Despite everything

the amphibian inside us

Because it's summer.  Because the air is heavy with heat and nostalgia.

Because this is what we have to keep remembering, the way our bodies

know the waves, the amphibian inside us unafraid of going under,

of what ripples beneath the surface.  Because waiting on the dock

for the signal to jump is like thinking someone else is responsible.  Because

there is no one else responsible.  Because despite the current,

it is possible to swim against it, or even stand, inverted, balancing

on a slippery mulch of murk and mud, and stay perfectly still.

Because when the world tips from view, we have to do everything we can

to tip it back.

~ Maya Stein

:  :  :

from Maya Stein's "10-Line Tuesday" poetry series

... the backlog can be enjoyed  here

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So much

There is so much to share, so much I want to tell you

about my recent travels in Scotland ...

about another wonder-filled masterclass at Big Cat Textiles,

tutored by India Flint to a roomful of generous hearted, spirit seeking women ...

about wanders into the wild Scottish landscape

botanizing all along the way ...

but

I'm not one to summarize quickly.

I need time

to let everything percolate,

time to allow the experience to sink into my bones.

~ Sunset light at low tide, River Tay, Newburgh, Fife ~

So for now I will leave you with a splendid poem from Maya Stein today,

one that captures quite beautifully

some of my feelings spending time along this river again.

Please enjoy.

And I'll be back before too long.

: : :

with summer still in their eyes

The sun was setting earlier than yesterday, and the cows

were uneventful.  The road would bring no more traffic

that evening.  Fifteen miles away, a town rested its tired arms.

The travelers were tired, too.  They cobbled dinner together

from the findings in a country store - iceberg lettuce, baked potatoes,

a wedge of local cheese - then slunk outdoors to catch the final light.

They each felt a scratch at their backs, a new season tapping its nails

against their thin shirts.  They knew this moment couldn't last.

And yet, with summer still in their eyes, they waited until the final rays

disappeared behind the mountains, until the stars arrived, like answers.

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Unimpeded

Thought it might be fitting to wind down this year of posts

with some thought-provoking verse from Maya Stein.  I've borrowed one of her words

for the title of this one.   "a dream" appeared in this morning's mail with perfect timing,

as her poetry so often does, and not only includes a reference to potholes, but arrived

exactly when I am ripe for the reading.

Unimpeded

yes, this will be a fine word to hold onto for the new year ... a heady reminder

that most blockades I feel are actually the ones I've put up myself.

First though, I owe you kind folks a debt of gratitude for your extremely helpful comments

on my last post about a Sweetpea Path makeover.  You've given me much to consider

and I'm so glad I asked!  It's been very  very  enlightening

and heartwarming

to receive your feedback, both on the blog and via private emails.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do that.

My 'idea hat' is now filled to the brim.

~ Mt. Baker view, while riding the ferry across the Salish sea ~

... so without further ado

a dream

For a moment, it all disappeared: the potholes tripping up your stride,

the broken love story, the difficult decision, the rigor of worry about things

you know you can't possibly fix.  Suddenly, some vacuum sucked it all inside

and you leaned back, unimpeded, innocent, casual with your gaze, the stings

of your life returned to their nascent nettles.  For a moment, you were able

to neutralize your place in the world, find fresh buoyancy in the waves.

For a moment, you saw, even, the geometry of loss, each cradle

that holds our grief so steady, each heartbeat threading through the maze.

But this was no sunny island reverie, some implausible and pointless dream.

It was you, remembering where you've always been.

~ Maya Stein

: : :

from "10-Line Tuesday" poetry series

... a backlog can be viewed   here

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Branches

just some serendipity this morn between

tree photos from the editing lightbox

and penetrating verse found in the inbox ...

chess anyone?

I'm imagining someone bent over a fresh board, poised for footsteps.  Despite

an early winter draft snaking upstairs, despite the almost-dinner hour and the too-small

likelihood of a passerby plucky enough to take the plunge, they are listening and patient,

ready for any stranger who might sit down. Such sturdy optimism. The invitation of it all.

