Month: June 2017

Yellow Bird

IMG_0176

Kingsbrae 5.1.1
5 June 2017

Yellow Bird

Broken-winged, a bird I found,
panicking upon the ground.

I stooped to lift it from the land:
it nestled in my open hand.

A matchstick splint with cotton tied,
a canary cage to rest inside.

With healing done, an open door:
my yellow bird will fly no more.

I take a pencil, draw a tree,
my bird begins to sing for me.

I erase the cage bars, one by one,
paint a lion’s mane of sun.

Now yellow bird sits in his tree,
and sings all day, to inspire me.

Comment: I split the original post into two segments. The first, 5.1.1 is the poem Yellow Bird and the voice recording. The second, numbered Kingsbrae 4.3 Encaustic, contains the summary of the first evening’s artistic discussion.

Hymn of Praise

IMG_0021.JPG

Kingsbrae 4.2
4 June 2017

Hymn of Praise

Woodhenge, Stonehenge,
bay and shore henge,
the sun rising out of the sea henge,
this forest older by far
than the Christian God,
and those Druids, my ancestors,
late-comers, five thousand years ago,
bound to this earth by the same
rays of sunshine that bind me now.

No man kills
in praise of the life-giving Sun,
that Celestial Father
who raised with Earth Mother
the beauty of our flowers,
the bounty of our fields.

Here, at Kingsbrae,
sitting at my window,
I raise my Sunday hymn of praise
to the Sun who gifted me my life
and who’ll still be there
when I end my days.

Love

img_0137

Kingsbrae 4.1
4 June 2017

Love

Love wore a mummer’s mask.
Cloaked in mystery, it came,
tumultuous, to my door,
and sold me a pig of promises
wrapped in a colored cloak.

When love broke my heart,
I swore I’d never love again.
I chose instead a steady friend,
a singular flower growing
wild in the hedgerow.

Wine, I offered, distilled in
my own winery. Drawings
and paintings, poems, simple
things that rooted deep
and blossomed when least expected.

No passion now, no smoldering fire,
just a slow growing old together,
hand in hand, and a settling down
in comfort and joy, our glasses
filled with the sunshine and un-
tarnished gold that spell true love.

Journal: Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. Sitting here, at my window in Kingsbrae, at 6:00 am on Sunday morning, the sunlight sews gold threads through my heart and I realize how much my life has been enriched by the person I have left behind in Island View. Those same gold threads that descend from the sun have bound us together across the years. Apart, we are not alone and I feel her fill me with light even as I sit  here at this window, typing these words, watching the sun rise up over Passamaquoddy Bay.

 

Ireland in my Mind

Empress 070

Kingsbrae 3.2
3 June 2007

Ireland in my Mind
(for Anne)

That cottage, stony and cold,
on Galway’s shore
where sunsets redden
the bay as the sun’s slow
candle burns low
across untroubled waters.

Overhead, the planets
await their call to emerge
from the sky-dark
and perform their Platonic
dance steps back and forth
as they have always done.

This limestone, barren
at first sight, now teems
with a hidden life that
emerges when the time
is right and its particles
dance their earthly dance,

the one that burgeons
into paint and flows with
beeswax down the canvas
to create a poetry woven
with lichens and moss, as soft
as this Irish accent

that leaves word footprints
and worlds, as dark as song,
with memories drawn, like water
fresh from the well, as starlight
twinkles and the day recreates
itself in memory and dream.

Journal: Last night, a magnificent and very entertaining supper, hosted by Mrs. Flemer, was held for the invited artists and the KIRA Residency Team. Afterwards, the residency group, consisting of Anne (Encaustic) , Carlos (Piper), Elise (Sculptor), Hanna (Cuisine), Roger (Poet), and Ruby (Painter) gathered in the residence at KIRA and began the first of many discussions on the new cultural world we are creating.

Carlos explained, through his interpreter, how he listened to other people’s music. First comes the rhythm. Then the structural division, segment by segment. Finally, there is the melody. In addition, Carlos looks at what techniques and themes he may incorporate into his own compositions. A general discussion followed on the nature of art and inspiration. Included in the discussion was the weight of responsibility that many of the residency artists felt. This was expressed in a need to produce something special while we are here.

