Nothing more to see here human, step away slowly

...the moment you fall you fly

-Sarah Slean

Sun Drops

You will find the right words
just you wait and see
they'll be falling from the rooftops
on a blossom colored breeze
and the song you need to hear
will be singing through the trees
are you listening?

you are on the right path
you will realize
that the tears will always leave you
with a brighter pair of eyes
and the pain that you've been fighting
is an angel in disguise
it is love and love,
love is wise

There's still time to notice
still time to believe
that a door at last will open
where the darkness used to be
and the paradise you long for
is underneath your feet
what are you running for?
where've you been?

throw you heart into the ocean
throw your heart into the sea
you will find that all the right words
will come out naturally

Prologue by Sarah Slean
from her album The Baroness which is really just great.

To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.

-Thomas Huxley

Time races on and the past begins to blur like a dream you want to go back to and cannot recall exactly. You only remember the feeling of it and roll it around in your mind like a sweet elixir. I want to go dizzy drunk on yesterday but time plods on. Today wraps me up in the confines of its traditional frame, a regular convention to be what is only and what can be sits on the shelf. My solution is always to work again and pick up that brush. Perhaps I can paint a new dream that breaks this drudgery of day to day, with some remembered colors. Maybe I can capture what was to give it more permanence, some substance that lasts longer then that glance. I wonder again if it was indeed real at all and so begin the thought again at the start of this little narrative.

In other news I rescued a robin who had a broken back. She will be gently taken from this world by the wildlife center I gave her to. Perhaps she for a moment would like to go backwards and change course from that oncoming car. The entire sequence of life lines up behind one simple moment if you let it change you. For good or for bad, but it is not ever the same. As I am changed and trying to fit back into some older place.

the shadow flies over

As the day dawned I found a newly emerged mourning cloak butterfly and held him for the briefest of moments. He flexed his wings in the sunlight and took off into the sky.

I left to go to another city about 2 hours away to drop off a painting for a show. The woman who greeted me was a bit reserved. She did not remark on the work or offer a friendly word. Instead she looked me up and down with a cold eye. It made me nervous about a conference I am attending and presenting at that goes along with the show. I will have to prove myself to them, that I am worthy of being there.

When I got home I found that Nella my rabbit was dead. She was laying in the bottom of her cage. She had a birth defect that needed medication and because of it was constantly having trouble. Her death was still rather unexpected. Let's all hope it is not an omen, just a passing as things do. I buried her in the dirt, laying her gently into the earthy hole. Letting it swallow her white body up with each shovel full of dirt. I realized how worn out I really am and reluctant to find sorrow again. A rainbow filled the sky as the storms passed and the sun set. A red rainbow, a day of transformations and endings.

Distracting Lavender

Flying over the water

I have been busy and am currently missing an opening I have work in, ooops. I guess I got sidetracked at the lavender festival and lost track of the time. The lavender festival was a nice distraction as I have been playing since last evening-sailing with friends, which was paradise. Now it is all work though,some things have come up and it is time to get the nose to grindstone. I am a bit sad I am missing the opening but I feel so yucko today, just not great looking as of late. Not so much and am in one of those I hate how I look places I get into and then work-out like mad to look really the same (sigh). Ah well so to hide in my studio from the world and try to get more comfortable in my skin and get some magic done for this summer.

Have a Sara Slean song here and dance around like a crazy person.

Here is an interesting website on the Texas Border fence monstrosity here

Shake your groove thing, shake your groove thing yeah yeah

ok, this is a bit sentimental and over the top. It is a difficult topic but here goes so have a laugh I guess...

I have seen the wonders in the heart
and my life is full
of the depth of joy
the soft gestures of love
great expanse of days
that cascade with laughter
I have seen so much
like a box kept within myself
full of treasure
what stories it contains
what songs it can sing
as all I have
bears itself again.

-by the cheese ball Corby herself

When in June

The Rose of Midnight by Vachel Lindsay

THE moon is now an opening flower,
The sky a cliff of blue.
The moon is now a silver rose;
Her pollen is the dew.

