Sonnet Challenge #33

I haven’t posted a sonnet in a while.  I was going to post one about hot flashes (seeing as I’ve been enjoying to the extent that I need to start laughing about it) but Andrew Eales’ post this morning reminded me about this sonnet:

Birdsong

It’s in man’s heart, because it’s in his head
to merge both words and music into song.
There’re places in our brains they both belong
together – feelings more than just what’s said.
But too, we wonder how that seed was sown
that made us lilt our words into a tune.
Was it the wolves a-howling at the moon
or cat’s meow, or buck’s loud rutting groan?
It’s much more likely that the sound above
that we sometimes call angels, were the trills
inspiring us to develop singing skills
to tell our stories, feelings, sadness, love.
Whatever was that singing that we heard
outside our souls? It was a little bird.

In the spotlight!

This morning I got an email from one of the art websites I work with – storiestoart.com.  This is a little different that most art websites – although they do offer artwork, they actively promote commissions both of artwork, poetry and songs.  And the staff have been wonderful people to work with!

I and another artist, Philip Lindsey, are the featured artists in this email.

A couple days at the lake.

Despite the fact that I live close to the largest body of water in California, it’s not terribly enjoyable during the ‘hot’ season, and Doug and I like to go up to Lake Cuyamaca – up in the mountains, 5000 above the Salton Sea, about an hour and half away, it’s a whole nother climate.   We rented our favorite little cabin for three nights and packed up bedding, fishing gear and the bare basics of a kitchen.

On the first evening we went out for a stroll and saw a lot** of wildlife.  I had left all connections to work behind, except I took some writing paper, thinking I would put a few poems together.  This came out of the evening walk across one of the dams that forms the lake.  You will see once you get into it the tune that it’s based around.  The last line though requires a little more explanation.  We had just crossed the dam and saw a squirrel in the path.  We stopped.  The squirrel stopped.  Then, as we continued, instead of scooting up a tree, it walked down the path towards the dam, just like people walk past each other on a city sidewalk.

Evening Stroll

On the first evening strolling beside the lake we saw:

Twelve Canada geese
Eleven redwing blackbirds
Ten wild turkeys
Nine cawing crows
Eight scavenging raccoons
Seven strutting grackles
Six massive vultures
Five mule deer
Four fishing herons
Three flitting bats
Heard two hooting owls
And a squirrel walked right past us on the path.

Of course, having left all connections to work behind, that included the camera and on the last evening I was unable to photograph the view across the still lake just after moonrise, which confirmed that there is an even quieter cabin on the other side.  I did this from memory.

On the easel – “Cabin” – original oil on canvas 24×36″ $1080.

 

Ribbons from the County Fair.

“Love Rain” acrylic on canvas. 36×24″

Most years I will enter a few paintings in the County Fair the Imperial Expo. I usually get ribbons as a result (ok, I pretty much always get ribbons, someone has to toot that horn). This year I entered four paintings and received two second places and two thirds, in different categories.

One category I had not entered before was ‘abstract/non-representational’ and “Love Rain” took a third place.  This painting is a synesthetic vision of a song, “Walk Across the Rooftops” by “Hats”.

I didn’t get a chance to see the exhibit, but fortunately Imperial Valley Press took some photos.  One of my paintings is in the 9th of these photos.

The song in your heart

“When the Morning Comes”. Refractured watercolor on wraparound panel. 24″x30″. $1260

Today my cd player went the way of all things mechanical and my wonderfully adept neighbor, George, rescued a cd from the clutches of its half-open jaws for what I swear will be the last time.  It is now a one-cd player without a front cover, rather than a three-cd player.  iPod purchase, here I come.  I actually ‘inherited’ the cd player about seven years ago when my then boyfriend got a job on the east coast and when he packed, we both forgot he left it at my house – so I sure got value for money out of it…

When I went to pick up my new trash item, George and Christina (his girlfriend) and I sat chatting for a while and somehow the conversation got round to death sentences.  Christina said she wouldn’t like to get a state funeral – you don’t get to choose your song. We also bemoaned the difficulties of health care and dental expenses, and the joys of aging.  Gums receding like the tide, hairlines disappearing into the sunset and joints sticking with every change in the weather, like cds sticking in a player, or songs sticking in your head.

Fortunately the cd player’s last song before it croaked was one of my favorites – by a band called Bliss – for whom I sadly can find only the one cd.   The last couple of lines of the song are ‘When the morning comes, Will you remember my name?’. The song is so stuck in my head, I’m going to name the painting I completed today ‘When the morning comes…’