Semiosis of Winter Beach, Days 15-20

Day 15

You put a lot of energy into

lifting me today:

a skipping stone, a scimitar,

bountiful eggs,

(even eggs the color of yolks).

And cups full of offerings

and leaves to show that

my dad was here,

and boats harvesting mystery.

Still, I am stone.

The only message that comes

through is the

reflection of reflection—

be gentle and rise

like tiny sandpipers,

flashing and bold.

Do not be soft sand imprinted by heavy feet;

Lift and be the bold.

Day 16

So quiet today

I can see your

rock bottom, pebbled

soul.

Day 17

Myriad

Incessant

Motion:

I found.

I found myself.

I found myself

Laughing.

Day 18

Intimate ocean

You lift the horizon

Both fore and aft.

I walk in the crease between

Two shores.

What feet are these?

I leave no marks behind.

Perhaps I am NOT here,

Just wishful

Or blind.

I am not blind

To profligate keys and tracks

And signs;

Blind just to my own.

Today is not for white feathers

And wishes,

But for the rubbish

Of others.

My own treasure

Skims and alights

There and there,

But not here.

Day 19

Emily says

Tell it slant.

You are inclined in

That direction today.

Coy, as if quiet.

Here and there

A sign of what you

Must mean

Down below: tangled hair

Or rope, or themes

Of love and loss.

Soft silent sideways,

No ebb and flow.

No evidence of your intention,

Just passing by,

Flat, hidden,

And, yet, inviting.

Day 20

I thought that

If I came every day, or

Nearly every day,

In the coldest season,

We would finally be alone

Together again, like that

Time I sat in the sailboat’s prow

On 360 degrees and

Recognized my birth and

Heritage at sea.

I thought I would find

A secret, a treasure,

a horse skull perhaps,

Or a stone so unique it

Would change galactic

Geologic time

and me.

But no.

I witnessed your moods

To be sure, sweet ones,

And angry, rugged. I saw you cover up

And I saw you reveal.

But surprise of surprises,

I was the one who did

Not change from day to day.

Still a miracle, still pulsing,

Still holding some in and letting

Some out. Still edging right

Up to the edge, and sometimes,

quite a bit

Beyond.

Today is the first day of Spring

Farewell!

Hello!

Mother Has a Wild Heart

I started out to make an apron. This project started with scraps. I can't let go of small triangles, rectangles, strips, squares, pentagons, and all other polygons that fall away when scissors or rotary blades cut intentions from fabric.  These "scraps" are unintentional bits of intrigue, provoking my imagination with their potential for quirky combinations.

The front of the apron is a domesticated patchwork of these scraps, organized in regions of colorful contrasts.  Some blocks of color are remnants from other projects, just like the olden days when no waste was allowed in any room of the house.

When it came time to select the reverse side of the apron, I rummaged through my stash and the "sticky" piece of fabric that emerged was images of wild animals.  Of course!  The woman wearing this apron is domesticated and frugal on one side, but underneath, in hidden places, in her heart, she is wild!  She is the wolf, the bear, the dolphin, and the owl.

Here are a few preliminary images of "Mother Has a Wild Heart."  She begs to be photographed out of doors, and when my own eagle heart/lion heart is in ascendancy, I will take her out and let her spirit dance in the world of elephant-legged trees and ocean-wild stones.

P.S.  While writing and posting this, I imagined another apron, this time, "Mother Has a Wild Tongue"!  Stay tuned!

What Will Save Us Today?

What will save us today?

Art will save us.

Flowing water will save us.

The shapes and colors of leaves will save us if we do not rush to rake

and blow

and burn to oblivion

or compost.

The feel of smooth wood in the hand 

along with the story of the wood’s ancestry,

along with the story of your ancestry and mine.

The portrait of the shapes of apples and oranges

by firelight might save us.

And one plum, or is it a fig?

Giving might save us.

Listening might.

Poetry and the impulse to poetry could save us if we let it.

That whisper of doubt and this toxic shout will most likely not save us,

but some will try,

nonetheless.

What will save us today?

Pandora and her

magic box—danger be damned.

Nina Simone, from afar,

might save me.

Chocolate?

Spice?

Flavor buds may not spark enough desire to

save me today, tired of taste, too.

That one tiny bird out there on a brittle

and frigid limb might have just

the lift I need. I’ll go out and try.

Hiding helps;

behind the sofa

is cozy and warm.

Semiosis of Winter Beach, Days 9-14

Day 9

Today you are I and I am you.

Shadows skimming a calm blue surface.

