As the Sun Sets

“Insects are born from the sun. They are the sun’s kisses”
-Alexander Scriabin,

on his 10th sonata, known as the “Sonata of Insects”

When the great sun sinks
low into the Josephinal fields, where
sticker-weed tears the feet
and Johnson Grass stands like hunkered
drunks, full of that green, sticky
alcohol, the summer insects
sing the last call. All Insects are born

from the sun. They are the sun’s
kisses, calling back to her with trilled
cadences— lamenting her decent.
And when she lowers herself,
Steadily down into her western bed,
They dance among the great-boozed grasses,
Rubbing legs and eyes for her return.

________________________________

Today's song's are: Scriabin's 10th Sonata, and Julie Lee's "Will There Really be a Morning", adapted from the following Dickinson poem.

-

Will there really be a "Morning"?

Is there such a thing as "Day"?

Could I see it from the mountains

If I were as tall as they?

-

Has it feet like Water lilies?

Has it feathers like a Bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I have never heard?

-

Oh some Scholar!

Oh some Sailor!

Oh some Wise Men from the skies!

Please to tell a little Pilgrim

Where the place called "Morning" lies!

_____________________________________________________

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFn6202nrqk

Wordage, Adage, Blurbage

I have been having a lot of trouble with spelling lately, which never happens. I attribute this to one of the following hypotheses:

1. A lack of sleep over the last two and a half to three weeks is finally catching up to me.

2. I have a case of early-onset Alzheimer's. This is too terrible to contemplate and nothing to joke about. It's probably least likely, anyway.

3. I am slowly succumbing to Bob Pennebaker's desire for mankind to function solely in the right brain.

Hmmm. Here's to coffee, drawing, and spell checks.

____________________________________

Of late, my friend and I have been enjoying "song of the day", which usually turns into at least three songs of the day. Today, it did just that. I think I might start including lists once a week. Here are today's:

From the Musical Taste of James "Sharpeshooter" Sharpe, and which I have yet to listen to:

-"Thank You my Twilight", The Pillows
-"Greenbird", The Seatbelts

And, for good measure, my choice of the day:

-"Primitive Man", Fruitbats

____________________________________

And now, the part where I list some words. Good ones.

*elutriate-[ih loo tree eyt] v. to purify by washing, straining, or decanting.
*facile-[fa sil] adj. moving, working, proceeding with ease; affable, agreeable, mannerly
*milchig-[mil khig] adj. a dietary law of Judaism; consisting of, made from, or used only for milk or dairy products.
_____________________________________

On random things:

1. Magnetic words...

are amazing. I am doing project 365 with my friend, Natalie. She's making a different guitar pick shaped cut out every day, and I am making five new magnetic words each day, which I hope will continue until I am able to construct a wall of words for my house or our potential coffee shop, ect.

Here are some phrases that I've put together from the ones which already exist.

-The rubber pavement grew enough clover to actually merit seclusion.
-Maybe they won't hand you my creative being...just my marbles.
-Cover the grass with shrink-wrap.
-These things become like bone-marrow * stimulating me to life.
-Hundreds of planetary heads read puns.
-Your baggy halogen eyes filled the street a brilliant white
-The tenuous green one despises beautiful shoes.
-She's standing at an increasingly excruciating and otherwise entirely disappointing distance.
-Even the manliest mustached human softly maintains a thunderous heart.

2. Glue Sticks...

are ever helpful. Right now, I'm sporting a Scholastic Stick, made by the publishing company. Nice.

3. Eric Clapton...

makes me weep. "Unplugged Blues". Listen to it.

4. Veranda Magazine...

is wonderful for chopping up and interesting to look at; has impossibly decorated houses that I can't imagine being comfortable living in.

5. My brother...

manages to amaze me every time there is a science fair. How does he keep winning? How?

6. Sharon Olds' Strike Sparks...

Olds writes beautifully. In this book of selected poetry from 1980 to 2002, she delivers strong vignettes of her life. She pulls me through her poems effortlessly with her images. I love that she writes about herself and her family. Her poems are individual, delicate autobiographies. Be warned, she writes a great deal about her sexual escapades. I recommend "Looking at them Asleep" and "Rite of Passage"...

