Week 6: The Heart

My heart got to thumping. You can’t reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

The Heart

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MY POEM

That’s Her

That’s her!
Time hasn’t spoiled her heart.
It cracks the cocoon
that is her body open.

That’s her!
The wind won’t break her wings
that have laughed
and cried for flying.

She does not shrink from rake or plough
Or the harvest that is her bounty.
She casts her net under a marble moon
into a sea of hope and longing.

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ABOUT THE PAINTING & POETRY PROJECT

We want to celebrate 2021 with an outpouring of creativity and optimism!

We’ve selected 52 themes (one theme per week for the year), and each week for 2021, I will write a poem and Addie will paint a painting inspired by that theme.

This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. Expect surprises, love, and a passion for life.

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

Week 5: Eyes

For she had eyes and chose me.

Shakespeare, Othello

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

Eyes
(Portrait of Taylor Swift)

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MY POEM

Eyes

Windows.
Mirrors.
Stained glass.
Waterways to the soul.
Blue, brown, green, and black.
The hundred eyes of Argus
fan from one end of the world to the other,
like a peacock’s tail.

Ocean-iris,
from where do these mountains rise,
snow capped and cloud covered?
And blackhole-pupil,
how is the rainbow-known
 turned inside out and upside down?

Conjoined spheres are the world and I.
A world without and a world within.
We touch, as if by magic,
by a prism-wand.

Beyond the sun there is darkness.
Beyond the darkness, light.
Beyond that, both truth and illusion.

Can it be that this is all there is?
Is it all in here? On the inside? Like a snow globe?
Or am I your mere reflection?

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ABOUT THE PAINTING & POETRY PROJECT

We’ve selected 52 themes (one theme per week for the year), and each week for 2021, I will write a poem and Addie will paint a painting inspired by that theme.

Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. Expect surprises, love, and a passion for life.

---

Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

Week 4: Music & Dancing

If I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week … The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin: 1809-1882

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

Dancing by Moonlight
(Studio door)

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MY POEM

Two Winged Thoughts

Two winged thoughts.
Two winged steeds.
Hobbled by the fog of night,
Reared among the lifeless trees.

What’s your name?
I’ll call you friend!
‘Tis your soul,
your quickened flesh alone,
with whom I’ll dance
upon the loose and shallow graves.

But why dance here
among the long but restless dead?
Let’s frolic by the sea instead!

We’ll make our way
from moon and wood to sun and sea—
our passage born
winged and gilded upon the morn—
from path and sylvan canopy,
to harbor and forgotten quay.

Loose Argo’s lines, beloved mine!
Set sail upon the silver sea!
Upon her magic prow we’ll sing
to golden lyre an offering
to Phoebus’ fires for tailwinds strong—
prophetic wings we’ll race upon.

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ABOUT THE PAINTING & POETRY PROJECT

We’ve selected 52 themes (one theme per week for the year), and each week for 2021, I will write a poem and Addie will paint a painting inspired by that theme.

Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. Expect surprises, love, and a passion for life.

---

Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

Week 3: Harmony

While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

Carpe Noctem – Vice Versa

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MY POEM

The Book of Crows

As I walk within this corpse of seasons, I gaze onto the tops of the trees. I see the crows in the thousands dim-lit against the darkening blue canvas.

Such a symphony of sound! It fills my ears, my head, my heaving lungs. It seeps down into my legs and fills my feet like two crystal goblets.

My hands, too, are filled with their wine.

And my body is their vessel, and their song is my holy book. And its words will keep me alive.

They tell me to breathe. One breath at a time.

Slow. The racing mind never wins.

Focused. Frayed thoughts unravel.

With intent. A calm mind is like a fish that eschews the barbed bait.

Breathe.

Harmony. The soul within breathes within the Soul without.

I open the Book of Crows.

It tells me to walk without shame, malice, and resentment.

To be yourself and to become yourself.

That transformation begins within, and it is seen from without by its effect.

And that we all have our masters.

And that the less of life we have, the more fearfully we clutch to it, like an infant to its mother.

And that you can learn from others how not to live and still love them.

And that your soul is a flower among a field of flowers.

And that Spring will blossom, only you must wait for it.

Be patient. Not every word is poured from the flask in an instant.

Be kind. A gentle touch softens an often harsh world.

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ABOUT THE PAINTING & POETRY PROJECT

We’ve selected 52 themes (one theme per week for the year), and each week for 2021, I will write a poem and Addie will paint a painting inspired by that theme.

Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. Expect surprises, love, and a passion for life.

---

Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

Week 2: Awaken

each morning we’re born again
of yesterday nothing remains
what’s left began today

Anselm Hollo, Corvus

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

The Crow

When the sun shines and you fall asleep,
I too fall asleep,
and in my dreams words follow you
like a pack of hungry dogs.

When the moon’s high and you lie awake,
I too lie awake,
and a long, sibilated syllable
encompasses all the black, starry space.

Black, starry space.
Black like your feathers–
slick, cunning, and artful.
You are a crow and, however hard you try,
will always be black.

On what tree and on what branch
did you perch precariously
on the last frozen winter night?

I see you now behind the sweet orange dawn-curtain.
The riptide carries you out onto the skywater,
where you flit and you play.
Another among your number takes your lead,
and then another,
until a murder of soaring actors
has taken the stage.
Comedy or tragedy–
it’s both and all the same.

But from my front row seat,
I distinguish you from the rest,
my dear crow.
Not by your shrill croaking, or the fast, charcoal black of your feathers,
Or by the way your talons clutch momentously
the spindling tree–
but by the familiar glint of your black bean eye,
wherein is your soul contained.

When the play’s over,
I’ll watch you while you sleep,
and on the morning next,
follow you out to sea.

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ABOUT THE PAINTING & POETRY PROJECT

We’ve selected 52 themes (one theme per week for the year), and each week for 2021, I will write a poem and Addie will paint a painting inspired by that theme.

Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. Expect surprises, love, and a passion for life.

---

Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

Week 1: New Beginnings

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O’Donohue

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

Phoenix Come

On glinting wing, I come foretold,
all the way from the smoke and sand of Arabia.
A cocoon of myrrh is my soul entombed—
gift to the Temple of the Newborn Sun.

My heart a peerless blue, deep and long and wide.
My plumes a fiery red and gold fill the cloudless sky.

Yesterday’s ashes infuse my blood and steer my course.
My life so full it overflows gifts of love,
ripe and for the picking.
My wicker basket swings in the great green orchard, broad and unseen,
as I gather up the fruit for tomorrow’s sacrifice.

Mother morning come!
I knew you from the first and see you at the last.
Will you fill a moment beyond my own with my last and dying breath?

I burn like a diamond, the last of a string of gems—
a crowning jewel of a golden diadem.

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ABOUT THE PAINTING & POETRY PROJECT

We’ve selected 52 themes (one theme per week for the year), and each week for 2021, I will write a poem and Addie will paint a painting inspired by that theme.

Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. Expect surprises, love, and a passion for life.

---

Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!