I wonder if, at the heart of it, we forget to say exactly what we're looking for, anxious

that the details will cloister and confine, keep us from the thing we want.  The sign I read, 

narrowed as it was, stood beside an open door, and no matter what was next, there was,

at least, the certain knowledge it would include the pieces for a game to be played.

What little flag could I hold out?  What batch of words would say it best?

What would I ask if asking were the only branch I'd need to build my nest?

~ Maya Stein

: : :

"10-Line Tuesday" poetry

by Maya Stein ... a backlog can be viewed   here

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Speaking

what there aren't words for yet

What those hummingbirds in your chest whisper when you tell

your first lie. The toothy rumble of the lions that scare

your lungs into giving up. The edges of a leap - half-murmur, half-yell -

that steer your feet away. The guffaw from the shadows tempting you to ignore

your own magnificence. The boisterous roosters pecking holes in your plans. The tire

tracks cajoling you to stay on course. How we search for a plain sentence

to fill the cracks of heartache, for language to pull us, like a ladder,

out of each dark and muddled well. We think thunder is a metaphor. Or the fence

dividing one yard from the next, its own instruction. But the story's yours, you know.

There is no better way to say it. Make the words up as you go.

~ Maya Stein

  from her 10-Line Tuesday series

: : :

stitch, shibori, indigo, photography

Some means of expression

but only a small portion of the longer story unfolding.

Is there any better way

than to make it up as we go along?

I mean, really ... is there.

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Towards another edge ...

how to dive in

Be afraid. Tremble at the thought. Sleep poorly. Eat potato chips in

nervous succession.  Get angry when you least expected it. Feel

impatient at small talk, how much it delays and distracts. Yearn

for silence, that necessary blank canvas. Take note of the way clouds steal

across the sky, shaping themselves into the faces of celebrities, or a rabbit.

Find yourself, unexpectedly, advancing toward an edge, electric and unsure.

Notice the texture of the ground under your feet - loose pebbles, hot granite.

See what you do when no one's watching, how you lean in, how you want more,

aching for that first kiss of wind on your face, that smile of sun, beaming.

Catch your breath, close your eyes, then remember: you're not dreaming.

Maya Stein

~ from the 10-line Tuesday series

: : :

It's not the first time one of Maya's poems has arrived in my Tuesday box

somehow being so perfectly tuned

to here and now.

For you see, I'm heading out on a wee adventure shortly

to another edge,

or two,

some 4,450 miles from home ...

and I am feeling all these things Maya speaks of

[although I may have to admit to French fries over potato chips].

Shall be quiet here for a little while

but surely I'll have some tales to tell when I return.

The happiest of summers to each of you ...

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New

what's to come

Say, for a moment, you gave yourself the luxury of floating your mind's

eye to the next chapter or your story. I know, you are still thick in the present tense,

married - for richer or poorer - to these pages. Or else you were told that what matters

is the now you're standing in, and you're a fool to take a stab before the hows and whens

announce themselves. But today, suspend the disbelief of your own wizardry. Imagine

words like roots not yet been planted, the sentences noodle and pliant.

Picture yourself in that ungardened garden,

the soil dark and porous, that loamy scent of what's to come not a defiant

question mark to shrink from but a light to lean against. How the tint and shade

begins to shape this vague new world your heart's already made.

~ Maya Stein

[... her last 10-line poem of 2013]

: : :

Thank you for all your visits here ...

It's been grand.

Let's celebrate new chapters 

 and the many ways we may "write" them next.

I like that idea of suspending disbelief in our own wizardry ... 

more of that, I'd say!

And that littlest seedling in the middle of the photo?

Grew just as tall and produced just as many beans

as all its companions.

No matter, really, if it appears we're lagging behind.

Everything 

and all of us

in our own good time.

Happy  new ~ a toast to you all on this very fine eve!

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Texture Tuesday ... being clear

clear in our need

She never questioned her hankering for oranges, never

wondered why something in her palate or the deeper request

of her belly insisted on that handful of tart-sweet wedges.  The body is clever,

hearing so precisely its own call we don't stop to contemplate, What is this thirst?