This need to produce came in part from the desire to return to KIRA the faith shown in selecting this group of people, most of whom expressed their surprise at having been chosen.  A discussion followed on how each member had felt upon receiving the news of the selection. A fierce desire to repay the KIRA Team with works of value was felt by the chosen artists. However, the artists also realized that while some results might be immediate, the long-term development of the individual’s art, as a result of the KIRA Residency, might take some time to come through. Patience, belief, and envisionment were three of the themes that then surfaced. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day and Kingsbrae would never be revealed in all its glory on the first day of a 28 day residency.

Anne Wright presented a signed copy of her book Change Artistry to each member of the group. She also gifted us a delightful card collection of inspirational sayings. My own favorite for the day: “There is a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it does not change” (William Stafford). Other exchanges of gifts, some visual, some verbal, some musical, will occur, we are certain, throughout this residency.

Dawn at Kingsbrae

IMG_0018.JPG

Kingsbrae 3.1
3 June 2017

Dawn @ Kingsbrae

1

A fiery wedge fierce beneath
black-capped clouds, alive
the firmament with light,
breaking its waves over woods,
waters, tranquil the bay, grey,
yellow streaked, then blue,
the new day dawning,
driving night away,
false shadows fleeing.

2

To rock this new born babe,
to swaddle it in a cloak of cloud,
disguised for a moment its promise,
nature nurturing heart and mind,
filling the flesh with memory’s
instantaneous flash breaking its light
into the dark where no light shone,
fearful, the dream world,
gone now, dwindling as day light
shafts its arrowed flight.

3

How thoughtful My Lady
who placed me here,
at this desk,
at this window,
at this moment of time.

Glorious the day-break,
words no justice can do
to peace and light,
this early morning,
filtering sunlight
through the waking mind,
relighting the fires within the heart,
and glory striped on the horizon
just a word’s throw away.

 

Kingsbrae 2.2

img_0165

Kingsbrae 2.2
2 June 2017

The Red Room

Carlos makes music on his flute.
He lives in the Green Room,
an open door opposite mine.

He creates the highest note of all
and it floats before me in the air,
a trapeze artist caught in a sunbeam,
suspended between the hands
that fling and those that catch.

His musical rhythms are different.
I try to follow his fingering.

In the space between notes,
hummingbirds flash their ruby
throats as they flit between flowers.

With a whirring of wings, all music
stops, save for the robin’s song
refreshing the early summer
with the sound of his eternal joy.

Journal: As I unpack my bags and start to settle in and arrange the room to my own liking, Carlos who will stay in the room opposite mine, starts to play his flute. I listen to the notes and, as I am listening, a robin joins in the song. I rest for a moment and sit at the small writing desk by one of the windows. From here I can see white clouds floating their ice-berg shapes across a sea-blue sky. Beneath them, Passamaquoddy Bay sparkles and crackles with filtered sunshine.

My mind goes back to another, more desperate time, two years ago, when I sat by the hospice window in Moncton and looked out at the car park. My car sat out there, abandoned, lonely, waiting to take me home for the welcome respite of a weekend free from radiation and treatments. Now, looking out of the window towards Minister Island, I feel as if I belong, as if this place had been waiting a long time for me to arrive and bear witness to it. I feel deep inside me the joy I feel when I walk in the door and enter the warmth of my own family and home.

Kingsbrae 2.1

IMG_0486.jpg

Kingsbrae 2.1
2 June 2017

Pan Pipes
(for Carlos)

Lips form to make sounds
and the pan pipes speak
the international language
of love and lost love,
of a breeze through river reeds,
of fire on the snow high above
on Huascaran, Misti,
and wherever the pan pipes
roam, the piper will be at home,
his magic moving hearts and minds,
entering fingers that tap
and feet that move to the music’s beat,
yet beat is too harsh a word
for music that moves
like a breeze through the reeds
to pierce our souls
with its rhythmic breath
of a life now shared
with its mastery of that sacred art
older by far than other music,
save for the tapping
of stone and stick.

