Tag: Poetry

The truth in poetry

~ Liz A ~ 20 Comments

Judy Martin just wrote an incredible post about the difference between story and poetry … http://judys-pinwall.blogspot.com/2023/02/story-or-poem.html

Likewise, Mo has an equally incredible post with song lyrics and a poem, which is to say, two pieces of poetry … https://itscrowtime.wordpress.com/2023/02/17/walking-home-with-mr-bones

It seems like I’ve danced around poems and poetry forever … it’s a challenging genre for me, but I know it holds so much truth. And so I am once again stitching the words of Old Man Crow, the better to remember truth …

We could get there so much quicker
if we just picked up the pace … His smile is just a flicker, he says “Life is not a race … it’s a song that’s in the making, a story being told … a glass of sipping liquor … besides … I’m old”

It’s even better if you read the lyrics while listening to Rod singing the words, the slow easy ramble of his guitar keeping time …

And yes, I did check with Mo first … she graciously agreed to my request to stitch Rod’s lyrics and she sent along this much-loved photo …

I’ll stitch some more today …

Covid (The Tower)

~ Liz A ~ 8 Comments

Note: this post was originally titled “Apocalypse”

I knew The Tower would be a challenge from the get go …

trying to imagine how to portray total ruin in the midst of the plenty that is our fortunate lot in life.

When the only thing I dreaded about the tower at the Wildflower Center was the vertigo that came with the one and only time I ventured up into it …

tower

But over the three months that I’ve worked on the Texas Tarot, The Tower has taken on new meaning.

And now I wonder how was it that I chose to save this bookcover of all things? Seven years ago …

Let alone the foreboding Red Plane Tree by Steel Stillman …

 

  • 78 Degrees: When the Tower appears it is necessary to remember that it can lead to freedom … clearing away some situation that has built up to intolerable pressure …
  • Kitchen Table Tarot: it’s about the universe pulling the rug out from under you … and a huge lack of control … this is going to be hard, but …
  • The Creative Tarot: the Tower asks us: What needs to be destroyed in order to be rebuilt?

Coming as it does after the Knight of Wands, this card seems like a call to action, which is ironic given our confinement during the Covid quarantine.

So, as civil structures break down all around us, I choose to look to the light breaking in the distance, to the sure and steady arrival of spring, and always, always, to the sea …

Likewise to this prophetic essay by Surnai Malloy, posted by Grace on Windthread in February, with its imagery of picking up the bricks, one by one, and creating anew.

And lastly, to this fairy tale for the future …

Noticing

~ Liz A ~ 10 Comments

I had hoped to see the almost-full moon set this morning, but found instead a gauze-covered sky.

So on to coffee, breakfast and the newspaper, a NYT xword, email, Facebook, blog reading … every day small things.

And thereby found a poem, nesting in the sidebar, the Kindred Spirits forming themselves into …

The Best Laid Plans

Fire fighting resolution:
don’t think …
jump, default, journey
keep charts 

Christmas trees and taxes
on the outside looking in
gratitude
earth and air
grunge
my kitchen window
 
Spirit cloth past
a little piece of peace
drawstring bags for the dream

Another year
first snow
faux somehow

Giving thanks
patience is required …
time for
angst, blessings, retreat

From caring hands, threads …
letters to the otherworld 
passing, becalmed, changing

Wordlessly wondering
peace
gentlework
resist

On my mind
permission
protection
flux
working
perseverance

A pause in judgement

—————————————————————-

Looking again, the line breaks shift and with them the meaning. I add and delete, delete and add.

Then stop and let it go.