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paring of the soul

 

in simple season

of waxing moon and warming flesh

mornings hardly frozen

 

and  air loud with crow and Steller’s Jay

and the shrill whistle of Redwing blackbird

and down by the river

 

standing on the bluff

where our home one day will be

dreaming

 

of foundation and roots and solid walls

containing confining comforting

and so many years of stories to patina the blued wood

 

a solitary goose flies low

below us

above the river

 

he follows the course to who knows

where or why

or what he seeks only to move to

 

someplace else as the sun takes its turn

lower in the sky

and I wonder what impels him on

 

when all I do is look for a place to remain

 

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Spring air crossing snow covered Divide whips cold across our pasture freshly open promising moist and green at least for a little while.  Out there, bitten by the wind I swear I smell the sweetness of flowers.  I am certain. From where does this fragrance come?  I picture lands lush and rose bushes and lilacs and hollyhocks and marigold flourishing. Here I find pleasure in dandelions and wild iris and the delicate petals and defiant stalks of the wild rose, each short lived as every season but winter is.  Little more can grow though who would I be if I didn’t try so every year I do.  Last year the tomato plants I bought with fruit already set produced two fruit and the zucchini plants gifted us with eight tiny fingerlings of the most precious bounty I sliced and sautéed in butter and served alongside fresh bread and was wanting for nothing more that night. Such a treat we had not tasted in so long because they birthed before the frost that turned the big broad leaves to mush.

 

We prepare the Little Cabin for another season there beside the river. The one-room cabin dragged away from the guest cabins to a part of the mountain without history, herstories, tales or roots, ready for us to grow our own.  Our lives pending  another move.  And from the humble front door of the little log cabin we’ll call home once again, we shall watch mud  transform and sprout new life.

Our new home.

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News for now…

Just out this weekend, A unique take on an interview and article I had the pleasure to write on the wonderful, charming, handsome, and very talented Texas bit & spur maker Daylan Nixon featured in the newest issue (4.1) of Ranch & Reata magazine.

The interview with Indie House Books posted this weekend was fun.  You can still read that here.

A bunch of visitors this weekend, so nice to see those who took the time to visit –  but no one willing to pose for a portrait. Thus, these.  (I will learn not to give up on the people so easily next time…)

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From a conversation on Womanhood…

Deep felt thanks to a friend who opened up with me a conversation on womanhood.  No, I should write that with a capital:  Womanhood. That’s better.

Who was born intimately understanding their feminine side and comfortable with what they found?  The few I thought who did, what did they do with what they had and what more did they find? Those that took time to deny or be denied, dive into the depths and ask questions… they found very interesting answers…

Years ago in art school, I did a piece I called “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”  A large flowery clay most feminine of female body parts decorated in gaudy rhinestones and set into a deep box like a casket with a glass lid.  It won first place so at the award ceremony a picture went up in the auditorium on the big projector screen and I swear the whole room started to blush.  Few are comfortable with the feminine side.

There are few leaders, women to follow, women willing and able to show us how.  If there are many, I’m missing something, for I have found their presence and reaching out/responding rare. I’m obsessed with the concept of mentoring – I don’t feel qualified yet – I’m too young (funny thing to say at 47, some of you will may say), not experienced enough and just don’t feel ripe – I’m still looking for mentors for me.  Stop looking. Start being.  Most  of us don’t have the role models we need. So we must become them.  We need to re-group and find our paths, and hold each other’s hands in the process.  Encourage, urge, push, and protect when need be.  More than just listen.  We need someone to talk to us and tell us WE CAN.  We can dream, we can write, we can fall in love, we can live through a broken heart and rejection letter and all the crud life brings because in the wave of mud is just one place of crystal clear, and that’s all we need.

There are no right answers, only a wonderful adventure. Womanhood is not a destination, but a process. Enjoy the journey. Dive in, swim, splash, splutter from time to time, and let go and float on top staring up at the billowy clouds.  It is exhilarating.

Let it happen, as we become the women we want to be. Emerging… Ever changing…. And so, so beautiful, as the heart of every women can be.

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playing with a love poem

because I have spent so many years

in praise of the broken heart

 

and why would I  not when that’s what I had

 

now that I can have

or cannot separate

a life that more than parallels my own

 

rather wraps around and breaks borders

in waves of twisting over lapping lines

like arms and legs entwined in bed

 

until one day we become no more

than rotting bodies in straight lines

side by side in the ground

 

This is not what I was looking for

I said sort of but no one listened only laughed

as I fell not head over heals

 

but solidly planted

and now some days it seems so simple

too simple, him, our conversations, being loved

 

the assumption that he’ll be there

that I can wake early in the morning before light

and ask him and know he would never say no

 

some things maybe I miss

pain and insecurities and blinding desires

and wondering if he’s The One

 

there are days I want to be without him

as if I’d be better on my own

think of the things I could do if I didn’t have to

 

care worry encourage push and pick up the pieces

love?

instead could take care of only me

if only I remember how

 

and maybe I don’t want to anymore

then I think how lost I would be

how incomplete I would find myself

 

if you take away half my air

and just as much of my foundation

would I still remember how to breathe?

 

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