Peonies Perfect

I thought to get a picture

of her plate sized pink petals

layered in ruffles, like

a young girl’s prom dress.

Pink petals cupped like opened hands

but protective of her own heart center,

blood red, with golden stamen,

an offering of symmetry and rare perfection in the garden.

I will, I thought, composing the photo in my mind,

gain proximity by stepping gingerly in the strangled vines of sweet-pea.

I will, I thought, lean over the white picket fence

with Sony Cyber Shot in hand

and fill the frame with that flower face

in the fullness of its ripened hour.

With that same anticipation and hunger

I had sought to capture my daughter in digital

a day earlier, in her satin pink prom dress,

the color of this peony.

Her sweet eighteen year old face,

framed by soft, cascading tendrils around her eyes,

a sparkling blue, shadowed in smoky quartz,

her cheeks, blushing in bronze shimmer,

her lips plumped in coral ice.

I aimed my camera and zoomed in

to magnify her smile,

the crinkle of her eyes,

the dimple in her left cheek,

the shy tilt of her head.

Against a backdrop of woodland greenery and blooming azalea

she posed in our backyard

with the young man who presently holds her heart.

He encircled, with his hands, her waist,

lean in a corsetted top that I had tied,

threading and weaving satin ribbon through eyelets,

tugging the boned corset snug to her satisfaction,

double knotting and bowing the remaining ribbon

at the curve of her back ~

releasing it to trail down the train of her dress.

When the posing was done,

she asked to borrow my camera

hers being broken,

and this being her one and only prom night.

The limo was waiting.

No time to download and protect my treasure,

only to risk, yes or no?

All night, re-imagining the vision

that was my daughter in her peony pink satin gown

I feared she would leave the camera behind.

Drop it onto a dance floor to be trampled underfoot.

Rest it on a sink in the ladies restroom to be stolen.

I texted her cell phone, to remind ~

Take care of yourself.

Take care of my camera.

It was the next morning, when I thought to take a picture of the peony.

Spying the blossoms on the way to my car

as I paused to investigate the garden’s latest reveals.

And there, the day’s unmitigated perfection

bobbing its head in assent, as if to say, Yes, capture me now,

in digital.  I am plump for the photgraphic picking.

I will never look more lovely.

In fact, truth be told, I am dying.  So hurry.

Back into the house, for my camera

returned to me safe, after all, from prom night.

But stepping into the garden, and opening the lens cover

I discovered a flashing low battery icon.

Dead.

I thought to charge the battery

and attempt again to capture the photo

when I returned from the grocery store.

But truly, I felt the peony slipping away even then.

Even as I sprung open the silver trap door of the camera.

Even as I popped out the square, flat battery.

Even as I clicked it into place in the rechargeable unit,

and plugged the unit into the electrical outlet.

I knew, though I couldn’t have said why,

that I was on the losing side of a contract negotiation.

Hours later, reading at home,

having forgotten my intention

I heard the thunder.

Listened to a weather report of a cell

of violent storms moving into the area.

Saw the sky grow eerily dark

for the middle of the afternoon.

And then remembered.

I thought to replace the now charged battery,

run out ahead of the lightening,

sieze a visual memento

of a beauty that would not survive the wreckage of this day.

But who can say a tribute to a peony is worth the risk

of a lightening strike?

I am not brave.

Instead, I watched, through the rain-streaked window,

as golf ball sized hail stones

pummelled the peony,

her large head bowing

heavy with wind and rain.

Later, with the sky awash in a complimentary rainbow

I paid my respects.

June 2009



Don’t Wait

Here is a poem I wrote recently, as a warning not to put our creative lives on hold.  They will not wait indefinitely.

Connie Banks

Connie Banks works three jobs.

None of them are at taking care of herself

I see, as she hoists her bulky frame out from around the metal desk

in the Bead O Rama warehouse

to show me sterling silver lobster clasps.

Connie Banks makes jewelry, only when she has to.

And she makes quilts, to give as gifts.

But her passion is painting with oil pastels,

and I might see her paintings in a one woman show,

except you need quite a few to put a portfolio together.

Nevertheless, she has a project going all the time.

She has learned to paint a little every day.

She has learned that.

And she keeps her work on the kitchen table.

Right now, it’s a picture of two red roses.

But she hasn’t had time, between her three jobs

to take more photographs for inspiration.

She’s a photographer too,

though she’s tired of beach landscapes and

nautical themes on every magazine cover.

I may see Connie Banks’ paintings

at the town library in the fall.

I promise her I’ll watch for them.

“It’s nice to be asked to show your work,” I say,

“and not have to knock on closed doors.”

Connie Banks works three jobs

now that she is retired,

and shows me lobster clasps

while she should be swirling pastel oil paints

across a willing canvas.

I want to shake her by the shoulders

and say, “What the hell are you waiting for?”

Your hair is white.

Your heart is exhausted under the burden of a hundred extra pounds.

