Kuriosities

a gift is a circle

(it is also a leaf, and when particularily lucky, a horse)

by K. (copyright 2007, all rights reserved, and all that jazz)

-1-
the context (or “the beginning”), a letter of explanation, if you will, sir:

so here is a gift…
what comes around goes around-
play it forward, pass it gently. but keep it moving.
there is a backdrop, a rhythm to the birth of things,
these small things, these little gifts brought forth from the waves,
a swell and crash that begins, borne on a small breeze and through my ear…
coaxes open trapdoors where foundlings shelter,
warm and tender until brought to breast.

I am thankful for the sounds that till this fertile earth.
that beg these fingers “move“.
tithes are paid, where tithes are due

(poems are more interesting with footnotes, though
you will need to write them yourself, not everything is given, sir,
eg. footnote 1: look it up if you don’t know the answer!)
cereal box decoders take ye up a permanent residence.
altered brainwaves or limbic resonance, or whimsy flirting with us all,
broken telephone maybe, each small voice building
until truth is lost, or maybe
just a ghost of it lingers, but it doesn’t matter
(”the beginning” doesn’t matter)
what matters is the circle
and so i circle too (and am lost in it)

so here is a gift…
(when spoken aloud)

-2-
the leaf :

sometimes a gift is offered,
unbidden (insert gasp here)
hands gently cup it, an offer balanced delicately,
carefully constructed, with an attention to it’s weight,
each detail measured, its breath held in anticipation,
a wish in the rhythm of its bloodflow, that takes wing -

falls like a leaf falls – slowly, with the air full beneath it’s body
bearing it lighlty, a whisper that settles on
autumn damp grasses, frost
newly melted by the sleep-muddled sun…
-3-
an aside:

sometimes a gift needs to wait (patience, sir! good things come…)
for the deep and heavy winter snows to melt
before its lightness can be rediscovered
before it can be tucked into
the tight pocket of your heart
(fold it small
for safekeeping.)

-4-
the horse:

We ignore the old proverbs, (We know better, ha!)
look stealthily over our shoulder,
open the horse’s mouth and count his teeth
(isn’t this what the world taught us, what it brought us, isn’t it? well?)
silently mark the ones that are worn with age and suspicion
clench our own jaws, snap them shut,
(sorry ma’am, we are no longer open for business)
hunt out the festering root, the one deeply hidden, concealing
questions that bubble forth, slowly weeping.

we forget altogether the sleek muscled line of his haunches
the wild tangled mane, the softness of his eye,
his strong beating heart…
we forget to feel his breath on our cheek
to inhale the blessing of sweetgrass it holds

(did you know that if you whisper softly,
softly, with longing in your heart, sir,
whisper your heart into one velvet nostril,
he would follow you loyally to the ends of the earth?
that he would carry your heart, the carefully tucked leaf within, bear them safely
cross cold rivers raging, cross aching empty plains…
did the world teach us this too? did we listen as closely?)
-5-
instructions:

remember that leaf, remember that horse
sometimes gifts that begin as a whisper
bubble pure and unhindered from the freshly turned earth,
laugh their way out from under the leaf,
propel the hooves to gallop onwards.
grab onto his tail and he will deliver us!

-6-
the circle:

a gift is a circle. a mouth open in the
“o” of miraculous discovery
it is christmas morning, it is your birth day
when your mother’s arms first found you,
slick and warm, new and ooo so very right,
it is the exact moment you found the warmth
of her round breast.

So I finally found the chemicals that I need to etch my stamp pendants. I had found them at a few places, my jewelry maker supply – but all of my suppliers are state side, and none of them are able to ship hazardous materials across the border. And apparently acids that can eat their way through various metals qualify in that regards – go figure. <sigh>

But, thankfully they are the same chemicals that are used to etch computer boards. Hurray! So I mentioned this to my beloved resident expert of all things technical, who mentioned it to an equally technical friend, and lo and behold I now have a supplier for etchant! Lifesavers, both of them!

I am slightly bummed about being outbid on Ebay on a particularly perfect vintage stamp for my project <grrrr>. However, they seemed to be an avid stamp collector – and I am just a metal artist – and it will likely have a much longer life with its new owner than what I had planned for it. So it all works out in the end, I suppose. I will be using scans of stamps to create the etchings anyways – and I have to graphically alter the so that the correct parts will be in relief as well. I am very excited about these pendants, so I hope that the etchant doesn’t take long to get here. I want to play! And I have such a very clear vision of these pieces, I am eager to have them in tangible form.

Yesterday I went for my first very long walk of the season. Took Miss Molly Ma Gog (my ever happy and loyal black lab) with me for company, and set off to the fields. I sometimes wonder how long you could walk back there before you would actually run in to anything. I think possibly hours. Even when I ride Lyrical, I still cannot see an end, just fields, then trees, then fields, then more trees. Forever and ever. If I got very brave, I suppose one day I could set out and see – but I worry about what might happen if I were to meet with an accident acres and acres away from home, and people not be able to find me. Silly and unlikely, but I worry about things like that now. I guess having your liver kicked straight into your heart can do that to your perception of the safety in the world. I wish it didn’t – and I sometimes dream of being reckless. Not in that suicidal angry way that people who no longer care to live have – but in that innocent childlike way, like when I was a teen and thought that no harm could ever befall me on the back of my trusty pony, and I could pull out all my cowgirl tricks!