Her pollen is the mist that swings
Across her face of dreams:
Her pollen is the April rain,
Filling the April streams.

Her pollen is eternal life,
Endless ambrosial foam.
It feeds the swarming stars and fills
Their hearts with honeycomb.

The earth is but a passion-flower
With blood upon his crown.
And what shall fill his failing veins
And lift his head, bowed down?

This cup of peace, this silver rose
Bending with fairy breath
Shall lift that passion-flower, the earth
A million times from Death!

Sabal Palm

Those perilous climbs were frightening but they were wonderful to me and not like anything I had known before. The fright of the day was still with me in the night and I would often dream that the foot of my bed rose straight up into the air-then just as it was about to fall I would wake up.

-Georgia O'Keeffe -Some Memories of Drawings

sign for Ocelot's because of the stupid border fence idea here

An Anniversary

By Edwin Dickinson

So I spent a good half hour in front of a Dickinson painting this evening. I had seen that it was on display when I was at the gallery with a bunch of students some weeks ago and finally managed to get to really see it tonight. The passing people thought it was strange that someone would stay with a painting for so long. For me it is as if the artist is wrapping himself around me and we are having this deliciously intimate conversation. I can feel him in the manner by which things are done on the canvas. The painting and I dance about when I am so completely engrossed in it. It is hard to explain on a verbal level and I am only stabbing about at it here. So was it really black Dickinson or rather a prussian blue mixed in? I could see it where the sleeve of the dark cloak hit the edge of the hand and a slight lightening happened where the colors unintentionally mixed. Blue indeed, blue where I had thought only umbers and blacks, like liquid walnut. A nice surprise and I began to look elsewhere for it. I loved his willingness to have a wiped off nose, as if it would not ever be right so just the liberty of smearing it out. No nose for you lady. I wondered was it a lack of attention, or the need to not create the hyper detail that was the face of the centered man. Oh, and what pure genius that was, how when I sketched it I could sense how his strokes and the line of this aged face was falling downward. So the line itself within the form and the building of the form held the message aging in its very execution. A liberty of arm that had me convinced that it was effortless. Why was her foot with that sharp heel dangling precariously over that beautiful blue and white pot. How her innocence had a sharp fox like edge, along with her attenuated face and almost unformed hands. I had a time I tell you a time. People like to watch people sketch and interrupt reverie with silly statements. It is a communion I am having and rather private, because if I gave all this reflection to a passerby they would probably fall over. Ah, here I am because I am practically bursting with it.

Dolphin

She rises like the dolphin, with the sea wind in her eyes.
The sunlight casting shadows, like a painter's paradise
Her hair fans out around her, floating like a crown.
She plays on the water, lets it pull her down.

Sometimes she swims in moonlight with the stars high above.
The night sounds of the water speaking soft of love.
Her skin turns to velvet as she feels the waters glide.
She loses all her boundaries on this magic carpet ride.

You see ripples on the water and watch the shadows dance.
Then she's diving down and you're looking through a glass.
Like a one way mirror, her reflection's far below.
Where she was, she isn't now.
That's all you really know.

Kate Wolf

I push the water as I go. My muscles remember the feel of it as I tug myself forward. I watch the time but soon am lost in the rhythm. I breathe in as my head turns out of the water and look at my hands as they go in front of me. They have an odd white halo from the water as they glide making tiny bubble whirlpools. I am determined to push through to swim for at least a half-hour. I am taking care of this body and shaping it. I want to be long, lean and strong. I used to swim three to four times a week. I think as I go pushing everything away and letting all of the stress go. I love the sense of strength it gives me to pull across the pool. The blood pulses through my body and I remember the importance of breath. When I lived in Maine I would swim every morning in a small mountain lake. I was often alone except for the company of a loon who would dive around me and watch me with his red eyes. I can still be there in amongst the foothills of the White Mountains if I close my eyes. I can still feel the small round pebbles under my feet as I walked into the cold water. I would make the jump in and swim for at least an hour under the deep blue sky.

For G and A Over New Mexico

One of the Corbyhawk's paintings. It is about 3feet (wide) by4 feet (tall) in oil

But the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is beyond reach, it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need-if only we had the eyes to see.

Edward Abbey -Desert Solitaire

A Turtle Dad

To my Dad

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

-Josh Groban You Raise Me Up

I am lucky to still have my dad around although the world has tried to steal him from us all. Still he is here and immensely strong.

The department of homeland insecurity and the great American government has put wildlife rehabilitators on notice in Texas near Laredo. Apparently they are bulldozing all of the vegetation by the Rio Grande River at the worst possible time for breeding endangered birds. They are not willing to change the date and well it sucks at any time to do something so completely stupid. Good thing this country has laws that can be bypassed so easily by the current dictatorship, oh what endangered species act? WE are the big bad office of Homeland insecurity. I will feel so much safer with a cleared river and an 8ft border fence. Whoopdy do. Goodbye Ocelots, goodbye mangrove cuckoos, goodbye sabal palms, goodbye freedoms as the fence us all in. Yep, so we can't escape the stupidity. Stupid bastards, of course they cannot wait until election day, got to get it done. Legacy of idiocy.

Green Jays are gorgeous

So, I went in to drop off a print and the gallery director is desperate to fill up the show. This turns out to be a good thing since I say well I do have this piece and it is on my website. So she goes to it on her computer and sees most of my work. She seems to enjoy my paintings and exclaims at various pieces. So tomorrow I have to get something ready to hang and bring it to her.

Then today I got a rejection letter for a show. I was so sure that I was going to get into that I am having the work framed. So I am paying for it for no reason. Ah to be an artist, up then down.

Brown Pelican

No matter how quick, how long his gait is
How supple his torso or how far
He leans away from you at evening

He will come back like a wild brother,
Linked in the syncopations of the light
As stolid theme and impetuous cadenza

Dance to the measure of the one song,
Or as a dream of flight that dares
Not leave its dreamer for long.

From His Steps by Daniel Hoffman

Why I didn't eat the broccoli

"I am the crane you once rescued, "she said. "But now that you know, I may no longer stay here with you." [Gradually the young man's wife turned into a bird]

She ran out the door on her slender crane legs, gave a tiny jump and flew off into the evening sky. As the crane circled higher and higher in the twilight glow, the young man thought he heard a sad call, "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye."

-From The Crane Wife, A Japanese folk-tale

With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, up-ward beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far into life, is-solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves. Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate --?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.

Rainer Maria Rilke -Letters to a Young Poet

Whooping Crane

I wrote this and then changed it since I realized what I need to do. I am going to cultivate an attitude of fearlessness. So I lose everything so what? I am standing on the edge and looking up at the set of stairs. They are daunting but here I go, one leg at a time. I will get there believe me. I am made of some strong stuff. I did sell some work I donated to an art fund raiser and well I sold every work except one. That I think is good since there were 3,000 pieces there and to sell 6 of my 7 is pretty damn good considering many did not sell at all. It is a good sign, people want my work. Now if I could only sell some of the bigger stuff.

Red Knot before a storm

I went out to find a life-bird (a bird I have not yet seen before). It was a trip met with success, but of course a thunderstorm killed the lighting, threatened to drench my camera, and made being the highest thing on a long pier a rather precarious option. So the photos are not exceptional, merely a record. I felt bad for the red knot, it was off-course and seemed to be stressed. He was repeatedly crossing the pier, hopefully getting food I could not see. Red knots are not doing so well in terms of population. Read more here
I did not really get a chance to enjoy the bird, but just felt like I was disturbing an already stressed bird, so I watched him from a distance for a short time and then left. (The impending downpour also rushed me).

What I have been listening to here:
It is a rather funny paradox in my twisted mind, but it is a popular song with the little folks I hang out with, so I heard it several times today. They like to sing along and funkytown is also popular and can incite periodic spurts of dancing at random moments. (It is silly and makes me laugh)

Whether we come, in last imaginings,
To our earliest unremembered dream,
Or at the end it's still discovery,
Always the conquest of a a final shore,

He will be waiting for me there,
As ever second-sighted and first there:
I groping my way in radiant day,
He cleaving midnight quick as flame;

From The Companion by Daniel Hoffman

Onwards

I have decided that my case of the blahs, the mopes, being generally down is in fact a way to disguise fear. I am in fact afraid, I crave change but I am afraid of it at the same time. It is easy to continue on with the disappointments I have grown to expect in my life. Hope is generally avoided as it can lead to immense pain, but it also means that I am not taking the risks I should be. I have grown lethargic and pessimistic which is not my true nature. So easy to fall into the trap of the day to day, the expected routine, the path everyone sees your life heading down. How unexpected to go out and alter that road, which requires more effort then just listing on doesn't it? Of course one cannot see as clearly down that other path, it goes through more diverse terrain, unexpected forests and it sometimes does not seem so clear. It calls me and I will stop wallowing in my beliefs of what I cannot have and actually try to reach for what I want. Isn't it about time I showed some faith in my abilities? I can do this and I believe in it after all, so very much so. The thing is about others who want me to follow their path into oblivion, they cannot stand the idea that there can be something else beyond the routine of empty days. I see it, so hey grab my hand and lets be extraordinary together.

opossums

I found these three baby opossums clinging to their dead mother in the road this morning. Most of their siblings were not so lucky and were crushed on the road. I warmed them up cleaned them off (they were covered in blood) and took them to a wildlife rehabilitator since I am not currently doing rehabilitation. This time of year you should check dead opossums for babies, they often survive the crash.

... And no matter how careful I watch them,
they take new shape,
escaping my concentrations,
they slip and disperse
and extinguish themselves.
They melt before I half unfathom their forms.
Just as fast, a few bones
disconnecting beneath us.
It is too late, I fear, to call these things back.
Not in this language.
Not in this life.

-from Clouds by Louise Erdrich

He saw that to lose everything at the edge of such a glorious eternity is far sweeter than to won by plodding through a cautious, painless, and featureless life. A true survivor isn't someone with nothing to lose. He has everything precious to lose. But at the same time, he's willing to bet it all on himself. And it makes what he has that much richer. Days stolen are always sweeter than days given.

Laurence Gonzales- Deep Survival

A Woe

Larger than the sky
That squats upon the vast horizon
There is a woe

Pressing down
On this house of stone.
It thickens in the air of this room

It is as though
One loved as much-no, more-
Than oneself were trying

To thrust away
With small hands
Stifle of the heavy air

While in the dark
I lie
Pinioned, all my strength

Useless to prize
The weight of heaven
From his eyes.

-Daniel Hoffman

sexy sleeping dunlins

I cleaned my studio and I am breaking out of my rut. I have to stay positive and to do that I am putting my focus on my work. I have much to accomplish and a new painting begins to desire to be born. They call to me when it is time for them and despite the effort they always take I cannot turn away from the call of it. It is like preparing for a journey, you get everything in order, pack up your stuff and set your sights on the open road. It is a trip I always get excited about taking. Where will this one take me? I am hopeful it is a road of joy this time with a dramatic happy ending, Hollywood style.

In the net

Was it only a minute

That you stood there

Over me as I sat

And I could not look up

A song I am listening to here

More Than Once

In this tree are no indications
Of the chosen. Only the shine and black
Where lightning struck, where I lean as if

Some answer has been given, and now my fingers
Move across the mark to learn the site
Where this will never happen again. And yet

This too is wrong; once started, the electric
Easily returns to the carved place. The wound
Wants more wound, until the vein that fire enters

Becomes what cannot hold, what is then destroyed,
Which looks again and again for more weather,
The random dust, the illumination of being

Used, and us trembling at the ruins,
At the remains of one who took on such light.

-Sophie Cabot Black

water

DE PROFUNDIS

by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

H why is heaven built so far,

Oh why is earth set so remote?

I cannot reach the nearest star

That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,

One round monotonous of change;

Yet even she repeats her tune

Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire

Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,

But all my heart is one desire,

And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,

Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;

I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,

And catch at hope.

the graduates

For a moment I will reflect on where I come from a pat on the back to cheer me up since I am melancholy.
6 years ago today-I lived in a house where the walls were falling in with huge areas of water damage and the paint was peeling off of the ceilings. There were giant piles of raccoon feces in the attic that would leach down the walls when it rained heavy. There was no heat in the house so it would be freezing at night and damp. The kitchen had no cupboards and the floor was ripped up linoleum. I did not know how I was going to afford food for dinner or lunch the next day. I lived with someone who threatened to kill me if I ever left and he kept a rifle by the bed every night. I worked at a wildlife center a job which I loved but it had no retirement, no real paycheck (it was paid under the table) and a maniac boss who would constantly berate me. I could not pay my bills or buy anything really. The prospect of the future was bleak as I could not find a good job. I had no health care so I always hoped I would not get sick and when I did I just dealt with it.

I was trained as an artist but always felt lacking since I could not work and had no direction for my work. So I believed that I had to let go of that dream entirely and do something practical.

So wonder no more why I worked so hard to do my best, why I would not complain when I was just beat tired and worked anyway. Why I loved every minute of having the opportunity to earn my MFA and reach to a dream I will never surrender again. I have earned today with a damn lot of hard work and the road to get here was long. When I believe in something I set my sights on it and I do not let go, I walk towards it, sometimes run, sometimes crawl but I get there. So when I walked across that stage today I set my sights on where I need to go from here. Yet celebrate with me because I have completely changed my life in 6 years and will do so again.

For

And you think I will be over you
you who just grasped this pen
....
removed my dears, hope you caught it

-The Printer by the Corbyhawk herself

A young friend asked me what a druid is.
He was very serious and generally a grumpy little guy so I sat next to him and looked him in the eye. Well I said that is a very complicated question. So I went through an in depth description of historical vs. mythical ideas on what a druid is. He asked me if druids could do magic? I said they used to believe that druids could control the weather, in some myths. Well he said if we happen to find a druid we will have to see if he can make it rain on a very sunny day, no clouds and then we will know for sure. I agreed with him that was a good plan.

Hear me life,
I refuse to not live you
I refuse to let this sorrow make me not feel
I will feel the beauty of things
I will love with intensity
and not be afraid of losing
I will not hide my face away
in fear of breaking
when life asks me to step up I will
I will step up
I will not let fear rule me
I will not let other people's fear rule me
I will look you in the eye
I will live and see beauty
I will laugh anyway

I held them tight for a moment when they came to school late today after the big fire at their home. I am so glad you are ok I said and then walked down the hall in tears. They were alive and I was so grateful. Still such sadness today, as one of my students died in a fire. He was only 17 years old. I had him last year in my class. Tomorrow there will be more tears and I am just horribly angry tonight. Enough, damn it enough already.

Flowers for A

Come said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the universal.

In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed of perfection.

By every life a share or more or less,
None born but it is born, conceal'd or unconceal'd the seed
is waiting.

Whalt Whitman Birds of Passage from Leaves of Grass

Spectacled Owl

I have been so incredibly busy and I am sort of nursing some kind of cold. I was in the studio from about 8:30-5:30 and I did not get much accomplished. One of those spinning your wheels kind of days, the kind of day where you make many small mistakes. These leading to major frustrations later on. Life has been a ride lately, up and then down again. I have so very much to do in a short time and by this time next week everything will be different again. I am determined to stay in a holding pattern and just go with the flow. I love working on my art, even on bad days. I never seem to want to leave the studio, even when I have not eaten for hours. I will miss that big print studio, it is one of my favorite places to be.

