Poem: Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice

Words fall from the sky
again     only summer is here and
the sun sets stunningly at orange-
red     the mountains vanish in
violet gray light and bring a
sense of stability to the horizon
on the night of solstice frivolity
in celebration of the longest day
full of sun and song     we sit on the
same porch we looked out upon six
long months ago     then holiday
lights streamed through the trees in
neighborhood yards     tonight candles
flicker on glass topped tables and
the drinks are cold     as we watch
the setting of the blazing sun.

At Long Last

It has been about six months since my back surgery and during that time my creative muse didn't come to visit. I have tried to write a poem or design a WordLayers print but, sadly, results were non-existent -- until Wednesday! On Wednesday, I came upstairs with the clear intention of making art and wanting to use pink and red art markers to make a design similar to the one I did last year titled  "Winter Solstice." Rather than the blues used to make the winter scene the pinks were calling to me and urging me to rummage through and find all shades of pink and red pens squirreled away among the jars along the art table in my studio. I had a pad of fine marking pen paper to use for "serious" artwork . . . so it went on the table, a blank page facing up. Finally, I selected one pen and swirled it around on the paper and then another and another, etc. The look of the colors nearly matched the intention and then, it was finished and ready to be scanned into the computer for design on the screen where I played with the various layers of color by cutting and pasting, cropping and moving layer by layer on the same screen until all the pieces fell into place. Then came the text; a poem was needed. The next day I wrote a poem and began to fit text onto the various color layers. It took a couple of days before Summer Solstice was complete and ready to take to the art printer across town where it sits today. I can hardly wait to see it on canvas and then to the framer. Soon there will be a new WordLayers hanging in my studio . . . a sign of post surgery success and gratitude.

A cut of the original

Goldfinch

In the evening, the Goldfinch sits atop the Echinacea seedpod which sways in sweet summer breeze. The setting sun projects a startling backdrop demanding focus upon the beauty of yellow and black feathers and the firm, small body of a bird feeding on fresh pecked seeds.

Thunderstorms

We sit under an 80% chance of thunderstorms

with skies so gray our shadows don’t show during the summer days of July. Some days, the storms break into sheets of vertical rain and roiling thunder. We stand at home and office windows talking weather talk. Some days, the sun splits the clouds allowing light and heat to dry the water drops on oak leaves and spruce needles and purple Echinacea petals. The grass seems to steam as a sauna. Our Missouri bodies adjust but our minds speak dull and our hearts sag and we sit more and more. We’ve had July summers of constant blazing sun and 102° when we had nothing to do but sit on porch swings reading poetry. Today, the rain is falling and it is 92° and it seems we have nothing to do as we sit in the unnatural, cool, dry, air conditioned air doodling with crossword puzzles and toasting to summer with chilled white wine.

Queen Elizabeth

I'm sitting outside on the deck as the sun rises to the level of the Queen Elizabeth rose that stands
regally in the middle of the rose garden. The sun is shining through the delicate petals making their translucent quality visible in light and shadow as the dark green leaves become white in reflection of a rising Missouri sun. The scene brings me back to the heart of poetry that I thought had been lost over the past few months . . . but all it takes is witnessing a scene of beauty in a moment of focus to bring back and up front the wholeness that poetry brings. "Poetry's work is the clarification and magnification of being." Jane Hirshfield

Companion Sun

Hummingbird flits around purple Butterfly bush      Striped ground squirrel hides in pink Gladiolas        Cat naps on cedar bench under the oak tree     Wild Geraniums explode into blue blooms          Downy Woodpecker pecks at the feeder        Redbud rents space in the rose garden     Sunflowers bend with abundant seeds       Red Zinnias in the east garden, 4' tall       Goldfinch sway on Sunset Echinacea        I sit in a chair on the redwood deck      Butterflies visit Oregano in clay pot       Mourning Dove coos on power line        Traffic moving along 75th Street       Surprise lilies gossip in groups       Pond water trickles over rocks        Sun sits in the opposite chair       Dog sleeps on the driveway     Second cup of coffee        White Hardy Hibiscus        Bumble Bee       Day off.

Echinacea

Early, on this July evening in the backyard garden, two colors become what I see. The lavender-blue of Russian Sage and the lavender-purple of Echinacea. Colors that penetrate the air. Breathable colors. Both slightly faded in the high summer sun. Both calling for study or bemusement. Lush, together they're the stamp of summer; the magnet of inspiration; the beauty of impressionistic art. As daylight becomes less than the dark of night, I sit within an essential spectrum of peace and it soaks my senses in full shades and hues--the majesty of lavenders, violets, blues, pinks, and purples. A time to sleep in the soft bed of color.

Memories of Now

He brings me roses 
from our garden and 
my mind sees my father
bringing Mother roses
from their garden and
she would say,
"These are lovely." 
Like a recording
of voice between  my mother
and me, I say
"These are lovely." 
Of all the moments shared
in the marriage of my parents,
I wanted this giving moment 
of roses to be mine, also. Now,
flowering into time, an
act as sweet as
I saw 50 years ago.

Rose Window Redux

I am a chair in the corner
by the window
kind of person.

Inside the panes
looking out I participate
in the play of characters--

neighbors and cars,
the mail person
depositing seasonal catalogs,

the UPS driver delivering
a used book from the
book store in Colorado.

Today, as thunderstorms
continue to roll
across Missouri's belly

I see the elegant David Austin
roses in glistening freshness
growing rounder and fatter

during the wet, cool May days of
2013, as each day publishes
a new page in a garden guide--

the roses hang over the pansies
in the window box that sits above
deep purple iris next to

the neon orange scarves
of poppy heads. Today hears
an inside day and

I will continue to write
in many colors as the
storms pass by and
the roses peek in.

Sky at Sunrise

The sky of a summer sunrise is gold and deep yellow-white and I look up within surreal beauty. The sun rises like these letters, from northeast corner and then all over the paper as I sit in my writer's chair observing the beginning of this day that is nothing special--except for right now, except for the explosion of light through oak leaves weaving overhead in cool morning fresh air of this late June experience. The sky turns yellow to white to powder blue and I would have these moments last forever BUT I have to vacuum and make clean the inside which is where we live and dance like squirrels in the tree. In the space of swaying branches I listen to Dylan saying only to me, that--I make love just like a woman. I push the sucking beast back and forth over cat shedding and cracker crumbs. With swaying hips and smile on my working singing lips.

During August in Kansas City the garden turns beautiful in less elegant dress. It is more yellow than red and rose. This morning we hear warnings of temperatures so hot "you could fry an egg on the sidewalk." I personally know the fact of this as true. When I was a disbelieving ten year old my father took an egg and me out to the sidewalk in front of our Topeka home. . .the egg fried.