Stop giving it away to these dead concrete walls.

Stop answering my foolish questions about jewelry findings

and run out into the August sunshine with your camera,

home to your palette

and the two red roses on the kitchen table.

Sea Glass Lessons

Sea Glass Lesson #1

The Creative Process Through

the Art of Making Sea Glass Jewelry

Sea glass is my latest obsession. Passion is too gentle a word for the relationship I have with sea glass. The way that I love the shapes, colors, flaws and perfections. The pleasure I take in seeking, with an open heart, along the shore, for hidden gems among the rocks. Quiet, with only the sound of the waves beating out a rhythm of comfort ~ alone with my prayers. And though it feels spiritual, it is ME, after all, that I bring to this spiritual adventure, and me is a woman who subscribes to the “if a little is good, more must be better” mantra of living.

In theory, I know there is enough good to go around, (God knows you can’t read a single spiritual book and not be reminded of this principle). In practice, I am going to beaches as often as possible, filling plastic bags like an obsessive lover stealing kisses before parting. There have been moments I’ve recognized as the whispers of addiction. On beaches for example, when my daughter has to use a bathroom so bad she is running back to the car, and I can’t wrench my eyes from the sand, for fear of missing a frosted aqua or pink gem. Some of my sea glass is for my private collection. I have a two inch peach frosted perfume bottle stopper. A marble swirled in black and white. An amethyst bottle top. But much of my collection is now being used for my next creative pursuit ~ sea glass jewelry.

I think what I love most about making the jewelry, besides the tactile satisfaction of running my fingers over the cool, smooth surface of the sea glass and appreciating the colors and shapes, is the way each piece is unique and unrepeatable. For a girl who thinks kaleidoscopes, mosaics, and snowflakes are the epitome of creative truth, each of my sea glass pendants reminds me that creativity is always about change, growth, and surprise.

The reason I love writing and making art is because, finally, finally, I don’t have to stay pinned down in place. I MUST, if I want to be a writer and artist, allow myself to surrender to the flow and be taken to unexplored territory. There is the unexplored artistic territory ~ experimenting with pink wire when before I used only silver, or learning how to swirl beads through loops of wire when before I used to hug the glass. But there is also the unexplored territory of my personal landscape, because I have discovered, that if I am deeply engaged with my art, I am also deeply engaged with myself.

I wrestle, with wire and sea glass, using patience to wedge a small piece snug against a larger one. I use wire to bind them in a way that I hope will give birth to a beautiful pendant with crystals that catch the light as they dance on a coil of silver. On my spiritual journey, I am wrestling, too, with myself, using patience to wedge a small piece of confidence snug against a larger piece of trust. I use faith to bind them in a way that I hope will give birth to a woman more mature spiritually. I may be obsessed, but finally, I am hungry for something that can fill me up.

Here is a picture of a work in progress.…..

Using it as a jumping off point for contemplation and reflection, I wrote the following……

This piece taught me that thin is not always better and prissy is not always perfect. Each time I pick up this piece, I’m closer to taking it apart, even though I love the placement of each crystal, and the cage swirls, if done in heavier wire, would have been perfect. Also, this wire does not respect the glass ~ windshield glass ~ sturdy, practical, safety glass, wrapped in delicate strands of gold.  It’s wrong ~ all wrong. Why is it so hard for me to admit mistakes? Because I have such high hopes for my success? Because I’ve invested time? Because I don’t need any further confirmation that I’m a screw up? I wish to be ~ in spirit ~ like my sea glass jewelry. Intricate and delicate. Curious and intriguing. Playful and happy. Whimsical, colorful, sparkling, and above all…beautiful.

My instinct was to trash this piece, but I think now, it can be salvaged. If I tighten the wire, tweak it a bit, someone will want it. My time and talent will not be trashed. My hard, though imperfect work will enrich someone’s life. Like my mothering. Done imperfectly, but with enough devotion to help produce three fine, human beings. It isn’t my perfectionism that has served me well, it’s my willingness to stay with the task, cleaning up the mistakes as best as possible, resolving to learn from them, doing the best I can with what I have to work with.

Here’s what the piece taught me ~ there’s no shame in outgrowing your previous “best.” I’m learning how to do sea glass wraps, and there is value and joy in the learning. So what if two weeks ago, I was patting myself on the back for how beautiful this piece was, and tonight I see its flaws? The fun is in the maturation of all art ~ even the art of one’s life. Who ever told me I didn’t get to be a beginner? A novice? An understudy? I honor all of my work as the necessary stepping stone to where I am now. I honor all of my life as the necessary stepping stone to who I am now.

I am going to take tools to this piece to tighten and tweak. If it works, and I can salvage it ~ great! If not, I will take it apart and try something new. With each piece I build confidence. Not in my ability to make beautiful pendants, but in my willingness to call myself a working artist. An Experiential Creative. A child at play. A willing conduit for Spirit. My ego wants each piece to be perfection. My soul wants to step into the Mystery with glass, beads, and wire, and be willing to create and accept the results, without judgment.

