I’ve been falling behind on my posting for my friend Linda Levy’s Art Challenge to post ten examples of my art. The piece is one of a series of six depicting sacred spaces of women.
THE KITCHEN
Click on photos to enlarge.
Zoomorphic figures abound in the numerous sculptures and paintings on my shelves, tables and walls, and also around the pool where Morrie, Diego and Zoe take turns being the center of attention. Morrie’s stardom will always involve a ball being tossed—either into the water or down to the garden level below the pool. Zoe’s will involve rigorous play activities with either Diego or whichever human strays into her territory. Diego’s will involve interaction with Zoe, since she was thrust into his life suddenly upon my return from the beach two months ago.
We have formed a colony—Zoe, Diego, Morrie, my visiting cousin Kirk and I. The pith of our union is three-and-a-half-month-old puppy Zoe, who blithely goes about doing her mischievous business. Even the cats put up with her like saints. Her biting, chewing, jumping, yipping, purloining of cat food and general puppyness is tolerated by all. The cats have been known to join Zoe and me in bed. Diego watches her like a hawk, shielding her from dangers. Morrie occasionally yields his ball to her—a huge concession for his one-track mind to make. It strains credulity that he would surrender his most treasured object to anyone other than a human ready to throw it for him to retrieve.
For the last two days, I have been a martyr to amoebas and today I have finally given in and gone to bed. From my bed of pain, I can see their reflections in the pool and hot tub. Diego is positioned parallel to the edge of the pool on his stomach like a reclining Anubis, but with front legs crossed. Morrie is sitting on haunches on his grass throne in a large flower pot adjacent to the pool. He chews on his beloved tennis ball, not bothering to drop it into the pool for Kirk to throw for him as Kirk is for the moment absent—gone to liberate a pepperoni pizza from the oven.
Zoe lies on the thin ledge between the hot tub, its water still too hot to enter, and the cooler pool, which Kirk exited a half hour or so ago. If Kirk were here, he would worry, calling her away from the water that streamed boiling hot into the hot tub from mineral springs twelve hours ago, but two months of observation have taught me that she knows its dangers—knows how to test its temperature with her nose without actually touching the water.
Now cousin Kirk momentarily casts his reflection into first the hot tub, then the pool, as he passes with pizza fresh from the oven, his plate held high to repel curious noses and hungry jaws. The canine and feline segments of our conclave were fed hours ago. The pizza is all his as I feel as though I’ll never want to eat again. The coral of the sunset sky is slowly fading to gray and the cicadas that the locals call rain birds are continuing their late afternoon/early evening chorus, signaling that the rainy season will begin in approximately 40 days. It will be Zoe’s first experience with rain. Will she try to chase each raindrop or to capture the circular swirl of water rushing down the drain on the terrace? Will she quake at the house-jarring bolts of lightning and cracks of thunder? Always a new thrill for a puppy just three and a half months old. And always a new center of interest for those of us who watch her.
The attitudes and responses of the cats five times her size when I first brought her home will be the topic of another conversation. At present, one curls to my side and the other one between my feet as I lie on the bed, knees bent into a vee to support my laptop. Suffice it to say that for the moment, this is a peaceable kingdom, a mutual-admiration society (except for the antagonism between the two bigger dogs and two cats) and I am well-pleased with all company present, hoping they are equally well-pleased with me.
For Day fifteen of NaPoWriMo, we are to write a poem about something we have absolutely no interest in. For some reason, I started out thinking that was what I was talking about, then strayed into the topic below which is exactly the reverse of the suggested topic. Since it is the first time in the nine years I’ve been writing a poem a day for NaPoWriMo that I’ve strayed from the suggested prompt, I’m giving myself permission to stray this one time and instead using the five prompts from my usual prompt sites. I’ve been gone all day and now that I’m home, the electricity has been going off every few minutes for the past hour. Grrr. Gotta get this posted while I can.
Prompts today are colony, zoomorphic, credulity, pith and reflection.
And HERE is Kirk’s version of his afternoon. The dogs love him and it is reciprocated.
I showed the central part of this hibiscus yesterday and took this photo as well. Today it has already fallen. There will be a new one tomorrow.
For Cee’s FOTD
The Changeling
At heart I am a changeling, born of fairy stuff.
Reality and daily life simply are not enough.
I yearn for the forest, the valley or the ness.
The only place where I’m content is the wilderness.
And though siblings are rosy and love to laugh and shout,
frolicking like puppies as they roll about,
my skin is wan and pallid and I do not care to play,
keeping mortal company constantly at bay.
Faux parents can’t facilitate my raging appetite,
nor my predilection for the deepest night.