Zampoña andina
(para Carlos)

Los labios se comprimen
para formar sonidos
y habla la zampoña
la lengua internacional
de amor y amores perdidos,
de una brisa entre las cañas,
de fuego en las altas nieves
de Huascaran, Misti,
y dondequiera que viaje la zampoña
estará en casa el zampoñista,
su música penetrando
el corazón del oyente
haciendo bailar sus dedos
y danzar sus pies
al compás de la música,
aunque compás es una palabra
demasiado dura para describir
esta música que mueve y nos mueve
penetrando el alma
con el suspiro rítmico
de una vida ahora compartida
con su dominio de esta arte sagrada
más antigua que toda la música
salvo el batir de bastón contra piedra.

Journal: Last night, I picked Carlos up at the airport and we loaded the car. It was getting late, and between thunderstorms, water on the highway, poor visibility, the spring presence of moose on the highway, the gathering dark, and the hydroplaning that was a part of the storm, we decided to spend the night in Fredericton rather than arrive late and in the dark. My Spanish, very rusty, is improving under Carlos’s guidance. I am helping him with his English as he helps me with my Spanish.

This morning we are up early. Breakfast is ready. I will post this and then we will be on our way.

 

Kingsbrae 1.2

img_0180

Kingsbrae 1.2

Huezeequichi
1 June 2017

Pen on paper,
words fall like tears,
waters that will erode
the hardest of stones.

 This man bears witness
to thought, word, and deed.

He’s the outsider who sees
the interior world
and drags forth its spirit
for others to see,
not painted in paint,
not sculpted in stone,
no breeze through the reeds,
just words on the page
lined up in thin lines
to flower and flourish
like an army that conquers
the world of the soul,
and leaves fresh foot
prints on eternal snow.

Journal: The packing is being done. I have gathered my books and my writing material, my notebooks, my pens, my colored inks for cartoons, my drawing paper … it is all in a large box that I call my office. Next I must pack the laptop and the files / USBs and music that I need. After that comes camera and accoutrements, including a tripod in case I want some videos. Finally, the clothes that I need, working clothes and something slightly more elegant, not that I have much good clothing that fits me any longer: alas, I have put on size and weight. The ones who wear white coats told me I would … and they were right.

Carlos will be catching the Fredericton plane in an hour or so. I will have supper when I have packed and I’ll go to the airport after supper to meet him. Then I have to decide whether to drive down to St. Andrews tonight or whether to come back home and sleep here. Decisions, decisions: if the flight is delayed, as it often is, then we’ll spend the night here. If we spend the night here, we’ll leave tomorrow and head for St. Andrews early, just after breakfast.

There is so much to do, so much to think about. Luckily, I made a list and I am just following the instructions I gave myself when my mind was calmer.

Huezeequichi: the one who bears witness.

Kingsbrae 1.1

IMG_0464

Conference Call
(for Anne, Carlos, Elise, and Ruby)
Kingsbrae 1.1
1 June 2017

Face to face, the five of us,
a gallery of artists, meeting
together for the first time
in a virtual reality unlike
the ones we ourselves create.

Our opening words simulate
a game of chess, slow and
hesitant, then speeding up,
slowing down, accelerating
as we gain more confidence.

Faces become names, voice
and tone take on deeper
meaning, one of us smiles,
some of us smile back. Then
smiles turn to laughter as
formalities break down.

In growing fellowship, we work
on the where, how, and why,
of what we will be doing
when we meet at Kingsbrae.

Journal: Anne organizes two conference calls in May and we are able to talk online and discuss what we intend to do when we gather together at Kingsbrae. It is a little slow at first, but we soon warm to each other and the ideas flow.  It’s not easy for us to pull everything together, for we are so different. Our group contains an artist in multi-media (Anne), a musician from Peru who plays the pan pipes (Carlos), a sculptor, (Elise), a painter (Ruby), and a poet (Roger).

Now the First of June has arrived. Anne and Elise are already on the road. Carlos is in the air, flying in from Lima to Toronto, and then on to Fredericton, where he will be met later today by Roger. Ruby is all packed and about to set out. She will probably head right past my house as she travels to St. Andrews. Depending on the actual time of arrival of Carlos’s flight, we will either meet tonight in Kingsbrae or else early tomorrow.

Expectation is high. My own artistic antennae are twitching, and I am sure that everybody else feels the same: fortunate, lucky, charged up with artistic energy, in a single word: blessed. Soon the creative adventure will start. Then let the magic wand wave and a fecund creativity will set in.