What this piece has taught me is….not every creation has to be amazing to be satisfying. Not every blog that I write has to be amazing to be satisfying. I can relax into my work, into my life, and feel a contentment that is mine not because I’ve achieved perfection, but because I’ve experienced, for a moment, the pleasure of being fully human.

Here is what the pendant looked like after I went back with a more refined technique.

The differences, to be sure, are subtle. But so are the incremental changes in my spiritual growth. For today, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I gave the best I had to offer.

Who Would Ever Know a Rose?

Who would ever know a rose

if she shunned it for its thorns?

Velvet dusk of petals ~

opening lips. An invitation kiss

to fall deeper

under the spell

into the scent

to a heart plump

with promise seeds.

 

Who would ever win a pearl

if she grew weary of plumbing secrets?

Shell protected luminescence

burrowed in moist, warm flesh

quivering with the hope

of being freed.

 

Every gift comes bearing grief

in direct proportion to its worth.

 

The daughter burrows,

claiming as her own

the chambers of your heart ~

riding like a surfer

the waves of each intake

and outtake of your breath.

Until with mastery

prepared for solo flight,

with no regret,

she’ll say good-bye.

 

Every gift comes bearing grief

but oh the joy of bittersweet

to know you’ve lived

with open palms

the finest prayer allowed us here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Kind of Despair

 

A Kind of Despair

Kathy MacDonald

I am surfing online
When I’m sideswiped by
A poetry forum board.

Poems
with titles like
“I see God Standing in Stout Grove”
and
“The Man Next Door According to His Pockets.”

Critiques
with comments like
“this poem makes its inquiry via complicated linguistic turns”
and
“to invoke the ghost of Ginsberg is to invite a perilous comparison”.

A kind of despair washes over me.
I, who write poems with titles like
“As If”
and
“Snapshots”
will never be among the chosen.

It hurts to swim through all these stanzas.

So I stop.
And write a poem.

The only answer I have found
to despair.

 

 

A Small Offering

Art is about re-imagining and re-inventing in many ways the details of your life. I wrote the first line of this poem while collecting sea glass at a friend’s beach. There was the joy of finding a pink piece tucked among the rocks ~ and then the awareness that I was the one who had to re-imagine it from trash to treasure in order to experience it as a gift. This poem is a working out of that theme.

 

Everything Can Be Re-Imagined

Everything can be re-imagined.

Magazine images

morphed into collage

marrying advertisers’ invitations

to psyche’s invocations.

 

Everything can be re-imagined.

Trash glass tossed off a ship

morphing into mermaid’s tears

marrying tumbled disregard

to imagination’s response.

 

 

Childhood’s primary colored

finger-painted canvases

mature

with sable bristled brush strokes

delineating texture, detail, layers

of complexity that were not in the original.

 

A father, not a god, but a broken hearted man

whose only kindred spirits were Duke Ellington

and Count Basie ~

friends that would lull him to fitful sleep

on the living room floor.

 

Everything can be re-imagined

and will be, if you are even

the least bit inclined towards forgiveness.

I think this is what my minister,

a recovering alcoholic,

was telling me

when I was afraid to unwrap wounds

that were no longer bleeding

through the bandages.

 

He told me the story of himself, as a boy,

finding his mother dead

on her bed from the bottle.

“You will keep revisiting certain things that happened to you

your entire life.”

 

Which part of his desire to serve and seek,

and which part of his desire for alcohol and adultery

is credited to a woman whose instinct to drink

was greater than her instinct to protect?

 

Everything can be re-imagined

and must be,

in order to remain a strong, central character

in the story you will never shake.

Poets know this

and artists

and sometimes men

who are not gods.

 

 

Kathy MacDonald

October 9^th, 2007

 

An Invitation

My first post is an invitation to fellow artists/seekers/friends who have held my hand in so many ways over the years, as I learned to find my voice. I wrote this poem almost a decade ago, inspired by my first reading of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. My journey may have been slow, but nothing is ever lost. Today I write regularly, and facilitate Artist’s Way classes. This poem is my wish for each of you. Please join me in an ongoing conversation as we dare to live at the creative centers of our lives, that place of joy.

In Dreams and Shadow Lands

Come take my hand

to walk among the shards

of shattered soul

fragments of a beauty whole.

Gingerly we’ll read each piece.

Here’s a walk upon the beach

when sand and sea and sun were one.

And joy was found in some new shell

To run to Mother with and tell.

Here’s the artist I was meant to be

had fear not got a hold of me.

And all my daydreams scattered wide

seeds of stories lost inside.

You will rush to collect

the pieces dusty from neglect.

Your hope, your strength, your vision bright

Your childlike laughter and sheer delight.

I will fill my arms with these ~

my poet’s voice, my dreams, my needs.

And we will know

the truth of our perfection.

Beloved, we were made

for Light’s reflection.