give you a feeling of hope- I want you to take your freedom-I am only too sorry that my life has been thrust on you-I have relied upon your perfect understanding-otherwise-how many times I feared I might be imposing or perhaps ruining a too fine friendship-and I should only have myself to blame-but I know you have understood and have always had faith...

I do not altogether despair but I do struggle and the struggle produces nothing in me but fatigue and nothing for others-not even for my work for that proceeds from another kind of inward activity. And there's no saying "buck up and be different" for it is myself and I must always be that and be true to it-and live with it the best I can for I am eternally alone with it.

-Marsden Hartley

Flowers for Alan

Matter and Spirit

A shadow empties itself into a river.
No one sees.
But the cloth for washing the bodies of the dead
softens, gentles a little.
Neither the cloth nor the body feels this,
yet it matters. Someone else, you see, is there,
in the blunt and blind of grace--
Someone stands silent,
listening, the looped cotton held in her hand.

-Jane Hirschfield

In memory of dear Alan from this moment, he will be missed for his wit, beautiful pictures, and wonderful intelligence. Condolences to his family and friends. He was the original inspiration for this blog. Alan I did manage to eat that city with your song in my heart, sleep well.

Harris Hawk

I would paint a bird
to fly in the small space
between your mouth and mine
it would fly up as my eyes do
to your eyes
Erase the world
the murmurs of others around us
I step in and in one breath
am completely lost
and found again

by the Corbyhawk

I want to hear the low hum of the work itself, its little voice that whispers in my ear. When I am not paying attention it is evident in the paintings, they all see it. I can not get over exactly how much you can communicate on the canvas as if the underwear of your soul is sticking out of the back of your pants. It is really sort of uncomfortable to be so on display, but what I have to say demands me to push on forward anyway despite all that. Unnerving really, does he see everything? I am so tired today and now, sort of defeated feeling really, overwhelmed. I don't think I was wearing my best underwear!

Easy to see
that the lion and angel
are one visitation
but how do you come
to offer your throat to either?
In autumn, the trees
learn to drop off
both their disguises,
what finally fills them is simple.
The heart's deepest
affections will equally be devoured.
And still we go ankle deep
into that carnage, lifting first one,
then another part up to the light.
As if we were looking for something simple.
As if what we wanted
were not the thing that falls.

-Lioan and Angel Dividing the Maple Between Them- Jane Hirschfield

Paper Flowers

Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.

Rumi

I can't explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,
and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.

Rumi

Of dusty glances fallen to the ground
or of soundless leaves burying themselves.
Of metals without light, with the emptiness,
with the absence of the suddenly dead day.
At the tip of the hands the dazzelment of butterflies,
the upflight of butterflies whose light has no end.

You kept the trail of light, of broken beings
that the abandoned sun, sinking, casts at the churches.
Stained with glances, dealing with bees,
your substance fleeing from unexpected flame
precedes and follows the day and its family of gold.

The spying days cross in secret
but they fall within your voice of light.
Oh master of love, in your rest
I established my dream, my silent attitude.

With your body of my timid number, suddenly extended
to the quantities that define the earth,
behind the struggle of the days white with space
and cold with slow deaths and withered stimuli,
I feel your lap burn and your kisses travel
shaping fresh swallows in my sleep.

At times the destiny of your tears ascends
like age to my forehead, there
the waves are crashing, smashing themselves to death:
their movement is moist, drifting, ultimate.

Pablo Neruda Alliance (Sonata) translated by Donald D. Walsh

Oh, why you look so sad?
Tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now
Dont be ashamed to cry
Let me see you through
cause Ive seen the dark side too
When the night falls on you
You dont know what to do
Nothing you confess
Could make me love you less

Ill stand by you
Ill stand by you
Wont let nobody hurt you
Ill stand by you

So if youre mad, get mad
Dont hold it all inside
Come on and talk to me now
Hey, what you got to hide?
I get angry too
Well Im a lot like you
When youre standing at the crossroads
And dont know which path to choose
Let me come along
cause even if youre wrong

Ill stand by you
Ill stand by you
Wont let nobody hurt you
Ill stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And Ill never desert you
Ill stand by you

And when...
When the night falls on you, baby
Youre feeling all alone
You wont be on your own

Ill stand by you
Ill stand by you
Wont let nobody hurt you

Ill stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And Ill never desert you
Ill stand by you
Ill stand by you
Wont let nobody hurt you
Ill stand by you
Wont let nobody hurt you
Ill stand by you

-Pretenders I'll Stand By You

Untitled 1

Like a ghost will it go?