No, we make a beeline for the fridge, find fruit, slice it open.  And yet,

this long pause before the other longings, as if these were any more

complex, as if the wild heart of our hunger couldn't possibly be met.

Isn't it enough to be clear in our need?  What else is there to know before

we reach our hand in?  What better invitation than the cells stirring from their bed,

shrugging from an old slumber, wanting, simply, to be fed?

Maya Stein

: : :

This poem from Maya Stein is one from her  10-Line Tuesday  series,

a weekly poetry practice she started in 2005 ...

there's a beautiful backlog of them  HERE.

I often like to combine her prose with one of my pictures

and link up with Kim Klassen's  'Texture Tuesday'  set ...

texture lovers may want to have a peek  OVER THERE.

: : :

Photo recipe:

Shot with an iPhone through the jeep windshield

Dynamic Light app

Snapseed app

Romantic Photo app

Kim Klassen's texture,  framed

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Texture Tuesday ... storm

For those of us who are not there

we watch the news,

we listen.

We try not to worry ... too much.

Many will write about this one in the days to come.

There will be expressions of this event that go far beyond what I am capable of here ...

why, the mere thought of all the animals

and my throat closes.

I have a very hard time thinking about them, their helplessness.

Where will they go ... how will they manage.

Like a gift, 

Maya Stein's poem, her weekly offering for 10-Line Tuesday,  arrived in my mailbox filled with balm.

: : :

the geese in the mudhole

We drove by them yesterday, three hours before the storm made landfall.

They were bobbing in a lopsided circle in the shallow water, like teens

at a square dance waiting for instructions. In the car, sleeping bags, flashlights,

and a mounting urgency to find elusive safety. The trees looked reckless,

power lines dripping and swaying like my uncle's heart rate the week

before he died. Two days ago, I watched a woman feed them from a bag

of ripped-up bread, and thought about the nuisance they were, mucking the park

with their wattle and filth. Now, I envy their animal certainty, this buoyant grace

that shrinks from me each passing hour as I bend a nervous ear to the news,

while they lilt and flutter with each wave, admiring the views.

: : :

Thank you to Kim Klassen for her texture, sonnet magic,

which I applied over an iPhone shot & altered with apps.

To view more images from the group, they're HERE.

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Texture Tuesday...sometimes, storm is the only way

thunderstorming

Call me lazy.  Call me predictable and cliche and overused.

Bypass these lines if your currency is nuance, if what moves you

are the minimalist gestures, if the threads of the crosshatch seams in the couch

are geographies you'd prefer for your treasure.  I can't help it.

That splinter of sky, that divisive, decisive crack, fractured something loose,

broke and birthed it all at once.  Sometimes, change is a jagged-toothed animal,

tearing the "was" out so fast my head spins, and I watch, almost drunk,

from the window as the whole earth luminesces, shaking a raw hunger

out of my bones.  Sometimes, storm is the only way to stillness, the great shaking.

How the feral animals run for home.  How even the trees bow down.

by Maya Stein

: : : :

Reprinted with kind permission from Maya Stein, who has been writing these treats

for the senses each week...a series she calls, 10-line Tuesday...

again, I thank her for the inspiration that prompted today's image.

Please do read more from her collection over here...

and her blog, one paragraph at a time, is about just that...

"looking at life one paragraph at a time."

: : : :

Linking up this week for another Texture Tuesday over at Kim's place.

Our challenge?  The "posie edition"...

check out the flower floozie awesomeness going on over THERE....

so much inspiration!

Techie mumbo-jumbo:

Shot with my DSLR, cropped & tweaked in iPhoto, then taken into FX Photo Studio Pro

where I added a Socorro effect; next into PSE, added 2 layers of Kim's texture, abstract,

soft light @ 80% + screen @ 15%

a wee bit of minor erasing & sharpening,

re-cropped,

added copyright.

Till next time, my friends...

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