To say 2020 was a difficult year is an understatement. There has been great loss, sadness, stress, and so many challenges, both global and personal. But in between the doomscrolling and Zoom meetups I had some wonderful moments of art-making—using language to craft a narrative, playing with color, texture, lyric, and shape. To celebrate closing one year and beginning another anew, I thought I would share a few poems and paintings in-progress.
Blue
SEEKING
One half hour spent in silence
will be good for my head
and for this thinned-out group,
cool late summer evening in the temple garden.
I lead them in their breath,
reality ephemeral
as the face in the rising moon,
reflected onto theirs.
Jon slouches, looks asleep.
Nan adjusts the tension in her hands.
Maureen taps her feet to some pinging nerve
that has her trapped,
perhaps Ginny's cancer, or Covid
or the president,
or Zoom meetings tomorrow.
I say, Just breathe, stay here,
don’t sink, remain connected, but distanced
from the grounded, grinding outer world.
Observe the flow of breath,
let thoughts roll by,
the simple power to be peaceful.
Death, one day, scoops us away.
Use-by date expired, catapulted back
into the mysterious continuum.
For now the angel of our own inhalations,
exhaled into our private masks, keeps us alive.
They thank me, namaste. I thank them,
watch my thoughts return.
Dinner waiting at home,
quick stop at TJ Maxx,
the comfy pants I hope to find,
criminals pardoned,
people stuck and sick, dying alone,
gasping for breath we take for granted.
How easy to be terrified.
We wait on line, six feet apart,
greeting with our eyes.
No sweats I like at TJ Maxx.
I buy bananas at IGA
for the turtles in my yard.
Head inside
to emerge in safer times.
Age Is Only A Number
THAT'S ALL (FOR MY BIRTHDAY)
This stubborn will
does not acknowledge age,
does not want to dim or falter.
A polished actor’s voice
interpreting some page
till dust earmarks the words.
Time wasted,
last coin all but spent,
this wild girl stumbles
on a frayed carpet,
bent corner trips her.
Struggle to stand.
Try again, I tell my body,
don’t let the creak of these old legs
prevent your rising.
I know silver tarnishes,
so I paint myself
new colors, unsuitable for eighty.
Old flesh does not suit makeup,
but desire is always newborn.
Take piano lessons
paint a mural, teach a course,
make use of what is left,
delete 10,000 bytes of junk
while breath continues.
A little wheeze
and the mirror shakes.
I’ve smoked the years,
crashed on boulders,
misplaced the horizon
even though I know that living
brings it closer.
The key is rattling in my pocket.
But the lock has a keyless entry
to another stage where I’ll perform my grand finale.
What to do but keep on treading.
Footprints stagger toward cessation
till I stumble on the gateway
to the parting.
Clockwise from top of easel down: Color Study 1, Color Study 2, Color Study 3