7. Babies...

are being born like crazy right now. I want one. Or seven.

8. Ferns...

come in five main varieties. ( 1. tender 2. semitender 3. semihardy 4. hardy 5. very hardy)
The difference is that the tenderest need a nighttime temperature of no less than 65 degrees and the very hardy can withstand minus 25 degree temperatures. The others are somewhere between. I love horticulturists. ah.

9. Men's Soap...

smells better.

Ramblings and Utterances

I find myself tripping along in front, hand on a chipping banister, up eighteen stairs to a landing and a door facer— “David” scrawled erratically in pencil on a lower panel—the second “d” backwards, making his name appear to be “Davib”. And there he is, a child, tight-knit cotton pants (red) and a white tee shirt, scrutinizing me imploringly with a no. 2 Ticonderoga in his left hand. He wants to hand it to me, but I take a step forward in time, turn the brass knob, and push the door into a swinging peal. Beneath the whine somewhere, Norah’s low shatterable voice, “His door sings for an oiling.”

She doesn’t know what to do with me now that I’m here. She leaves. And I am alone in David’s room with his bedside menorah and the books on his shelves. His sheets and an old quilt are choking his mattress. I pull the folds out from between the box spring and top cushion. They are thankful for the loosening of that belt and belch a dusty response to my heaving atop it. My lassitude is all the blanket that I need. But, somewhere in the seven minutes before sleep, I look up and know that the last thing that he saw before he closed his eyes at night were the white underbellies of now yellowed paper cranes on a mobile, pushing and turning in the stiffly circulated air, arranging themselves, like his thoughts—in a sober cyclical motion.

Severance in the Old Barn

Tucked thickly between two beams
I found a vespine roost left vacant
and sustained by one limpet foot,
paper-like and fading gray.

Winged things once worked to
form the tessellated nest, drumming an endless
thrum as from a great throat. The wasps were motes
with their own direction- moving
with a purpose that made dumb the dust visible
in the light between the beams above.

A singular wasp crawled slowly
toward a hole and I pressed
a rock firmly to its back, dividing reaction
from reason. Then, as I watched,
the orange wasp- severed-
crawled into the sanctum of its own sacrificial
spittle, an empty nest save one half.

Winter Reflection

After the stillness of the snow, I took me
to a slough suspended and congealed
by the cold. And the bright ice
cast a blinding light on my wash-
room mirror-- as in the early hours
(when one claims the darkness
and dares wish deafness too).

Half-seasoned to the sun, I took me
to the edge, thick-laced, where I
met my gaze and reflected how
far I dared to go.

One foot upon the glass, I cast the other
forward and again, until I passed the fear and
fell hands down upon my wash-room mirror.

The Building of a Nest

The Spring Exhibition of student artwork is in two weeks. I have been blessed with a few solid concepts from which I am building up a small body of work. I don't want to go into any sort of detail for two reasons. Firstly, I would hope that you would come and see them for yourself in the Bitsy Irby Gallery. Secondly, I have an understanding of the work and where it is coming from, but I am learning so much as the pieces advance. I couldn't explain them to you well enough.

I will say, however, that the pieces are birthed from a series on insects and deal with relationships and socialization.

On the topic of art I will say this: It is fast becoming my lifeblood and I am overwhelmed by the fact that through it, God will provide for me and for others. I am excited to see how I will be used and what will be said through my art. I have not had any serious doubts about whether or not this is what I should be doing. Anytime I begin to lean towards insecurites at all, I am reassured that this is what I was created for.

Bring me an opportunity to think. Bring me simplicity. Bring me a deadline. Bring me the opportunity to fufill God's wishes- to be a creation after my own Creator. Let him use my hands. Let me build a nest.

"This should be your ambition: to live a quiet life, minding your own business, and working with your hands." I Thessalonians 4:11