"The New Green Will Bloom Again", charcoal, acrylic paint, pencil on paper

The Charcoal

From the burned out forests of Colorado, you sent me the charcoal

four distinct chunks, porous, black and cracked

like layers of earth’s strata, the story of it’s life

now in my hands, smudged with remembrance.

I will let these majestic trees speak, even from their ashen body

of what heat and fury, what roar and sounding

as animals fled, humans gathered and winged ones took flight.

And when I cook my food slowly

like I do every season, the wood from the forest my fuel

I say a prayer, to the glory of trees and life

to the brave people who donned their suits and honor

and headed into the chaos of fire

to the ones who didn’t make it

and the ones who did, the new green

will bloom again.

_____________________________________________

Ashes to Art Online Auction

• When: Oct. 7 through 21

• Where:
www.BiddingforGood.com/ TheAshestoArt Project2012

• Information: The Ashes to Art Project Facebook page or TheAshesToArtProject@gmail.com

The Makings Of Music

A first utterance.

All animals speak.

Listen; the rhythm of your walking

when sole meets earth

stone meets stone as sisters grind grain

the sound of deepness, when our bodies came

together, in loving swing

or whisper, the sound of hum

coo child, at rest in your arms

the shell’s breath, heartbeat against your ear

hear, the wave, mother of music.

At Aarhus Gallery..opening this Friday Oct. 5th..5-8 pm...join us for a reception.

Show is up through Oct. 28th...hope to see you there.

 

The Geese
by May Sarton 

The geese honked overhead.
I ran to catch the skein
To watch them as they fled
In a long wavering line.

I caught my breath alone,
Abandoned like a lover
With winter at the bone
To see the geese go over.

It happens every year
And every year some woman
Haunted by loss and fear
Must take it as an omen,

Must shiver as she stands
Watching the wild geese go,
With sudden empty hands
Before the cruel snow.

Some woman every year
Must catch her breath and weep
With so much wildness near
At all she cannot keep.

"Between My Love And You" acrylic on paper, 2012

To all the young ones just starting their venture this summer, to whom I have had the pleasure of giving my music and witnessing their love,
to my dear loving family, near and far
to friends having departed this bodily presence, but here, forever in the air and the sky, the wisp of wind, the movement of a child..my heart and spirit,
to those unknown to me, I want to know you,
your love is the same as mine

we all come in as naked little babes, and we all leave with one last breath
needing someone, somewhere who cares, even just alittle.
Thank you all laborers, of which I am one,
working the shifts and the factories, the timeclocks, and the offices, the managers and thinkers, the machinists and the farmers, the tenders and dreamers, singers and writers, the visionaries.
We are all of us, just a moment, a breadth away from one another's experience...look into my eyes.

from Kate Wolf:

Kind friends all gather round
There's something I would say
What brings us together here
Has blessed us all today
Love has made a circle
That holds us all inside
Where strangers are as family
And loneliness can't hide

You must give yourself to love
If love is what you're after
Open up your heart to
Tears and laughter
Give yourself to love
Give yourself to love.

 
Hot summer on the coast of Maine.  Long humid days, blackberries ripening, crickets sounding in the afternoon, Goldenrod, Queen Anne's Lace in full bloom. Working hard on the physical studio building, here at my home.  Rough wiring done, and now on to insulating.  Many questions arising, how to be mindful in this century in the construction process; encountering compromises with regard to the use of green materials versus cost.  Why should synthetic, chemically made material cost less than a natural one?
Writing and painting... full color painting on canvas;  a continuation of the drawn/painted series on vellum "Pieces Of Prayer" that were done this winter/spring.
Best Wishes for a bountiful August.

"She Comes Down From Heaven's Mountain #3" charcoal, pencil, paint on vellum

Your Voice

It was when we had gathered
after midnight, in the dew’s heavy grass
that I first heard your voice

leading our small tribe singing
all songs of remembering
your presence behind me
showering my heart, with your melody falling clear
like water, from heaven’s mountain
and I saw
myself in your brown eyes
next day, in the tent
standing before me
your offering of sustenance
said there was nothing in this world
but the giving between us
that tiny morsel, like Jesus bread
could stave off hunger
could rustle a thriving
and this was truth
as it touched my lips
from you.

hd.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

 Pablo Neruda
 (Thank you to my facebook friend Norvie for reminding me of Neruda.)


Miles and miles traveled since I last posted.  By car, by plane, by foot, down highways, back roads, vineyards and suburbs, rolling golden hills and waving fields of corn. The Atlantic, the Alleghany mountains, the Susquehanna, Chenango, Lake Erie, the Pacific shore, the mighty virgin redwoods, good hearted people all along the way.  Affluence, poverty, and so many in the strange middleland.  Northern California by way of San Francisco..plane travel...still cannot quite feel at home with being in the air in a compressed air machine flying how many miles per hour?  38,000 feet above the earth?  Can you?
The idea that we can propel ourselves through space in this fashion..metal boxes hurtling us compelling us to move ever faster, travel ever further, yet we continue to war, we continue to anger, some are starving while overweight in America takes the vanilla wafers from the steward without even thinking, takes the coke in the plastic cup while soaring like a steel bird leaving trails of jet fuel to be absorbed into mammals milk, all in the name of progress, globalization, so we don't have to know anymore, the exact number of hours it takes for a human or animal to walk 3500 miles across the land. We have forgotten our roots, but we try to remember through the arts, through our gardens, through our human connection when we share a loss or joy, and we need an embrace, a holding.

Even in May when all is greening
my thoughts trail to Greta and Pauline
others who have traveled in spring, to another shore.

Found the poem below in Poets&Writers magazine..thank you Marge Piercy.

The painting is mine from the series "The Deepness Within"

and is titled "Where The Creek Runs"

which speaks to me of a solitary moment in time,

but the vision is held...there, just over the rise, just down the creek, around the bend. 

Another Obituary

We were filled with the strong wine

of mutual struggle, one joined loud

and sonorous voice.  We carried

each other along revolting, chanting,

cursing, crafting, making all new.

First Muriel, then Audre and Flo,

now Adrienne.  I feel like a lone

pine remnant of virgin forest

when my peers have met the ax

and I weep ashes.

Yes, young voices are stirring now

the wind is rising, the sea boils

again, yet I feel age sucking

the marrow from my bones,

the loneliness of memory.

Their voices murmur in my inner

ear but never will I hear them

speak new words and no matter

how I cherish what they gave us

I want more, I still want more.

Marge Piercy

Please come to the opening if you can.
Wed. April 4th 4-7
at the Gallery Grand
Ellsworth ME.
The show will be up throughout the month of April...stop in and check out the fantastic work by
37 artists..to benefit Mabel Wadsworth Women's Health Center in Bangor.

all winter long..the words were written over and over, like a prayer, or a penance for something long forgotten or by the simple but deliberate action of writing over and over.. a new vision would be birthed.. and now its spring.

 

March 13th and warm winds, 50 degrees!

The apple trees are starting to push their silver tipped buds into this open "feels like spring" air.

I am inside, looking out, taxes, grant writing, offering poetry and all that.

Am happy to announce my inclusion in the Maine Art Scene 2012 Virtual Gallery.  View it at 

www.maineartscene.com

In the studio the drawing/writing urge is still very strong.. have posted some of these paintings/drawings to my website www.heididaub.com under new drawing/writing.