This kiss of a life

The drying wetness of my lips

As they miss you

A rustle of brown leaves

Giving a still green glint glimmer

Of a once thriving sustenance

When it grew attached

To so great a tree

As separate as seasons

I fall unfixed into air

And dance my brush edge

On all colors of our meaning

Do your roots grow?

Just there under my remaining spine

Will your seed push upwards

And create a merged life

In something new flowering?

Or will it rot there?

Encased in mud and weather

Ever close and ever decaying

Beyond the support of your once mighty frame

That in time will too fall

Piece by piece into my waiting earth.

-By the Corbyhawk herself copyright 2008 steal and bad juju will haunt you all your days not to mention the law itself. scary huh? Good.

Below the incandescent fruit,
the strange experience of beauty;
its existence is too much;
it tears one to pieces
and each fresh wave of consciousness
is poison.
"See her, see her in this common world,"
the central flaw
in that first crystal-fine experiment,
this amalgamation which can never be more
than an interesting impossibility

From Marianne Moore's On Marriage
in my quest for American Moderism

Merlin

I am home from work. I feel generally better but I just really lack the energy for my job and my body is still kind of weak. I also am still afraid to eat anything since I do not want to be that sick again. I am not even hungry at all. So I am home and will go do a bit of work this evening when I hopefully have more motivation. I am thinking about my next painting but just want to do some small sketches today. My arms are sore anyway from whatever I have, so maybe it is better to just work small. Some rest to get better will help as I have a busy time coming up.

The universe had other ideas. No playing in the print studio today, I am blogging from bed because getting up is well just difficult. I feel terrible and managed to get to a meeting but then came right home and here I am in bed, sick as a dog. The dog just looked over, ok sick as sick better? He sighs, he is happy laying on the bed. They both are up here for morale support I guess. The cat is as well, me a laptop, two dogs and a cat in the bed. What a bunch.

Flight Birds by Thomas Aquinas Daly

Thomas Aquinas Daly -Flight Birds Oil on Board 14in by 10 1/2 in

I met this artist last night and he was quite wonderful. He is a friend of someone I know. I really loved his work and it makes me consider working smaller. Then again I did get a 36in x 60 in canvas today so perhaps in the future. The next painting is sneaking up on me and it is more of the same thing I am currently doing. Still I am going to go where it leads me and play a little tomorrow in printmaking. To hell with worry, I am no longer going to keep score of every day's accomplishments. It just wears me out and makes me feel bad about everything I don't do. I work constantly and well I will just have what I have when my show comes. There is a part of me that is just ever hopeful that the next work will be the best one and it drives me as I go. Maybe this one is going to be it and I feel a massive push to get to it and leave the others behind. This time I have slowed down and am tweaking the other paintings here and there to make them stronger. Some have had some drastic and unexpected changes as they progress. All for the better and now I cannot seem to leave them alone. A split between stalled ambition on the new and the need to reconsider the old. Yuck, I think way too much for my own good. So no more procrastination today it is getting late.

Two Jays

If you offered me a shade of blue
Would I return it saying that it was too
Dark or light?
Or would I see it for the precious thing
That it might one day be?
Hold on to me

If you offered me a point of view
Would I dismiss it saying that it was too
Black and white?
Or would I see it as the special thing
That it would no doubt be?
Hold on to me

Ill hold on to this gift we share
It is as slippery as it is rare

-the Cowboy Junkies Hold On

Ghost Deer

Today was today and I am so tired and spent I don't have much for you.
The funeral was accompanied with a day long windstorm that raged by ripping down trees, forcing open the funeral home doors and taking out the lights. It was the living echo of the turmoil of my heart as it rages that life is too short. Here I am it whistles as it pushes the trees, here I am. Do we ever know when the forever goodbye will be?

If you were offered a chance, a tear in the sky perhaps or a set of distinct choices that were the stepping stones into a completely different world, would you go? So many heroes make that choice and with blind faith in the rightness of that step into the complete unknown. They do not know where they are going and offer no regret to what they leave behind. They simply know they must go and they do without question or regret. I guess all this death makes one think of these things, since in a way it is a similar crossing. I know I am one of those people who would go and blindly take that step (alive-the change aspect is what I am considering not death). Dear blogger would you?

The Dream

Argh. I am just trying to get so much done before I go out of town for the funeral. So many odds and ends to tie up and work to do and I realize that I am just not going to be able to get it all packed in tonight and tomorrow. Sometimes tools have their default not working stages which leads one into the damn I thought I was going to easily accomplish said task. Two hours later when the drill is still not charged, you realize that said task will have to be postponed because the witching hour is 9PM. If I do not start to wind down, blog, relax, read by 9PM I cannot get to sleep and am wickedly tired all the following day. (this should go under the know you are getting older when file, 10PM is bed time although I do get up at 5:45AM which just generally sucks.) So here I am unwinding. A funny moment today was trying to get a new headlight bulb for my car. I asked a really stupid question and the store guy just kind of eyed me. Yes, but I did manage to replace the bulb (no great feat really and changed my wipers (finally)). So tonight I am sort of dull and preoccupied with all that stress that goes with the funeral. It was a gorgeous 60 degrees here today which made me long to get my hands in the dirt and garden. A trick though, winter is only starting to dig in his heels. Ramble ramble tonight, a tired and sad Corby signing off.

Evening Grosbeak

In other news I spent some time looking for and finding with great success Evening Grosbeaks. One of my favorite birds, they are just gorgeous and full of personality. I am optimistic that this sighting which was so similar to a dream I had recently will lead to the rest of the dream coming true.

I also went to worship at the shrine of Fuertes. It is still has the same kind of magic for me and I always find myself longing to get to work on more bird related paintings. I just love it and there were other artists I admire hanging up as well including one childhood favorite. I took the day off from all the work I have to get to, but it was so worth it. One needs magic and I always can find some looking at a Fuertes or a Sutton. It felt really good, and I even got some great veggie food.

The only hawk that ever really footed me good

I went back there after 5 years and nothing has changed. I was hoping to see some improvement and that the hawk I could not rescue from her neglect was thriving. Perhaps my work and fight for her would have woken them up to her needs. It was not so.
I am so sorry my dear hawk, I am so horribly sorry. I will paint you free.

To you my dear Aunt
and all of these goodbyes
I saw you there laughing
on the island this morning as I dreamed
your eyes were their glinting blue
the same as your fathers
the same as mine
and so sweet and dear you always were
a hug a kiss and time to hear my little voice
how you would laugh and give us all
your generous hospitality
such a gracious and wonderful Aunt
with so much love to give
and I remember you there
in your trailer as it was falling apart around you
warm air without your leg
sugar took it
as it took your fingers
and your life
How I grieved for you then, that you
were reduced to such suffering in such a place
where the rain leaked in above you
how death has been hammering at my door
and today it has taken your sweet soft face
and smile
get to the island now and hold hands with the sun
feel it warm upon your back
and know you will be missed

Goodbye Aunt Judy

Virus is hitting New York Crows

Wind turbines and raptors yet again here

one going the other way

You who never arrived

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, seperate, in the evening...

You Who Never Arrived by Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Stephen Mitchell

looking

Long Tailed Duck transitional plumage

Ah the morning, so sweetly sunrise colored, yellows and pinks. So off I go into the bitter chill to work. As I drive my windshield wipers are encased in an icy mix at their base. So I stop to clear them and stop yet again to clear them as I could not see after following the trucker that really was hankering to walk to work but was driving instead (slow). Yes I am late as usual, especially after the stops. The burning question I have is, why do the wipers always smear and refuse to work right where you need to see? So here I am driving by trying to shrink down below the smear or at times sitting tall trying to see above the smear. Why is that? When so much of the windshield remains clear? It is the little things that conspire to drive us crazy.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28
Shakespeare

Because I am dreading my return to work....