Saturday, November 21, 2009

watercoloring

A month ago or so I started taking a watercolor class at the local Art Center, mainly so I can discipline myself to take at least some time each week for getting back into an art mode. The teacher's style is completely different from what I learned/did in college (about a thousand years ago) so I am having to stretch myself right out of my own box. It feels good and a little weird at the same time. I'm experimenting more than maybe I ever did, which is a good thing. So anyway here are two of my favorite watercolor paintings so far.

The inspiration for this one is from a photograph I took one day several years ago when I was driving home from work. The clouds were awesome and I loved the colors in the layers of the hills.



This one is a still life that I basically copied from a picture that I found in a Sunset magazine.


I left out all the background and tried to mess around with the greens and reds in the leaves. This is also an experiment in using a lighter hand, since I have a tendency to overdo. I think I like it. :-)
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Friday, July 03, 2009

nostalgia


Recently I spent a great deal of time scanning a whole box full of my mother's old pictures. This started because I needed a certain picture of my grandmother for a book of poetry I was putting together for a family gift, and turned into one of those mushrooming projects that, of course, is still not finished because now I am looking at scanning all my children's baby pictures plus other random pictures laying around in baskets, boxes, and albums. Anyway, in the process of going through my mom's collection, sorting through pictures of grandparents, great-grandparents, various cousins, aunts, uncles, and family friends I could almost barely remember, I found this picture of me which 1. I did not know existed, and 2. I just love! I seem to have one of those "can't you just leave me and my cat alone and put that camera away?" looks, and I must note that I still have those eyebrows today. And I wonder just how long the cat put up with hanging there in my arms before it rebelled. In reality, I have no memory of this cat or any other childhood cat, a lack for which I am making up today. Still, this cat must belong to someone, or I know it wouldn't allow itself to be subjected to this sort of handling. :-)
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Sunday, May 17, 2009

poem a day: 25 through 30

I made it all the way through the Poem a Day Challenge in April, although I did have to make up a few days that I missed. These are the last six poems with their respective prompts. No pictures this time, just words:

April 30: farewell poem

Farewell

Don’t placate me with
fond farewells and promises
to be friends. When you
walk away it will be for good.
There’s no mistake. Someday
when I ask for a moment
we’ll see what kind
of promise you can keep.


April 29: Never _____

Never

Dangerous finality of thought
this nevering, this stomping of feet
this gnashing of teeth

over the silliest of things. Eating
broccoli or brussels sprouts or
making nice with relatives

who long-ago did something so horrid
so insulting you don’t even
remember what it was anymore

only that it was their fault. Never
is the black and white of those
who refuse to accept a life in color.


April 28: sestina

Defiant,
I refuse
to write
a sestina
today
or tomorrow.

Tomorrow,
defiant
like today,
I will refuse
a sestina
to write.

Writing
tomorrow,
a sestina
in defiance
I’ll refuse
just like today.

Today
I’ll not write
I’ll refuse
again tomorrow
in defiance
to write this sestina.

A sestina?
Today?
(defiantly)
I cannot write!
Nor tomorrow!
I’ll still refuse!

This refusal
to write a sestina
tomorrow
or today --
a sestina to write --
I can only defy.

In defiance I refuse
to write any sestina
today or tomorrow.


April 27: a poem of longing

Longing

With no wish to travel to exotic places,
to win the lottery, to drive a fancy car,
I can stand at my own deck railing
or the edge of the sea, and wish
for just a little more time.


April 26: miscommunication/misinterpretation

Lapse of Clarity

A choice is made,
life-changing, permanent,
the result of an off-the-cuff comment
misunderstood in a moment
of confusion. It is a pivotal decision
to walk away, to choose
the inevitable.


April 25: poem about an event

Gold Nugget Days

Hard to imagine the hauling
of a fifty-four pound gold nugget
up a steep mountain
on the back of a donkey
to a northern California
cul-de-sac mining camp
called Dogwood. Hard to imagine
this glittering rock was plucked
from the side of Sawmill Peak
a full ten years after the beginning
of the California Gold Rush.

