The world is its poem, a rolling sonorous poem
In which a remote presage of joy annotates vast sorrow...
Where silently his beloved waits, watching the minutes,
The long days move.
Her room is closed: no road to look out on-
Her hope,
Worn out by waiting, lies in the dust.
The poet has given her pining no language,
Her love no pilgrimage-...

From Yaksa-by Rabindranath Tagore

A little note, here I am bone weary and with a tired mind. I have worked since dawn in the studio trying to get my work ready for a show. I painted the edges, put on the wires, signed them, and tried to tweek things here and there in them. I still have much to do but made good progress. Tomorrow I am working at home on something new, but will be nitpicking again on Sunday. So it was a good day but a tiring one and I am not inspiring right now.

windfarms gone awry

White Orchids

What is the shape of goodbye?
I do not want to leave you
with those pictures
fleeting passages
of shadows that fly
across my face
I will never lose my desire
to kiss you
Remember me
picturing flowers
holding falcons
laughing anyway
As I will remember you
talking to owls
offering cookies
giving direction
and tenderly taking hold
of my little dreams

-by the Corbyhawk herself

mouth orchid

At his moment of triumph, then Apollo found in his arms not the beautiful warm-fleshed nymph but a woman rough-skinned and cooling: becoming a tree, a laurel, whose leaves would become in turn his wreath of honor. There are things we can possess only by following them into the realm of disguise. There, we may be given a quarry altered, more pungent and wilder and stranger than we had surmised.

-Jane Hirshfield Nine Gates

One leaning on the other

for my little friends

Chiquitita, tell me whats wrong
You're enchained by your own sorrow
In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow
How I hate to see you like this
There is no way you can deny it
I can see that you're oh so sad, so quiet

Chiquitita, tell me the truth
I'm a shoulder you can cry on
Your best friend, I'm the one you must rely on
You were always sure of yourself
Now I see you've broken a feather
I hope we can patch it up together

Chiquitita, you and I know
How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they're leaving
You'll be dancing once again and the pain will end
You will have no time for grieving
Chiquitita, you and I cry
But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you
Let me hear you sing once more like you did before
Sing a new song, chiquitita
Try once more like you did before
Sing a new song, chiquitita

So the walls came tumbling down
And your loves a blown out candle
All is gone and it seems too hard to handle
Chiquitita, tell me the truth
There is no way you can deny it
I see that you're oh so sad, so quiet

Chiquitita, you and I know
How the heartaches come and they go and the scars theyre leaving
You'll be dancing once again and the pain will end
You will have no time for grieving
Chiquitita, you and I cry
But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you
Let me hear you sing once more like you did before
Sing a new song, chiquitita
Try once more like you did before
Sing a new song, chiquitita
Try once more like you did before
Sing a new song, chiquitita

-ABBA

For Grandma Florence

Today I wrote and then took a break to see an orchid show. It was great to be in such light with these amazing flowers. Orchids always make me think of my dear Grandma who died 14 years ago today. I always remember the day with something special in her honor. Today it was the orchids.

I have just been trying to express myself-... I just have to say things you know - Words and I are not good friends at all except with some people-when I am close to them and can feel as well as hear their response-I have to say it someway-Last year I went color mad-but Ive almost hated to think of color since the fall went-Ive been slaving on the violin-trying to make that talk-I wish I could tell you some of the things Ive wanted to say as I felt them...The drawings dont count-it is the life-that really counts-To say things that way may be a relief-....It may be interesting to see how different people react to them...-I am glad they said something to you. -I think so much alone-work alone-am so much alone-but for letters...

I cant tell you how sorry I am that I cant talk to you-what Ive been thinking surprises me so-it has been such fun-at times has hurt too...that would be great to tell you..

You see-I would go in and talk to you if I could-and I hate to be completely outdone by a little thing like distance.

-Georgia O'Keeffe in a letter to Alfred Stieglitz, 1916

For T and C

Oh my heart my sad heart
and fighting and rough words at home today when all I want is solace
She turned to watch, her little eyes following my tears
and how did I know that her friend now gone helped her lose that tooth
I pointed out yesterday
She smiled a sad smile, gave me her trust
and it stole my heart
which aches for them all
There is no greater grief then the long mass for two dead children
although the light makes the room shine with a million colors from the windows
and I want to paint flowers with butterflies, a perfect beauty
for them
with two white balloons against the sky and a million teddy bears sitting at the edge of the road that I pass to remember
We bowed our heads together as one
and wept for them
I know as we scattered we weep still
I need arms to hold me up, I am not strong enough to carry this
all this dying, dead ends and disappointments cut me down
tomorrow comes though with its anniversary of another great loss in my life
and I will find the sweet tinge of hope despite it all

Memorize yourself with the starling dance here

The pictures should have been shown for a wedding, a graduation, anything but this. Her little face which never had time to grow into the lean lines of adulthood. Her barbie doll laying on the table with a small silver crown she liked to wear. His drawing was on the table, he was always so proud and satisfied when he worked on them. His classmates would gather around him as if he were a magician when he drew a car or the Titanic. (he loved to draw machines) Tonight there was just some pictures and matchbox cars to tell the story of a life. I found it hard to breath and kept staring at the flowers that were so vivid and fresh in this room that closed its walls on me as I moved through the line. I hugged her tight, what could I say except give her hope in a hug, her children are gone forever. We all loved them so much.

