you describe love
in low water (blue jay nest on my branch) Jay blue
you are Current Present Moving To carry Twig snags, of my Fraying Pray Pilate Picking clementine Rine from her Nail beds, Dead moss, Dimming from its Frantic citrus green Hue, grew to its Fruit, plump to Reflex her toes To curl Her claws Gripped the green From my shoulder Blades, and Elbows Strained me Defenseless By your mere feathered perch You sat and Seared my silken Wound Skin And I could not stop But to stare, as You jerk And nestle, Making fibers of New Skin, I had treated solely To shadow and Dew spit I wish you’d Sit! Ease, you only move, Existing, either Eye to eye, or Behind the wet Peeling light sap Of those that Look past, what’s Before them You, must’ve fled Some time on that wind, carried sun Cradled through Leaves, stacking palms Sifting through the Approaching sky, descending To the casted Silhouette, and backhands Of laurel blades And you Move through My time So statically Nested In sight, or behind The afternoon glare I So still Watch you, a palpable present memory Fueled by fibrous Shag moss, that In your anticipation, Wrung dry, to Arid snags You shuffled with Nervous toes And a tallon Noes, made A shallow crevice Of the air Sanctioned to my thigh I receive, In your desolate Fled Skin, A Puddle bowl, Above the bark That you may wash, of What liability you carry, That moves You south, so timely And digs my tomb, amongst The air, so no Red soot Could crust between your current, that you rode Wavering away Wing over wheel Over wing. But to lower my limb’s Refuge, to stretch the joint Where you nested Would be a treacherous Sigh, that I Forfeit your return To turn slight from Sightless presence Might mean a last Look of my Unearthed tendril body, that You picked so Thinly of me, and I Reaching so fervently, to House your wings Shaped to the Grooves of my reddened hand I remain, refused to Move To risk revealing I myself have Suspended Amended, to that Wind To leave what embrace I fashioned to Fit yours, That leave can hold Without gripping And to what rootless Beings Cannot Carry. oct 28 2020
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a study in tree tracing
med. watercolor, tree stump graphite texture rubbing, and ink
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This piece was nurtured by a curiosity I had for the stories told by the shapes found in the rings of a tree, found in the open faces of stumps.
I began my exploration of this subject with a sculpture noted "time keeper", a twine helix loop made from a single thread wrapped continuously in a spiral shape. The idea was to take a tree stump, isolate it's rings, and stretch them as though to ignite its form and insight it's sound. I have always admired the noiseless nature of trees, especially in the contradicting, resonating presence, they maintain. With the tree ring fables I took the non-invasive approach to use paper and graphite, rubbing the pattern of the rings of individual tree stumps to record their unique design. I then used watercolor to emphasize the forms that naturally occurred, and began to follow these shapes and lines as guides to create forms with ink and assemble characters amongst the rings. The poem "You Describe Love In Low Water" is one of a series of four poems in the Redwood Ring Fables collection. Sometimes preceding, and other times following the creation of the illustrations, the poems serve as the perspective voice elongated from the tree rings. Through both the tempo and rhythmic structure of the poem, we imagine the rings of the tree being unraveled, disassembling the forms illustrated and compacted into its lines, and speaking its chronicle of witness. The poems are the language of the tree, the illustrations are what she has seen. |