Have fun watching the boy birds strut their waddles... here

I'm telling you the rumors are true...

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year’s bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go,—so with his memory they brim.

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, “There is no memory of him here!”

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

-By Edna St. Vincent Millay

These words are useless,
they do not reach you ear, your eye
My mouth, my breath, my flesh
does not give them voice.
I rip them up
throw them away until
they cascade in empty air
diving kittiwakes
carrying the weight of wings
a precise eye as it falls
sees what ripples beneath
they have no flow, no purchase
behind clear glass I cannot utter them
phrase them, my lips move
but out of your hearing
silently they glide before me
striking the water
recovering up again
and quickly they disappear.

-By the Corbyhawk herself

No you did not see anything and frankly I am not happy about it...

So I went birding today, took a risk and birded for the entire day, instead of painting. Man o man did it just plain suck or what? Not really much was seen, ok some nice mergansers and what not but nothing extra-ordinary. I did see a peregrine go in on some gulls like a rocket-ship which is always a thrill, but I was in the car and he was quickly out of view. So I guess the morale of the story is I should have painted. I really want to see this snowy owl that is around in a nearby town. No dice, not only did I not see him, it was freezing cold standing on the pier for an hour or more really. I think my face is wind-burned. So I am grumpy. Then someone comes by and so helpfully says, "Well really the best time to see him is 6AM". Thanks, now I feel really good about the time I have spent on a fruitless search. Ah well, tomorrow I will paint and I can almost bet it will be sunny and people will see the owl. Rats.

Check out these amazing photographs of parrots in flight here.

Happy thanksgiving to you all!! I hope you had a warm meal with some family or friends, some laughs and great company to celebrate with. I am thankful for so many things, too numerous to name...

The cat claims the pilgrim as her own...

Mystic kisses the pilgrim

Mojo rips up the pilgrim

Just taking a break between paintings... I have been working most of the day. Here is an in-progress work. A peaceful day, quiet and peaceful, it feels nice to not feel darkness around the corners of the day. What is, is, what will be, will be.

So I won best of show for a painting. This is a good thing. I was excited about it for a bit and now I wind down and realize I have so much to do for a big show coming up. So yeah for now and off to work I will go again. Really things are rather dull today, I swam of course, spent some time dodging carts at the grocery store and now I am too tired to accomplish much of anything. So here I am rather boring and uninspired.

Ok just one more kick in the ass from the current administration here.

city night

This will be convoluted since it is raw...

Afterimage stop, to close my eyes
I feel memory etched on lids
light pictures exposure
burned the heat of you next to me
the smell of fire, to lean in
lean over, my body overtakes me
my mind tries to offer control.
I stand utterly still
as if a single movement
will cause you to take flight.
The light marks you in
an impression on steel
the rest of the day is lonely
incomplete lost,
with no following footprints
to get me back to you.
An electrical chemical reaction
turn on pre-frontal cortex
and I want you with my entire body
ephemeral I cannot catch it,
the words fill circles around it
a relation of opposites.
The road goes forward
and appears to draw me closer
but the perspective
keeps you ever ahead of me
a divide between scale
and meaning.
What if I had fallen backwards?
to demonstrate an accurate relationship
between our present objects
a proportional way of
determining what we see in
each flattened meaning
is it near to a touch?
A surprise a sudden connection
a circuit fires on,
the making of opposites
deepening source of attraction
that even now I grieve for.
Tremendous immediacy
I cannot recreate how a finger fall
translates all of my longing
sensate to the limitations
of our culture.
There are boundaries I want to cross
to see the world truly
through your eye
and to touch you utterly free.

-By the Corbyhawk, I wanted to dig my nails into my palms to keep from thinking about my overwhelming,unbearable physical attraction to him and how can he even know? Lonely that is what it is, lonely...

Falling owl

I did this one, it is part of a larger work...I will be gone for a day or two...

Today's picture, no I did not create this one...

I have decided that I will not be using words for a while, instead I will still speak but in pictures.

Stuck

I am pulling this, sorry Jean!
I am going to be away for a time, I just don't know what to say. I need to close down because I think I was very wrong about something and I am in too much pain to pretend to have anything positive to say at all. I just can't pretend I am not hurting or be clever or witty.
take care

I have nothing to say about last night that I have not already said somewhere on this blog.
Generally I am confused and not sure what to do, a weakness really while the world carries on.

Ok, I have been in a weird spacey mood all day today. Luckily I could be in a spacey mood today and words are just flying out of me. Strange... I am not sure how good this is, but have a look. I sort of do not like rhymes so it is odd for me to write in rhyme, but hey today it came out. Yep, I woke up with this one and had to write it this morning with my eyeliner pencil on toilet paper (clean silly people) until I could transfer a more suitable paper. I have to catch them when they come out or else I forget them. I ditched the first 4 lines too trite.

Ouroboros

I sit in a cage a spoked wheel,
who's guilded bars are cast in steel.
A coppery snake winds its way
reflecting all who watch this cage.
Snake, snake with your mirrored face
come to free me from this place.
A thousand worlds I watch within
the reflected scales upon your skin.
As I waste away my twilight years
in this prison of my fears,
a small regret for what's at stake
but I crave communion with that snake.
As you circle around the rail
you swallow up your shining tail.
Spinning, spinning you take us away
our contorted shapes change and change
Now you have my wings, the bars gone
and endless heaven hears our song.

