Snowflakes

                                                                           

Snowflakes fall

covering

a black table

People walk past

fast

missing 

the cluster 

of crystals

shooting wonder 

into my veins

better than 

a caffeine hit in

the latte I came for

frozen ornaments

of falling grace

heap up 

in front of me

absorbing the bruised

blackness with

white light 

they land silent

delicate

frozen still

on my shoulders

others 

cling to my hair

kiss my face

whisper in my 

lashes

I 

see 

and 

love 

what 

I 

see

He likes it too 

that

I 

do

Time for Tom Waits

Every year at this time, this seasonal between time, I spin Tom Waits' song around and around in my head. You Can Never Hold Back Spring is reassuring me again. 

I was messing around trying to refine my skills at hand lettering today. Using thick, cold pressed, high quality water color paper, good ink, and a fine nibbed dip pen, I spent the afternoon making swirls. Trying to make them graceful and uniform was the point. It was practicing with a purpose for a project page. 

More than halfway through, the nib let loose a few blobs. I tried to blot them - unsuccessfully - away. Then my hand accidently rubbed across a still wet letter. Discouraged, I proceeded to finish what I had set out to do. I had wanted to make something pretty, but the results were already disappointing. 

As I filled in delicate spots with water color, it overflowed the outlines. Wait, messy wasn't supposed to happen this thoroughly!

Life is messy. I smudged up the rest of the letters to match. Now they are all uniformly messy. Mud always happens, in the spring that always happens. 

We were longing for it, weren't we? Get out your muck boots, friends. Hip waders for some of you. Wade through it. Get to the other side. There is another perspective. It looks pretty - from a distance.  

  

Slip Details

Eight rows tucked close 

decorating an invisible 

 basic undergarment - 

a slip - artfully trimmed.

Hand embroidered eyelet

by the yard around the bottom

part which drug hard in 

the mud and dirt? 

A skirt held up timely

gave a tantalizing glimpse

of shapely ankles - dangerous

to behold - feminine unmentionables.

A bustle in back gave her rump

                                                          a large lump.  

Deformed by tight corsets

her waist measured 

 slightly bigger than a 

CD

How could she breath 

or dance or run?

Hence vile smelling salts. 

Recently, I found this slip from the turn of the century at a thrift store for $2.50. It should be in a museum, but seemed unwanted. An orphan, waiting to be adopted. I obliged - gladly. The details always take my breath away. Every time.  They made their usable things beautiful and used their beautiful things until they wore completely out. Then they altered them. Repurposed them. iLike that. 

Lacy Bones

Lacy leavings left behind 

skeleton of winter 

soon erased by

spring 

Healing Pages

Lately, art journaling has been taking me by surprise, taking my breath away. iLove words. iLove art. Coupled, they send me. Once the page is prepped with layers and textures, feelings and thoughts seem to glue themselves down as if they find themselves, lost no more.  Mod Podge is truly Soul Glue like they say. This might be too raw and nekkid. Dim the lights and grace me? 

Doing It

I'm rereading Eugene Peterson's Practice Resurrection, a title he borrowed from Wendell Berry's Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. 

"....the subject is 'growing up.' In dealing with something so critical and personal, so full of consequences for all of us, here is a surprise. This...places us in a cosmos in which God starts everything. Everything. There is not a single verb commanding us to do something, not so much as a hint or suggestion that we are to do anything at all. No requirements, no laws, no chores, no assignments, no lessons. We are born into a cosmos in which all the requirements and conditions for growing up are not only in place but in action."  

I couldn't go to sleep tonight, so grabbed the camera to find the bulbs popping up in our yard. Daffodils, crocuses, and specimen tulips are all practicing resurrection - in the midst of a dark, cold, wet winter's night.

They just do it. So also will I.