I don't want to paint
without your eyes
all the color runs empty
to the memory of the red pulse
as you showed me your fingertips

My brush hits canvas with no music
no soft-lifting cadence
of your perfect voice.

How your words color me
their memory sweet
falling flowers
that I cannot scoop upwards

My heart hangs an empty show
a requiem for
a lost story

It hopes among the crowded
for one pair of amber eyes
to lock on it, break rules
of composition

this work we did
you said once
and I thought I would fly

Let the paintings stay unfinished
I cannot bear their sad hope
that even now longs
for your finishing touch

-Corbyhawk

can't light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I'm growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life

Too late to save myself from falling
I took a chance and changed your way of life
But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light

Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me

I can't find, oh the right romantic line
But see me once and see the way I feel
Don't discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have they need love to help them heal

-Elton John

I am back for a moment to express my sorrow at the loss of two of my students today. They were only 11 and 7 years old. I knew them very well and I am just utterly at a loss to put words to this tragedy. I loved those kids.

My point in posting is this, do not let one more minute slip through your fingers. Tell them you love them, do what you are meant to do, laugh, eat an extra slice of cake, and live. Life is too short. Tomorrow is just too damn late.

My readers, tonight I say goodbye for a while. Be well and take care. I just cannot be so open right now and some things are better left unsaid.

They are throwing those words around. "Core" subjects, streamline, resource sharing, budget, future, technology, justify, exemplar... I see this future coming and it will not let me pretend that I can sit back and bury my head to let my bigger dreams pass. The future is a dog nudging my hand over and over in its loyal persistence. See me, see me, see me, see me, such constancy. I am in the mood to slay the gods, of the normative mainstream. I am in the mood to shine and fight the silencing of my own vision to fit the status quo. Nudge, nudge, nudge, like a loyal dog I nudge you. Face your fear and leap. The world needs your light not your conformity. Do not get tied to their ribbons.

end over end

I am Fenrir
and today I considered the weight of this arm
as it lay encased
in the iron of dull eyes
useless words and empty expressions
I felt its pulse under my tongue
as I ran along the edges
and hungered for the flesh ripped free
to bone.

I hear the echo of some other world
limbless, what price?
The blood of a thousand other days
worth one instant of horror
as I chew out
the predators circle taunting my courage
with their sticks of apathy
My heart hits bone
snapped easily when the
only choice is courage

The iron plays at kindness
the offer of warm food
laying limp and bloody
with one remaining piece of me.

-By the Corbyhawk and no it was not a nice day

Well the last day and a half have been very eventful and not so much in a good way. I have had a bit of a crisis at work which I will not divulge the details of which, except that it is rather horrible and sort of embarrassing. This is not generally good and I am not looking forward to the drama that will greet me when I get there tomorrow. In other news my previous food purchases could make me very sick so...I did manage to get a shot today along with a large portion of the other affected public. This required waiting in large lines for long periods of time. Luckily I am under 40, the older folks had to get the shot, in their buttocks. Not the sort of fun you want to have on a Sunday. How I manage to get into these little dramas I will never know. I seem to attract it. One little predicament after another, silly and stressful. The show went well. I did have to take out a tissue in my pocket and wipe off the greasy fingerprints on my picture during the opening. It was quick though and understandable as it really did not look good to have slime on my work. My friends understood and expected no less from me. Argh...argh....today is argh

So I am in a show tomorrow and I have to go to the opening tomorrow night. The show is generally a comedy of errors so I have not told the people I know. Why, you may ask? Well the first year they hung my photo upside down. So I pulled it down and flipped it over. The next year I had not affixed the image well and it slid out of the matt and was crooked. So I took it down and fixed it. (my taking the picture off the wall during the opening horrified my friends. -my opinion is a minute of horror for the rest of the show time with the work being fixed the correct way) So I quietly wonder at what kind of stupidity will happen with it tomorrow night. I plan on working in the studio tomorrow and I have work to take to the framers. Another show is coming up and I am trying to get everything together for it. My mind is tired tonight so off I go. Goodnight.

Lift

Hold on tight to your dream
Hold on tight to your dream
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold tight to your dream.

Its a long time to be gone
Time just rolls on and on
When you need a shoulder to cry on
When you get so sick of trying
Just hold tight to your dream

Chorus:
When you get so down that you cant get up
And you want so much but you're all out of luck
When you're so downhearted and misunderstood
Just over & over & over you could


Hold on tight to your dream
Hold on tight to your dream
When you see the shadows falling
When you hear that cold wind calling
Hold on tight to your dream.

Oh, yeah
Hold on tight to your dream
Yeah, hold on tight...
To your dream.

-Electric Light Orchestra

osprey looking

Because joy has wider wings
than sorrow, it disappears faster,
catching the first good thermal east,
sailing off into promises.
Sorrow meantime scrawks on its
leathery stubs, trying to gain on
altitude, kicking up rocks and dust.