-By the Corbyhawk herself who wonders if it is quite done yet.... definitely inspired by something I have seen recently...

Like Magellan, let us find our islands
To die in, far from home, from anywhere
Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places,
Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.

For years we have labored over common roads,
Dreaming of ships that sail into the night.
Let us be heroes, or, if that's not in us,
Let us find men to follow, honor-bright.

For what is life but reaching for an answer?
And what is death but a refusal to grow?
Magellan had a dream he had to follow.
The sea was big, his ships were awkward, slow.

And when the fever would not set him free,
To his thin crew, "Sail on, sail on" he cried.
And so they did, carried the frail dream homeward.
And thus Magellan lives, although he died.

-Mary Oliver Magellan

Peek-a-boo swallow

I had the luxury of painting for the entire day. It was like the days I thought were past me, when I was driven and hooked to the painting. Even now I am sitting in front of it, resisting the urge to go further to touch up here or there, finish that, add that. The painting has gone beyond its teenage phase and takes on its own life now. Part of creating it is being curious about where it will go and what it will look like when it is finally complete. They are weird to me in a way when I look at them. As if they did not come out of me and were created by someone else. It is a strange contradiction that something so close can be so alien. I am not sure if this one is beautiful, the strange violet of the wings that demands me remain on the front of artistry and not illustration. I do not think I am an illustrator. I try but something takes over and makes even the most calm subject emotive. Then here I am wondering in fact where this stuff comes from. All I can say is it feels wonderful. I am back on my track and glad of it. Denying it does not work, so I continue on as foolishly as it may seem and am carried by what is and may yet be. White birds yellow and violet, how surprising that it kind of works. I am not sure where I go from here but I am so relieved to have found this again. Today held hawks aloft.

sigh

So, in the stupid things I have done category... it is not wise to compare your paintings to awkward teenagers to a room full of high school kids. ooops. um well what I meant was...

"including the work of artists who successfully use a painterly style. These artists capture our attention by employing an aesthetically forceful technique that persuades us to look past brush strokes and vagueness and to make our assessments based on only a fraction of the elements that would have been present in nature. As a result, we may feel rewarded by seeing essential elements revealed, or we perhaps regret not having one more details--the way we wish for a second helping when the chef is good but the serving meager.

-Darryl Wheye and Donald Kennedy-Humans, Nature, and Birds

I am trying not to think about that. So I try to read a book and it only reminds me of what I am trying to not think about. This causes me to lapse into memories I have not thought of in a while. They create a longing to go back to those times and the beautiful clarity of them. They were good places and I miss them, today I miss them. So quietly I paint without my usual force, I am listless daydreamy and prone to escape. It seems it is all I have to find those times, the smell of oil the rustle of the brush, the only means to bridge the gap. My one voice an echo. It is almost the only peace I can find lately, that and an occasional...

dreamy dreamy corby who swam an extra 10 minutes of laps because I am so out there today...

One looks away

Two gazed into a pool, he gazed and she,
Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,
Pale and reluctant on the water's brink,
As on the brink of parting which must be.
Each eyed the other's aspect, she and he,
Each felt one hungering heart leap up and sink,
Each tasted bitterness which both must drink,
There on the brink of life's dividing sea.
Lilies upon the surface, deep below
Two wistful faces craving each for each,
Resolute and reluctant without speech: —
A sudden ripple made the faces flow
One moment joined, to vanish out of reach:
So those hearts joined, and ah! were parted so.

-Christina Rossetti 

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;

Alfred Loyd Tennyson -From Sweet and Low

It makes no difference where you are born, even in a poultry yard, if you have hatched out of a swan's egg!

Now he was glad of all he had suffered, since he could enjoy his good fortune and the beauty around him better for it. The great swans swam up, surrounding him and caressing him with their beaks.

-Hans Christian Andersen The Ugly Duckling

Find the republican today...

YEAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
YEAH yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Hear that? It is the sound of polar bears clapping.
GOOD JOB AMERICA I am so damn proud of you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA
now the real work begins but I have confidence in him. I wanted to just randomly hug people this morning I was so happy about this.

nor can they...

they can't watch either...

ok, I am utterly glued to the telly, despite my better judgment on the crap that mainstream media pulls on elections. Florida, my god people, get a ballot that is easy to understand!! Argh.

Red states blue states, hopefully 1 state to 2 states.

I swear if we get another republican I am going to pack my bags and move to Canada.
ohhhhhh come on Ohio.....

All I have to say is: GO VOTE!!!

GO VOTE USA!!!
It matters

I almost gave up on it today, the painting thing. It would be so much easier to have my weekends to spend doing the necessary house tasks and not feel a sense of need to paint. I could just let it go, like those around me expect will happen. I find such expectations depressing and they pull at me seductively with the numbness they promise. I worked anyway and enjoyed the drawing as I do. Yet I still have a sense of emptiness after it, as if I cannot get the conversation right. Things always seem to go favorably when I am ready to give up. I slave away on the painting and want to scrap the damn thing and I bully through it and bammo it works. I find that I have to feel hope for the painting in order to get it right. The daydream of what it will become leads me. I am sorry, I have been an excellent listener, but in this I will not obey. Whatever it is, this silly thing leads me to my work and without it I am aimless. So I am not listening for once, I am disobeying you, I must. I walk the edges what is heavy already needs no help getting solid.

I just really like this song today