Quiet turbulence to put an edge on

and give momentum to thought.

Swells pushing and lifting toward the goal.

And in the sunlit distance, two towers

To suggest the majesty of creation

Amidst the fullness

Of teeming mystery.

Day 10

When you speak, I listen.

When you whisper, I hover

Over quiescent pools

Consonants yielding consonance,

Hmmmm, ymmm, lmmmn, whmmm,

Holding vowels at bay.

Contrast that is consonance in

Disguise.

Day 11

Gentle green lady, susushushing up to shore with only a dark shoulder to show that yesterday’s rage still carries weight.

And at this corner, with your choice of smaller stones laid out in a curve, the retreat sings a song that no human instrument can imitate: specific and infinite, pebble to pebble, smacking rough to smooth.

Day 12

There are waves and there are waves of waves.

The wind is the wave of waves.

Day 13

Are you distracted by today’s chill companion of air?

You pitch and toss tiny bullets in random scatter:

I cannot read the scribble.

I can read only two gifts: a perfect shell with

Palm turned upward, receiving and giving,

at once and the same.

And a white feather, upright against the odds.

Your curves are tight;

Energy quiet.

Every map you offer is

Crosshatched with indecision

And/or regret.

When the moon comes tonight,

Shadowed with my shadow,

Will you hide or tremble? Will

You beg for comfort in arms,

Or blush in awe?

I take away acceptance of the fading

Light and faith in the beneficent

Unknown.

Day 14

Waiting, calming, biding.

Steel gray over

Steelier gray

Receiving, accepting

Elemental nothing,

Elemental all.

"Limber Leon" : Lost and Found

Years ago I heard a concert performance by the American Symphony Orchestra with Leon Botstein conducting.  I was as impressed by Botstein's style as by the music.  I wrote this poem shortly thereafter, and then lost it.  As a result of our recent move and efforts to sift through journals, notebooks, folders, and files, "Limber Leon" was found.

Limber Leon

Leon listens low.

In a room of squared shoulders,

His swoop diagonal

Like a child playing kami-kaze

Scooping up ideas.

Leon listens low.

Leon pushes sound.

E.T. fingers shape and launch

Pregnant open cages of geometry and fruit,

Signing intelligibly to other

Ambidextrous sensitives.

Leon pushes sound.

Leon muscles mind.

A seeming supple spastic

Ignoring vertebrae,

Whose lips and ears dip deeply

In shadow symmetry,

Blinking brows and mouth

And owl eyes

To shuster off the dark;

Leon muscles mind.

Manuscript submission

Yesterday, I clicked the submit button to send my manuscript for review.  Enough thinking about it for ages and ages.  Serendipity struck about a year ago when B gave me a book called The Best Travel Writing Volume 11 published by Travelers' Tales, an imprint of Solas House in Palo Alto, CA.

I checked their website and decided to submit.  It took me a year to stop fiddling with a word here and a word there. And to forget the comments from an agent, "I can't sell this."

Anyway, it's off and perhaps that bit of momentum will result in further submissions of work that has been waiting and waiting.

Here is one of the short reflections from my manuscript, One Foot on the Ground: Wandering, Collecting, Arriving, Savoring, Waiting, Transforming, Returning

Off Itinerary: Saying “Yes”

Destination no longer ruled.  My only map was that of free association:  I would follow each street only as long as it interested me and then, on a whim, choose a new direction.

Alice Steinbach

  

I said “Yes” to an early morning walk around Xuanwu Lake Park with Christopher and Kate.  We met at 6 am and Christopher asked me if I was hungry.  What’s the right answer to this?  I sensed it was “Yes” and I was right.  They wanted to take me for street food breakfast.  We walked toward the university until we came upon a woman who was setting up her cart.  She was pulling small snowball sized lumps of dough off a large bucket full of dough in the lower part of her cart.  She set out various containers of filings and checked the fire under her wide flat pan.  We watched for a minute or two and then Kate spoke to her.  Nodding seemed to indicate that she was ready to begin. She spread the dough over the pan and then cracked an egg over the dough. With a broad spatula she spread the egg over the dough.  As these set and became a crepe of sorts, she spread the vegetables Kate indicated over the egg.  Finally, she folded this tortilla into a roll and placed it in a thin plastic bag for holding.  By the time she had made one each for the three of us, a second and third cart had arrived on the scene and quickly set up for business. Each was a slightly different variety of the same thing.  I could imagine that a worker or student might have a favorite cart for breakfast every day—one and only favorite out of these three and the dozens more we saw as we rode in a taxi to the lake.  The top few bites were crepe only, but below that it was a crunchy, soft, wrap around oily veggies for a very satisfying finger-licking good breakfast if you can let go of dry toast as a standard.  2 RMB each, about 30 cents.