From -A Parable of Brother Sorrow by Ralph Black

Do you know what is funny or maybe not so much so, I still check his blog (this moment). I wonder at that impulse, as if by some miracle he will be back posting. A little thing but the absence hits me and I am reluctant to admit to goodbye when so many of them are coming to me. I hate goodbyes and I am tired of them. I shake my fist at you world with your need for endings. Jeers to goodbye and endings. Jeers.

ending or beginning?

Let's stay up all night and watch the sun come up
You bring up my wild side and I can't get enough
Enough of you and the stories you tell
Whisper sweet weave me into your spell

Last time I saw you
You took me by surprise
Tried to smile through my sorrow
But from you I could not hide
With a kiss you breathed life back into me
You stole my heart
When you set my soul free

Chorus:
And it's gonna be a long time till I see you again
Hold me close, rest your hand in mine
Let me love you and we'll say goodbye
For a long, long time

I love the way I feel with you
I can just be myself
And that dark cloud that follows me will have to find someone else
And we'll laugh until that sun does shine
Then you'll go your way and I'll go mine

Chorus

Bridge:
I don't care where it is we're going
I stopped looking at the world in black and white
Just the thought of you
Your eyes (light brown)
Brightens up my life

And it's gonna be a long time
And it sets me free
Let love shine
And it's gonna be a long time
Till I see you again
Hold me close
Rest your hand in mine
Let me love you
And we'll say goodbye for a long, long time

lyrics to Long Time written by Annie Burns (one little change by me)

A young person I know (he is 5) said today that his classmate, let's call her Sarah thinks he is cute. He made this statement while the rest of the class was sitting quietly. He then said "we are going to be in love, but not until we are grown up because love is for grown ups." I had to hide my face to not laugh out loud, since he said it with such purpose. So I asked him later when he came up to me if he liked Sarah, and he said "No, but when I am more grown up I will have a crush on her because that kind of thing is for grown ups."

Now you have to know the two of them, she makes these jokes for him in class and he will laugh out loud with this silly really funny little heh heh heh laugh. It is very sweet.

Bernini Apollo and Daphne

So that you must not attach any great botanical importance to the characters of contrasted aspects in leaves, which I wish you to express by the words "Apolline" and "Arethusan"; but their mythic importance is very great, and your careful observance of it will help you completely to understand the beautiful Greek fable of Apollo and Daphne. There are indeed several Daphnes, and the first root of the name is far away in another field of thought altogether, connected with the Gods of Light. But etymology, the best of servants, is an unreasonable master...Daphne chased by Apollo, may have perhaps-though I doubt even this much of consistence in the earlier myth-have meant the Dawn pursued by the Sun. ...
so Daphne of the leafy peace. She is, in her first life, the daughter of the mountain river, the mist of it filling the valley; the Sun, pursuing, and effacing it, from dell to dell, is, literally, Apollo pursuing Daphne...
And farther, the leaf, in its connection with the river, is typically expressive, not as the flower was, of human fading and passing away, but of the perpetual flow and renewal of the human mind and thought, rising "like the rivers that run among the hills";

-John Ruskin from Proserpina Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air Was Yet Pure -1888

Tie your heart at night to mine, love,
and both will defeat the darkness
like twin drums beating in the forest
against the heavy wall of wet leaves.

Night crossing: black coal of dream
that cuts the thread of earthly orbs
with the punctuality of a headlong train
that pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly.

Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement,
to the grip on life that beats in your breast,
with the wings of a submerged swan,

So that our dream might reply
to the sky's questioning stars
with one key, one door closed to shadow.

-Tie Your Heart at Night to Mine by Pablo Neruda

Me reflected/ice flower eyes

You are getting me today and rather early since I was off again today due to weather. (yes a dance was done this morning as work was called off for the second time this week)
What I am contemplating is ice, this is especially prevalent today when the world was for several hours coated in the stuff. What an interesting outward reflection of a personal inner state as if somehow my little voice called the frozen world into being. A silly notion, but so compelling today. I went out and crunched around in it for a time, letting the rain soak my coat and the cold wet air fill my sore lungs (some kind of cold that is refusing to leave me, so today I got armed with antibiotics). The world was encased in light reflections muted at the lack of direct sun but the possibility of the radiance was still there. Everything looked so fragile and delicate; little tree branches coated in ice, cold and the potential of spring very hidden. It is a wonder that the seasons can change at all but they will.

Today I feel loss and lost but I am determined not to. I am determined to have the best month ever and feel my luck changing. All my stubborn resolve cannot ease the sorrow of what is and what will eventually be. Loss is loss and as the wheels of time churn away, I cannot stop them nor slow the progress of the eventual end and this above all bothers me. I do not know what I will do, but I know that I will have to just go on. I am stronger then all of this worry really. It strikes me with a desperation that I do not want to feel and I find myself wanting to free the branches of their icy sleep. I know that you cannot rush spring and it will come both in its beauty and its sadness. Today ice is the nature of the world like my soul that is just starting to crack free of it. Can there be anything worse then lack of change? Can there be anything worse then change? No peace here today,only restlessness, but tomorrow has its own way free.