I have had an almost magic day, almost in most ways it was good.
An artist asked me to pose for a portrait class he is teaching, he was almost awkward when he asked and I surprised my self by saying yes. Yes I would, clothing on of course but sure, why the hell not. To get looked upon, gazed upon today by him as if he had discovered something felt so damn good. I held my head up, yeah I am. Then later I had a great conversation with some new friends that went into the evening. Out of the box for a moment, I got out and could tenativley spread out my wings a bit, the ones I normally hide behind me. The ones I do not normally claim possession of, oh those lets carry on shall we. Droll droll droll. Not tonight I did not have to play dumb-nope. GOD it was great. My friend wondered if I had colored contacts in, my eyes were so blue today. Nope its a magic day and I am gaining my strength to shine. I am plain sick of all this darkness about.

How am I?
Surprisingly I am doing ok, yeah lots of crap lately. Big and serious stuff, along with the just generally annoying (my car's engine light is on, it is only 3 years old grrrrr) So I dig deep and tuck in and go on. That is it in a nutshell. Am I disappointed, yes terribly. Am I sad, sure who wouldn't be, do I feel like giving up, yeah I do. I might, just can't place too much hope on a maybe. Nothing is clear on this end of things. So I work, it keeps me sane. On that note, I am off to work now. Be well...

Egret

Saying this is like speaking to the wind
as if it will carry my voice to your ear
its hush as I say your name
and still I dream it
still I wake to voice you
to say those words
however wide the worlds
that breath blows in
as it travels across
rocks, ocean, wide plains of grass
your name echoed
a thousand times
in leaves of wheat
in the sinking whoosh
of the sunset
hear me voice you
calling out
calling you home
all the world stops
what reaches my waiting
but the sound of my own name.

-kaw kaw Corbyhawk

Mom Falcon

Just in time for mother's day-check out a falcon camera and watch mom with her five eyases (babies in falcon speak) right here!

White

You were my death:
you could be held,
when everything else fell.

-Celan

I swallowed the past
I am tired of not feeling beautiful
I am tired of being ignored
I am tired of not being seen
I said it and the air hung empty

A hand moves, and the fire's whirling takes different shapes,
Triangles, squares: all things change when we do.
The first word,"Ah," blossomed into all others.
Each of them is true.

-From Rilke Singing Images of Fire

A cool program on the origins of flowers, I saw the other night has an interesting website here

In my dream it is always May
and we fall together
on the backs of wildflowers
that wave their faces above us
I find your mouth
and move under your body
In my dreams I am flawless
and you know of my desire
matching it
an oriole calls with a clear melody
the day stays at dusk unending
In my dream you are always May
your eyes as I have greeted
you a hundred times
I do not forget
there is no leaving here
In my dream you are mine
for this sweet moment
our lives cross and it is endless
nothing holds you away
a woodpecker drums my pulse
as it races under your lips
there is no winter here
no advancing summer
In my dreams I am always May
keeper of birds, holder of your true heart
eternal giving
the warm earth itself that opens for you
and bears you renewed
In my dream there is no goodbye
look look here
there are no secrets
I have given you every map
but still you do not come forward
In my dream I do not dream alone
there is no reason
there is no chain to keep me from saying it
out to you-to air -to anyone
in my dream you hear me and echo my longing
but the heart will eventually catch up to the head
the naive heart-the lost seeker
that finds the edges of logic
and bumps off bleeding
how cheerlessly the mind demands
the heart to reconsider
how the heart begs the mind
for mercy for more hope
as it sinks
still believing this one will return
even as the day is ending
that bird calls again and leaves at dusk
the heart calls after it
see, see,
he made this poem.

-by the Corbyhawk herself (this one probably could use some edits and it is slightly over the top but what the hell, here it is)

Kites in a pairing display

Our eyes move between us, string of
Each end held by the other, taut, quivering.


-Sophie Cabot Black