The taxi dropped us off at one entrance gate to the lake park.  A group of adults were doing tai chi with red flags just outside the arched opening in the old city wall.  We entered and made a plan to walk the forest route and then the island route. There are broad wooden walkways through the forest and people are doing morning exercise routines alone and together.  They move to the same principles, if not the same rhythm/drummer, in harmony and community, yet each may be doing something individual.  A man plays his trumpet to a tree.  A woman stretches at a bench, couples walk briskly, small groups move through different forms of tai chi or chi gong.  A man uses tree branches to do pull ups over a small water feature.  It is 6:20 am.  Someone plays a flute; someone else is doing primal screams, and a sole woman is singing opera to the lake.  She has a beautiful voice, and I think the beauty of the lake owes something to the vibrations she infuses.

The care and artistry of setting is stunning here and almost everywhere else we went.  There is not just simply a row of bushes along the highway—there is usually an array with depth and texture.  Lower plantings in front, with medium thick hedges framing shaped trees or contrasting hedges of medium height and then one or two rows of trees standing taller behind.  This would be along the highway.  This level of quality in a park would be arrayed in groupings rather than along a road.  The difference in the park is the inclusion of height and stone.  Beautiful “scholar rocks” are cultivated near Lake Xuanwu  by putting “seed” stones into cracks in the rock and then allowing the agitating action of the water to shape a variety of openings in the rock. The result is a three-dimensional stone lace. Nature and artistry, one and the same.

China, 2012

Semiosis of Winter Beach Day 6-8

Day 6

Some people (who?) build towers,

Some (who?) build castles, and

Some (who?) build bridges.

Children build castles of sand

With shovels and buckets and

Quick trips to water with

Joy to compose and delight

To destroy. Ebbing and flowing

In diurnal play.

Some (who?) build towers,

Finding sturdy stone platforms,

And hooks to set on

Rounded necks reaching up and up,

To peak or to balance.

Some (who?) desire bridges most,

And they see at once the space

Of air between, and the

Question once asked and never

Answered. They span the

Question and the demand

Of gravity with imagination first,

Grace second, and then, at last,

Stone.

Castles beg destruction;

Towers demand attention;

Bridges soar with purpose.

Day 7

Bright blue sky, bright winter coats, brisk walkers, many gifts.

Today I found a stone topographical map the size of a quarter.

It marks the winding path to the center of the earth. 

It can be read with eyes, when the light is soft and diffuse, or with fingers when the light may be too bright or too dim. 

Fingers find the way. 

Fingers note the winding path, the many levels of careful ledges winding around and toward 

the off-center island where row upon row of amphitheater shelves gaze upon the wonder. 

Follow or don’t follow, but hold the map dear for future folly or fortune.

In addition to the topographical map, a key came to me today. 

I have the map and I have the key. 

The key wears disguises: a tooth from a large mammal, a hand-held gun 

for a mouse-sized appendage, or simply 

the key to a chest or door opening to enchantment or terror. 

I will choose enchantment today. 

It is the key to the fluctuating room above--but not far above--our heads, 

of the small birds who delight in flinging themselves in the winds, 

but need a resting place now and then.

Day 8

Today’s ocean is green.

With a sound like a

Sweet fog horn, not

Quite a whistle.

Looking for signs,

Markers, maps,

All I see are dog prints

Lapping every which way,

over and under one another.

But a few stone signals

Lift from tide-flattened

Sand to signal me.

Here’s an ominous skull,

That’s not for me.

Here are the eggs

I was seeking a few days ago.

And here is a dark stone

With two white ribbons, circling.

One is a crown,

And the other a noose.

That’s my message

For today as I

Suppress the bile in

My throat, the anger, the tears:

The crown and the noose are

One and the same.

Green whistling ocean, what

Question do you have for me:

What does the sky look like

Before a rainbow?

Art Ex-stallation #1

I have begun an art project that is an “ex-stallation” (contrast with installation).

      (If mispronounced as “exhalation,” that’s fine, too!) 

It is distributed destination artwork: art set free into the world to engage with humans. 

Any given piece is a visual experience and a textile/tactile experience.

It might be a cover over or it might be a landing pad or an accent piece under. 

It might hold on, or it might let go.

It might be a reminder, an encouragement, or an inspiration.

It is always food for thought.

Here are a few images of people who are now engaged with components of the art ex-stallation: