Saturday, March 29, 2014

Saturday's Question: Can Love be Little?




Mark Rothko is an artist I admire, his courage to speak in planes of color and leave the representational images behind. How I love to enter his luminous world and dream of following suit with brushes, canvas and paint.

Yesterday, on my evening walk, when I crested the hill above Via Regatta, the ocean greeted me with a horizon blended into sea and sky. Only because I knew the islands were there, could I detect a faint outline, but mostly what I saw was milk-glass: a Rothko image #17 in silvery shades of pink and blue. I hurried home to get my camera hoping to capture the misty "all one" scene before it changed.




I succeeded in taking the photos. Later, when I scrolled through the images, I came upon other photos taken over the past few weeks. In my collection of random shots, there were no covers for National Geographic, or calendar pages for the Sierra Club, just simple surprises I'd found on street corners and unexpected vistas happened upon. I remembered an assignment from an old poetry class, where we were asked to write a poem on "Little Loves." My first response became the title of the poem I wrote: "Can Love be Little?"

Then, I realized that my memory card with its almost forgotten images seemed to be a blog post waiting.




































Friday, March 14, 2014

Watermelon Morning



"I love it so much I could fall on the sidewalk and sob,"
I said to Julian, who I'd met less than an hour ago.
Who he was, I didn't care,
it was Carol who had designs on him
and had told me of her plan to snag him.
Maybe like with cats, it's disinterest that attracts
but he stayed with me after the crowd dispersed
and wanted to talk and talk.
He seemed surprised and moved to tears
when I shared with him
how much I love Santa Theresa.

And then, I opened my eyes from the dream
to find my room glowing.
Through my north window, behind the willows,
a watermelon sky.
Through my drapes to the east,
a wall of pink,
and all around me inside my room,
the light of roses.

In order to remember
I repeated it in my mind
over and over like music:
"I love it so much
I could fall on the sidewalk and sob,"
and then, I grabbed my camera
and hurried into the yard
to let myself swim in the color.