Maybe not even then

The crow shuts her beak
when the sun forgets to climb
and the waves are still.

Bee

Today, I went walking along the shore. My 2nd time in the ocean since moving to Spain. And I was looking for rocks and shells, when I saw a bee. High up in the low tide. Writhng in the sand. Why it was there I do not know.

Did it sting someone? Did it get too wet to fly? Was it the time for the bee to go? I don't know. But it was agonizing to watch it. And yet, I wondered if I had stepped on it, would it have stung me? Would I have been it's last victim? Bees can kill long after they are dead. That could have been me.

I don't know.

But I wrote some verses there before I left the beach. They are to come.

I will never know what happened to that bee.

Shuffled Words

I decided to try Shuffle Words.

This was my first attempt. It didn't feel right adding puncuation since there wasn't any in the blocks to use. (I actually wanted to keep working on it, but I pushed save too early, then I could not use new words.)

It is just an exercise, remember.

~*~

just know they which find prizes pay prices


over your blue black bed
among these sheep
I make many a furious repair
love taxi going high
a car
a dirty place


a clean woman
a good thing
outside be red pig brown dog yellow cow white goat
no man has remain
she sees into water
down long low


if we only hate her
can it be called right with you
without words would you
who will after all

Today's Quote

When I was young, my grandma had a tiny blue box full of little cards shaped like fortune cookie fortunes. They each held a bible quote, but they were not in any order. She said every morning, you were supposed to randomly choose a card from the box, and that was your meditation for the entire day.

I always thought there was something magical about that little box, the arbitrary way you were given something spiritual, and the wondering whether your quote was chance or guided to you by the hand of God Himself.

I began a journal of spiritual quotes for myself, one quote to each page. Although I am not against adding some, there are no bilble quotes in it yet. They are mostly from books, although some are from songs.

The idea is to flip through the book and randomly encounter YOUR quote for THAT day. It is not as magical as the cards, and as I get more quotes, I may put that them in that form.

Please feel free to add quotes that you believe qualify to the comments. Just be sure to tell me where they are from if you know.

Here is the 1st installment chosen randomly of course.

~*~

Don't take anything personally.

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world than we live in.

-Don Miguel Ruiz from

The Four Agreements

~*~
The real challenge in this quote to dwell on the word "nothing."

Blue

This is a painting I did last year in acrylic. I always use acrylic. Why? Because I always have.

It was not until last year that I started painting formless shapes and sometimes just colors. Really they are not much more than exercises that I have done in just a couple hours.

Because I expect less from them, I think I like them more.

All the colors are variations of blue. I like the crispness of the light blue at the top. It looks like a beam of light.

The colors are not as vivd as the original. I think my husband needs a new scanner. Or I need to finally learn how to use this Photoshop Elements program that has been gathering "dust" on my computer desktop.

I have painted very little over the last year, I am hoping that the Inspire Me Thurseday site will give me a reason to start again.

Contents

The air
startles my lungs
stunning me with health and life
The streets
stirred by light
dive from the seams and slip past me
The earth
breathes a melody just under
her children’s constant chiming
The hour
again finds me and flowing
back into my blood, displaces the day.

(ReadWritePoem, Get Your Poem On #34)

Driving The Nails In

Poetic Procrastination:

Ani Difranco said something about her songs being ever in evolution and never really finished. That is the same way I feel about my poetry. When I see a poem after a couple years, I think, "Brilliant. But this should be here and this line is gone!"

It is almost always pruning. I fear not having said enough, knowing with peotry, just a couple words can make the reader trip. I have to get braver with each review in order to take out what shouldn't have been there--like taking the training wheels off, so I can go faster, smoother.

My poetry has been in constant flux under my own eyes and no one else's for fear of having those words being nailed in place, but it is time to take those training wheels off as well.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new creative blog! I have had my other blog, Jenn in Spain, up for a while now, and I love it!

Jenn is Spain is supposed to be about Spain, my adventures living here, and a means to keep my family in the U.S. updated. It has required a lot of creativity, but it is not the place for my own creative creations: poetry, painting, and the occasional photo.

I love the creative blogging community, and I realized I was only visiting (commenting, reading) and not participating (sharing). So concider this blog my finally getting in on the conversation.

