Sitting
Goddess
do I wish I could draw
the mountain
that is burning
into my mind
a beautiful bulwark
over time
shaped shaved crushed
Yet
I am still
Sitting
The writing prompt was a photograph by Ansel Adams from the book “The Georgia O’Keefe Museum.” Georgia O’Keefe sketching …
Ashen grey, love
that was
white snow
left to melt
upon the
frozen meadow
faded photographs —
old diaries
secrets
carved wood
that once
had meaning
lines as fine as Madame’s
greying hair
shed upon
a pillowcase
rouge smeared
onto the cold pool
the looking glass
shafts of light
soak through
decaying skin —
falling in mottled sheets
silver–encrusted lips
kissing soft bark
a child’s boots tread
feather-light
beds of rotten leaves
hours vanish
mind. empty
sturdy beams
clean
pale sky
windows
open doubt
growing
moss
ivy garden
touching
eaves dripping
white oak and
rain singing
names
across the wood’s
fine grain
This is the second poem by Eva García-mayers in this blog. Twice a month, her writing group has given me the energy to continue walking. And writing.
Twirling in orange Sacral flows down and up and Ajna seeing blue
In my writing group on the weekend, the prompt was to look at the painting and write a haiku. If I remember right, this is my first haiku — ever. I asked Jim LePage, and he graciously gave me permission to use his painting on my blog.
If you have the interest, time, and energy to read more of the Just texts you find them in blog order on this website. Please comment on what you associate with them, what you like, what you dislike, what you read in them, how they make you feel …
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Begin is a rare word. Often used over times immemorial. It’s ancient and went through a lot. Begin is unlike many others. Belong. There is a long. Become. There is a come. Behold. There is a hold. Begin. There is only gin; and that does not even come close, only at the end. The be- is transparent. The -gin is obscure. Millenia ago, the Germanic peoples had a verb ginnan. To cut open. To open up. It must have started then. They also had – and we still do – a be-prefix. To cause or to make whatever the verb says it does. These two were merged into a rare word. To cause something to open up. To begin. To make it – cut – open. To begin.
Beginning in the second paragraph. Ing … ing … ing. Something is going on here. Progressing. Progressive. And it fossilized. A little. Into a noun. Static? No! Process—ing. Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. Always doing. Changing. Progressing. Beginning.
At the beginning of 2022, wishing you all new beginnings. Many. Fruitful beginnings. Often. And a happy ending.
Wrote this in a San Diego writers group today. The prompt was – you guessed it – beginning. I am very grateful for and to this group.
Fridays are different from the other days. I meet up and write just for myself in a group. 45 minutes each week. This less than an hour has become my lens on the remaining 165. In a week of 168 hours, I type for one and hear for two and have kept it up for four months, because the writing and the listening got under my skin. Slowly. I am in text. On Fridays.
On Fridays, I don’t use my words loosely — friends — when I write. I listen to them and get taken away to the within and the without. Gently. I am moved and don’t have to journey alone. Writing with friends, using vocabulary that I uncovered in Webster’s, some yesterday and some 25 years ago. And the words of the friends are finely woven, skillfully thrown, gracefully spun. A poem recited, a story retold, a letter drafted. I listen in awe each Friday.
Each Friday, each writes a piece each. This matters. Writing is jotting down words on paper, hammering them into a machine, scratching the surface of wood, or spraying the grey of concrete, and so much more. Many different ways, and all have one wish in common. The writing longs to be seen and heard and kept. At least once in a while for a while. For that, I am learning to read and to listen and to build. For my writing.
My writing does not make me a writer. It makes me susceptible. Some words get under my skin, and I lay down mine with more care, since I like words more than cheese. And cheese, I love. Luckily, English has more words than any other language I know of. Willingly, it borrowed and kept the spaghettis, the kitsches, the schadenfreudes, the sputniks, and the BBQs of this world for me to choose from for my writing.
My writing does not net me money. I know I am lucky that way, not needing the gain. Instead I use the texts to have a wallet for my understanding and sympathy, so that I can take out words to pay others the respect and give them the delight that I would like to commit freely. In a second language, committing is easier, when I am writing.
My writing does construct me. I am not a writer, but I would not be the same, if I did not craft a text among people who write and listen and speak so eloquently and empathetically about a written word of mine they heard. And then I don’t have words to say how thankful I am to all who help in my construction. So I am writing on Fridays.