Nature: Still Open for Business

Brook, March

Sun lays its mat on the water.
       Stones shine, watersong brightens.
Four trees stripe the brook with shadow—
       subtle bridges
from west to east, winter to spring,
       from nothing to something.

Living in a shut-down state means most of the places I usually visit are closed. But nature is still open for business, flaunting daffodils and ridges of forsythia, and the tiniest of red rust buds on the giant oaks and elms.

I walk the neighborhood almost daily, and it’s been my time to NOT think about the state of things, and focus on whatever nature is offering up that day. This is a pic I took when I stopped to listen to a local brook.

Initially I found it nearly impossible to make art with a head full of survival plans, grocery lists, and contingencies. But two days after taking the pic, I wrote a poem. I thought I was writing about the shadows that fell so neatly across the brook, but really, I was creating a bridge for myself, a bridge to cross over from artistic blackout back to creativity.

I hope you are well.

~Cheryl

an angel and a dog: an interim blessing

I’ve been in a creative cocoon, a lot going on inside, but not much to see from the outside. While hoping for a poem to emerge, I got this spontaneous sketch instead. It came from nowhere, like a blessing, and it made me smile.  I started with an arc which became the angel’s face, and I finished with a dog. It’s a simple drawing, but I hope you like it. And maybe you’ll be inspired to set your own pen down on a piece of spare paper and without thought or plan, follow the ink until the lines create a message and blessing just for yourself.

Monday Morning Mary: Remembrance

Remembrance

Today I would rather not make art
My brain feels like a deflated soccer ball
The trees are perfect
The sunlight is also perfect
as are the crickets, the white butterfly that rises
in a zippity pattern like a kite string,
and the dog sleeping under the picnic table.
The breeze, when it decides to stir,
is perfect.
The deer, the groundhog,
and all the silent creatures in the brush,
perfect, perfect, perfect.

Nothing I could write
could improve the scene
one iota.

Better to take a nap
and wake later
to a clap of thunder,
to an acorn falling,
or to the remembrance
of a book I forgot I was reading,
or perhaps a book I was supposed to write

Monday Morning Mary: Resurrection

Resurrection

Take a chance.
Pull off the woolen hat
that muffles your ears.
Listen to the birds.

Set aside how cold you feel
and sense the deeper
thing, the secret
moon that rises
in you, pulling
the waters of your
soul to new shores
where something wild and
unexpected, awaits
your creative embrace.

 
 

 
 
 
Moon photo courtesy of Jay Racanelli

Monday Morning Mary: Our Lady of Dollar Store Daffodils

 

Dollar Store Daffodils

Winter has not yet relented.
The earth has not softened.
Bulbs have not awakened.
Being tired of winter
does not change the weather.
You cannot rush the daffodils.

But you can ask:
Where might I find beauty right now?
What can I create in this gray space?
And most importantly,
What version of the truth
will I tell myself today?

Do not be afraid of dollar store daffodils.
Imitation by a pure heart
flatters God.

Prayer to Saint Brigid of Ireland

Saint Brigid of Ireland, a fifth century nun who is one of Ireland’s patron saints, is also considered a patron saint of poets. She performed many miracles in her lifetime, including converting a king on his deathbed by weaving a cross out of local reeds (St. Brigid’s cross). My prayer below refers to two other miracles as well. In her youth, St. Brigid’s beauty mysteriously vanished so as to discourage suitors, and returned once she was safely committed to God. The third miracle is the story of St. Brigid approaching the king for land for a convent. He laughed and said she could have whatever land her cloak could cover. Four of her nuns took the corners of her cloak, and running outward in the directions of the compass, stretched the cloak for acres. The astonished king conceded the land.

Prayer to St. Brigid for Creativity

Just as you led the Celtic mind
out to the meadow of transfiguring light,
lead also my hopeful imagination
out into a new meadow this day

Just as you shed physical beauty for the gifts of spirit,
quell also my accumulating nature
so that the gifts of the grassy fields
may come gently into focus

Just as you wove reeds into a tale of conversion
May I also weave available stalks into an artful message

May I be in your vein brave and creative.

Monday Morning Mary: This Too Shall Bless

Tiny Steeple, Big Sky

This Too Shall Bless

What is in your dominant hand?
A keyboard, an apple,
A set of prayer beads?

Travel up your arm, your neck,
into the wiry treetop that is your brain.
Is there a hyper monkey hopping
branch to branch, upset
and upsetting?

Whatever the monkey says,
you can say,
This too shall bless.

This too shall bless
you or someone else
or both of you.
It is not for you to decide who gets blessed
by your suffering or how.
It is not for you to see the blessing
or know it has taken place.

If you can say in adversity,
This too shall bless
you open the window of possibility
through which you may recognize
that in this, this terrible thing,
there just might be a purpose.

Gaze out that window.
As surely as the sun is gilding the earth,
someone is healing.

painting by William Adolph Bouguereaux

Prayer to St. Brigid of Ireland

 

St. Brigid

A patron saint of Ireland, Saint Brigid is also a patron saint of poets. Although today is the feast of St. Patrick, I’m posting this prayer to St. Brigid in honor of all things Irish in me and around me. Wishing you many blessings.

 

Prayer to St. Brigid for Creativity

Just as you led the Celtic mind
out to the meadow of transfiguring light,
lead also my hopeful imagination
out into a new meadow this day

Just as you shed physical beauty for the gifts of spirit,
quell also my accumulating nature
so that the gifts of the grassy fields
may come gently into focus

Just as you wove reeds into a tale of conversion
May I also weave available stalks into an artful message

May I be in your vein brave and creative.

Serendipity Prayer

 

Serendipity Prayer

God grant me
the pause to spot the unusual
the whimsy to pick it up
and the insight to hold it as the answer to my unasked question.

ideation

Today marks the end of National Poetry Writing Month. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my work! I also really appreciated hearing from you through comments, “likes,” or email. Thank you!

I also want to acknowledge my son for pushing me to write this month, especially early in the month. He’d check in every evening and ask where my poem was. If I said, “I got nothin’.” He’d say, “No. You gotta write something.”  “I can’t.” “You can.” You get the idea. His persistence and behind-the-scenes support inspired me, and somehow things flowered.

I’ve written this poem for him, in celebration of his creativity.

 

ideation

you drew this card
from your mother’s deck
then you were born.
you ate its message, your first food.

wild vines sprung from your mind.
ideas the size of watermelons grew
until you cracked each one open.

seeds spilled and more vines grew
and still grow.

this is the way of watermelons.
you are destined to feed the vines
and be fed by them,
extracting for the outer world
the harvest of your inner wildness.

 

 

A poem a day for April