It may look new and small, but I am an avid blogger, so it will grow and change as I paint the walls, put up the curtains, and sweep the front porch. (For now, it still has the SOLD sign on the lawn.)

I welcome all comments on my posts, and I deeply appreciate specific, thoughtful, helpful ones--ones that make me a better artist.

Here we go...

A Halloween Fairytale

Most of you here know about fairies. You have chased, cursed, and laughed with them.

As much as we like those little flighty friends, many are unaware of the true story of Halloween. And like any story worth telling, it is a fairytale.

Among the many races of fairies are Nimlets, ranchers really. As with all fairies, they defy description, but to give you an idea: think of a grasshopper walking upright in patchwork robes, taller than a sprite, but shorter than a gnome, and with sturdy antennae to track their herds.

You probably have not had the pleasure of meeting a Nimlet, because they are usually homebodies tending to their Gurt herds. Wispy little things, the Gurts are very important to fairy folk who rent out herds for different purposes. Male Gurts give humans goose bumps and willies. Wherever a member of fairy hierarchy is resting for the night, for example a cool cave, moonlit forest, or large field on a still night, you can be sure there is a hired Nimlet ready to drive a herd into approaching humans turning them around and keeping the employer undisturbed. Female Gurts are usually employed in the daytime, because their effect on humans is the skips and giggles. Herds of female Gurts are driven into small children to entice them to come play with and entertain fairy villages.

Another curious fact about Gurts is that they are terribly attracted to orange light, and during the harvest moon of October, they blow up into the skies in droves to mate. The Nimlets could not stop this peculiar behavior if they tried. There are simply to many Gurts, and their desire is strong.

So come October, there is collective Nimlet sigh as they watch their beloved livelihood rush up into the night sky. They spend the rest of October fretting and worrying about their airy beasts and hoping for a safe return and a quick Halloween.

Halloween is the great gathering time for Nimlets and the end of breeding season for their Gurts. Once the Gurts finally float back down to the ground, they have been so turned around, jostled, mixed-up, and generally befuzzled by the fun, they have no idea how to get home. Even at the best of times, Gurt are directionally challenged. Hence, there is the need for excellent ranching Nimlets, but as talented as Nimlets are at herding, the gathering is such a chaotic time, that they solicit some help from some old friends.

Centuries ago, when humans still had excellent relations with fairies, a pact was struck. At the end of October, humans lit jack-o-lanterns and orange tinted lanterns to entice the Gurts to their doorstep. In these good ol’ days, when the Nimlets came around to collect them by the bunches, the humans would linger on their porches to gossip with the local Gurt ranchers and offer them sugary treats to help the Nimlets on their long night of Gurt gathering. Of course, if you are human, having swarms of Gurts of both sexes on your doorstep most of the night is not going to be without some effect. Nimlets noticed with much amusement, that in homes where mostly males had gathered, humans were bathed in a frightful but fun air, making them identify with scary figures out of legends. After many years, they even began dressing up as spirits and delighted in ghost stories. In other areas, where females were prevalent, the humans took the identities of more comical characters or childhood heroes and played silly games.

Of course after the Great Domain Disunion in 1852, when most human-fairy relations were severed for good, this age-old tradition was altered. Children, of course, have always had great fairy relations, so for the last century and a half, it has been up to them to help the Nimlets in the gathering.

Adults still put out the jack-o-lanterns, or even better, cover their porches in orange holiday lights, attracting the Gurt swarms. And out of centuries bred habit, they are easily persuaded to hand out candy to passing children dressed in scary and silly costumes. But, crouched in each child’s sack, plastic pumpkin, or pillowcase is an agile and eager Nimlet friend of the child. While the human adults are distracted by the children, candy giving, and costume judging, the Nimlets quickly hop out, round up the confused and exhausted Gurts and return into hiding for the next doorstep. Munching on a few candies along the way, of course.

In time, the different natures of human and fairy strike a wedge in the relationship. The child gets older and begins to mistake fairies for dreams, and Nimlets move on to smaller children when one believes oneself too old to trick-or-treat. It’s fine with the fairies, but it is the humans that miss out. However, on Halloween Night, if adults decorate with orange lights or jack-o-lanterns and give candy to children, then they are unwittingly helping their local fairy folk and even more surprising, fulfilling their end of a long ago agreement between old friends.