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Sunday, April 26, 2009

poem a day: 13 through 24

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The "Poem a Day Challenge" marches on. I've had to play catch up on the Poetic Asides website as well as here. The prompts have not always been instant grabbers for me, but mostly I've been doing other things. But here's a group, with the prompts, in backward order:

April 24: a travel-related poem

Some days
the farthest I go
is to the mailbox and back.

The mailbox being
at the end of the driveway.

Which is about thirty feet long.

Which some days is just far enough,
thank you very much.




April 23: a poem of regret

For Nancy Jenks



We did not visit you
after surgery, knew
there would be plenty of time
when you came home.
We went about our ordinary days,
shopping for bargains
stopping for lattes
getting books from the library.
We’d ask friends,
“How’s Nancy doing?”
and they would say they thought
you were coming along
that your hip was mending
that you’d be healed soon.
“We should visit her.” we’d say,
but we were so busy.
Who could have imagined
a common hip surgery would lead
to our writing an obituary
for the local paper.


April 22: a work-related poem

Kindergarten Teachers

Day after day
they sing the morning song.
count heads, count blocks,
count lunches,
make calendar patterns,
sort blocks, hand out snacks,
tie shoes, zip up zippers,
show child after child
a good way to hold scissors,
hold a pencil, hold on a minute.
They read six books a day,
spread out nap mats.
pick them up fifteen minutes later.
They invent songs, read poetry,
teach the alphabet, manners,
how to flush the toilet.
Kindergarten teachers
do not work. They just
play with children
day after day.


April 21: a haiku

Kindergarten class
a garden for children
or so they say.


April 20: poem of rebirth

Rebirth

When I return
I plan to be water,
to be level, to flow
wherever there is
open space, settle
into the cracks in rocks,
flow easily into dark caves.


April 19: angry poem

I’ve no use for anger
for slamming doors
for cold shoulders,
for strung out grudges.
My time is better spent
with glasses half-full.


April 18: interaction

Feline stands at the base
of a tall Ponderosa Pine.
She is a statue,
frozen, her head
tilted back, her eyes fixed.
She doesn’t so much
as blink.

Squirrel perches on the trunk
faces down, twenty feet up.
He is equally still,
locked in eye contact.
His tail twitches
only slightly.


April 17: All I Want Is...

All I Want

To relive
that one moment

More than a daydream
played
replayed
with no new end.

A chance to know
what might have been
if only

I had stayed
one moment more.

 
April 16: write about a color

Green

It sprays across the hills
in early spring. Pinpoints
on dogwood still half asleep,
wave upon wave of grassy slope
and humble weedstrewn yard,
a pointillist display on
branches of black oak.


April 15: change the title of a well-known poem

The Brownie Not Taken

Two brownies sat upon a plate;
one got left, and one got ate.

 
April 14: a love poem or an anti-love poem
I wrote one of each :-)

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I hate love poems.
How about you?

**************

Sixty years of marriage.
She still makes his lunch,
he still makes her coffee.
It must be love.


April 13: poem about a hobby

Free Bookmarks

It started as a practicality:
free bookmarks picked up
from cashier counters
in book stores and libraries.
They would arrive in the mail
with every order from amazon,
or be tucked into books loaned
by friends or bought at book sales.
They began to appear in other places:
on restaurant counters, at the gym,
at real estate offices, conventions,
there for the taking, the advertising.
I have hundreds now, sorted by size
and find myself choosing
just the appropriate one
for every book I read.
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Sunday, April 12, 2009

poem a day: 12

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April 12: a poem that begins with "So we decided to..."



So we decided

to get another cat
because she was sleek black
because she purred when noticed
because she was hungry, abandoned
and because five isn’t really too many.
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Saturday, April 11, 2009

poem a day: 9 through 11

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April 11: poem about an object

The Rock at the Bottom of My Purse

The way it sits in the palm of my hand
smooth-polished by some unknown
water source, tumbled by river or ocean
to become this talisman, this totem,
this reminder to be patient. The way
it falls accidently into my fingers
when I search for lipgloss or a pen
keeps me mindful of small miracles.


April 10: poem about Friday

Unemployed

The days of the week are of no consequence.
Friday, Wednesday, Monday all the same to me.

What day is this? I ask. You say it’s Sunday.
Ah! No work today!