I was born of different stock, unsatisfied and mean,
preferring solitary life, untouched and pristine.
And though I petition that I be let alone,
those who come upon me, alas, are often prone
to try to draw me out, an act that I rebuff,
for I find myself to be company enough.
Somewhere in the forest, in a cavern or a tree,
I know that there resides the opposite of me,
living far away from the place where they were born,
dreaming of the family that they miss and mourn.
Two unhappy doppelgangers, always just off-mark.
One languishes in daylight, the other in the dark.
We stand before a funhouse mirror and without a doubt,
One is looking into it, the other looking out.
While somewhere in the vast lost world, parental arms are aching
for the child that long ago was of their dual making.
What evil force declared that both sets of parents should pine
for the natural-born child each yearns to claim as “mine?”
Those who seek disruption wander through our life,
seeking to take action that cuts us like a knife.
War and rape and pestilence, disorder and melee,
substituting one child and taking one away.
What more brutal action than this cruel deflection
that subverts two tiny lives, causing lifelong dejection?
The human-born and changeling, forced into different lives.
A honeybee and hornet forced into warring hives.
The changeling and the one replaced, both of them misplaced,
yearning from the life from which they’ve been displaced.
Who can blame their solitude, their yearning to be other?
Wanting to take one life and trade it for another?
Prompts for today are changeling, pristine, petition, facilitate and wilderness.
Note: A Changeling is a fairy that has been substituted for a human baby. While changelings can look like anyone, they do have a true form. Their natural look can be scary to some due to their lack of detail and distinctive features. Their skin tone is always pale, either white or light gray, and they tend to have slender bodies with limbs slightly longer in proportion to other humanoids.The surest way to tell if you have a Changeling on your hands is by observing the temperament of the human in question. Changelings are constantly unhappy, unfriendly, and mean. They may be very cold and aloof, and may even recoil from human touch. Changeling babies’ appetites are never satiated. They may develop nocturnal habits and are abnormally aware of paranormal activity. The mortal child is taken back to the realm of the fairies to be raised and put to work, while the creature left behind usually sickens and dies.
I didn’t think to ask this young woman’s name, but I very much enjoyed her performance at the Jardin Restaurant in the Ajijic (Mexico) Plaza. I pronounce her to be the Mexican Janis Joplin. See what you think. Click on the link below:
Hibiscus altered by LunaPic Art Filters plus “Original Color” and Mac Photos App. Looks a bit Van Gogh-ish now, I think.
For Cee’s FOTD
Nativity Diary
I’m curled inside, so soft and warm,
protected in my creator’s corm.
Within, without, the pulse and throb
of leg on stomach, thrusting knob
of head against that source of light
down a channel smothering tight.
I will I must continue toward
that severance of birthing cord.
A final push, a hearty cry,
one eye open, a glimpse of sky.
Helping hands receiving me,
head and shoulder, thigh and knee.
The miracle of freedom from
such tight compression. My questing thumb.
Curled into that outer nest
that has been my nine-month quest.
Swathed in warmth, bright lights above,
I take great drafts of mother love.
She wills and I agree I will
drink until I’ve had my fill.
Pursing lips and searching tongue,
and then a healthy burst of lung.
I declare my presence here
to the whole world’s atmosphere.
The prompt for day 14 of NaPoWriMo was to write the opening scene of the movie of our life.
Image by Christine Bowen on Unsplash.
Moon Pie
When the moon is full
and everything ripe on the vine
I must have pie
juicy running from the crisp crust
vanilla ice cream clouding its surface like clouds over the moon.
I bite into the piece like a slice of the moon..
like swiss cheese on apple pie.
slice of the moon.
moon pie.
The prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write a poem that, like the example poem here, joyfully states that “Everything is Going to Be Amazing.” Sometimes, good fortune can seem impossibly distant, but even if you can’t drum up the enthusiasm to write yourself a riotous pep-talk, perhaps you can muse on the possibility of good things coming down the track. As they say, “the sun will come up tomorrow,” and if nothing else, this world offers us the persistent possibility of surprise. What cheers one up like a slice of moon pie?
Image by Deborah Rainford on Unsplash.
This art print of Antonio Lopez Vega inspired the piece above. She is feeding the birds and in turn they bring her a message in the beak of the bird to the left. Wheat from my father’s last harvest spills from the hand formed copper bowl from Santa Clara del Cobre. A copper plate holds a loaf of bread and a halved avocado. Copper leaf in the background surrounds the woman and completes the theme.
This is one of a number of my retablos still on view at the studio of Jesus Lopez Vega, at the junction of Rio Zula/Rio Brava and Ocampo, a half block south of Casa Linda Restaurant in Ajijic. Open M-F until April 30.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 