April 9: a memory

One stolen night
twenty years ago:
rain on the windshield
Tito Puente on the radio
3 am patty melt at Denny’s.
Conjured up at will
it sustains an idea:
Love on the run.
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Wednesday, April 08, 2009

poem a day: 1 through 8

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The "Poem a Day" challenge is on for the month of April, and like last year I intend to make it through the month and post my daily poems here, along with the prompts. So here are the first eight, in reverse order, with a couple of pictures thrown in:

April 8: poem about a routine

Feeding the Cats

Once it was easy:
keep the kibble bowls full.
That was before the onset
of Buddy’s diabetes.

Now five gather at 6 am,
arrange themselves near empty bowls
before my morning coffee.
I dole out kibble in quarter cups
because the diabetic one must eat
only high-protein food, which costs
more than a pair of sneakers.

Used to grazing,
they eat like they’ve been fasting for weeks
as though kibble might disappear
from the universe two minutes hence.

Except for the one
who takes three bites and goes outside
while the rest clean their bowls, then returns
ready to eat now, thank you,
and the one who will not eat
while being watched
by those whose bowls are empty
who are ready to do clean up
the minute she walks away.


April 7: clean or dirty poem

My mother always said
if you make the bed and wash the dishes
people will think your house is clean.

I can go one better:
if you leave the vacuum near the front door
people will think you are planning to clean.


April 6: poem about something lost

Sock

It seems absurd to hang on to one
lone sock when its mate is lost.
In the odd chance it's stuck
to some item of clothing
unworn for the last two years,
I keep it folded neatly in a corner
among mated pairs.


April 5: poem about a landmark

Golden Gate Bridge

From 19th Avenue, somewhere
in the middle of the alphabetical streets,
I can see the tips of the towers
rise above the fog;
red-orange rectangles beckon me
to come closer.

Just before the Marina turnoff,
looking at Marin across the Golden Gate,
it is not possible to forget about
the men who died during construction, or
to ignore the wild swinging of the roadway
in slow-motion documentaries.

I drive onto the span
guide my car to the middle lane
and take in every detail:
art-deco towers, waist-thick cables,
a gap between road and sidewalk
through which a young child can slip
if she falls just so.


April 4: a poem about an animal


Mollie

Half Pit bull, half Shar Pei,
she channels gazelles and kangaroos
leaps from sofa to chair to sofa
over humans watching television.
She fetches as long as they are willing
slides down hallways at breakneck speed
returns and drops her spit-covered ball
on the closest lap, stares with wrinkled brow
and one cocked ear proclaiming cuteness
to keep her humans engaged.
She is totally on or totally off,
doesn't stop her breakneck speed
until she drops, exhausted,
on her Ikea doggie bed.


April 3 - “the problem with .____ “

The Problem With Socks

They don't make them the way they used to
the heels sag or slip
or creep out the back of my shoe
but it is the bump
over the fourth toe on my right foot
the one that doesn't make itself known
until I am halfway to work
that overshadows every moment of the day
permeates every vital or idle thought
and makes me wonder why
if we can put a man on the moon
somebody can't make a sock
without bumps over the toes.


April 2 - an outsider poem

Outsider

She walks into her Kindergarten classroom
on the first day of school, slightly reticent
but willing to give it a try.

She likes to watch before doing,
doesn't like to be forced, digs her heels in
when asked to stand to salute the flag,
would rather sit on the rug
while nineteen other children sing
the alphabet song.

She is quickly recognized, a square peg
unfitting for this round hole. She daydreams
while others trace their names,
hums while drawing rainbows in her workbook.


April 1 - an origin poem

Unknown Origins

Where do they come from,
these black widow spiders
who weave their Jackson Pollock webs

on fence post corners, under the deck
and in the basket next to the television
where cats like to sleep?

How do they survive winter snow
and blistering summer heat, when
the exterminator comes every month

when we smash the egg sacs
with trowels, with shovels,
and pressure wash every dark corner?

They are like the cockroaches
we are told will survive nuclear war.
Where do they come from?
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Sunday, January 25, 2009

pine tree down

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We seem to be tree-challenged.

During the last snowstorm, in the middle of the night, this tree snapped clean in half.

This is the fifth tree we've lost in three years.