So the walk, was beautiful and silent. The silence here in the off season is like no other. Sometimes when the wind is still, and you try very hard to listen, it makes one’s brain uncomfortable how complete and empty that silence is. It is so large, so inescapable. It overwhelms. The neverendingness of the landscape also overwhelms. Fill my chest, spills over. And I come home renewed.

Some pics of recent completed pieces – the promised necklace pics of Mr.Crow #7. (Have you solved his mystery yet?)

And a new photo of last spring’s offering…

A budding birch twig, cast in sterling silver to represent the new hope that spring brings – the rebirth and renewal. The pearl dangle is a symbol of purity – and the innocence of new beginnings…

Longing for spring
by K.

follow me, and I promise
that the hands that linger on your tender skin
will be soft, will yield their clenched recesses,
unfurling like cherry blossoms on the branch
in spring, will offer up their hidden treasure;
melted chocolates warm in their wrapper,
a purseful of coloured smooth pebbles, a
purple thread i will wrap around your finger
to remember why…

follow me, and I promise
that these hands will rock your loneliness to sleep
when it cries out in the night, they
will weave a warm nest for
your heart to rest in.

Giftmas and all that it entails has kept me from writing…only days and nights of nonstop work, tucked away in my tiny studio; hands moving non-stop,  mind  racing with new thoughts that cannot yet be born on paper or birthed in metal, clamouring for attention. Just an endless pile of invoices, hearts broken, and longing for comfort, these hands so busy trying to ease the pains of longing and loss with small offerings to wear and to hold. Silvered whispers of I know, I understand…and I do, I really do… It is beautiful and tiring. Fills me and sucks me dry all at once.Can I sleep now? Can I curl up in my den until the crocus peek through the snow. Can I dream a few months?

Wishes and wishes…but no, I am still covered in snow for a while, and am still staying up late to dig my way out. Thankful, yes, but tired…

Facebook is a strange thing….all these people finding me that I haven’t seen since high school, which was longer ago than I truly care to admit. Stranger still is that I hated high school. It was likely one of the worst passages of time, all self loathing and depression, and a sensitivity so keen a gentle breeze could have skinned me alive. Recently I had a friend reach out to me, one of my best friends from teenage days, one of those you are always hoping good things for, and come to mind every now and then with a happy memory and a snug place in your heart. Anyways, a letter written to me in a moment of sadness and need… and an odd phone call to follow, cut short and awkward, and an angry sounding spouse in the background… and then nothing… strange and sad way to leave things…I guess in my mind’s eye he is still my friend of childhood, preserved the way that we left each other, at the age of 18, never growing or changing…how strange to realise that your memories grow in your absence, that their lives tangle around them without you to see it happen. That there is a part of your childhood friend still in the middle, but hard to see for all of the years between. And only this melancholy wish that they muddle through, the way that we all do, and find some happiness hidden here and there, maybe a blissful surprise…

Reading letters upon letters….purchased the letters of Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett (Browning), and have been devouring them. I am much more smitten with Elizabeth’s letters, such a quirky soul and a poetic view of the world, and a sense of humour about things…and clever. I also bought a volume of letters between Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome which I was rather surprised by.  I though that they would be the letters that sparked my imagination, that I would finally discover Lou, what made her the Muse that she was, the inspiration…and so far it seems to me it is her indifference. She gives him little snippets here and there, small intimacies, tiny allowances - but how the man must work for them. I find it hard to read actually – a bit painful, like the anticipation in a dreadful comedy where you know that something will come between the hero and his desired goal again and again and again, until you cannot take the tension of knowing another disaster is about to befall him. Is that what makes a muse? Indifference and apathy. A cold calculating heart? Ugghh. I have put it aside for now until I am in the frame of mind to comprehend. Instead I am allowing myself the courtship, misunderstandings and playful letters of the Brownings, which resonate more at the moment…

I have been working on my “we don’t write letters anymore” project here and there during breaks from paid jewelry work. I am excited and can’t wait to put the ideas into tangible forms….more later…now I am back to hammering out silver bracelets and resigned to the smear and smudge of polishing….

letter excerpt from K.

“Last night there was a terrible storm here, lots of snow and freezing rain. When I went out to the horses this morning after the storm had passed, the little pony Sophie (who may in fact be pregnant) trudged right into the middle of a belly high snowbank and lay down in it and rolled blissfully in the snow, four little hooves kissing the sky. It was so lovely. And I thought of you, and wished that you could see it. Look for the snowbanks…”  

unrequited

tell me a story – she says
her breath escaping,
a thousand silk petals tumbling
palely into twilight.

tell me – she says-
and I will stay until the end-
her eyes cradle the promise
like a spark, from the wind.

and your heart;
a thousand small birds taking wing
beat their way free,
leave without a sound.
 

copyright 2007 kuriosities.com. all rights reserved, may not be reprinted without permission from the author

Gin; a girl’s first love
by K.

above all else
it is his scent she loves -
this particular mix of
sweat and fierce loyalty, so
tangible it fills her head like warm cotton
when she is alone, with only the night
before her, it is this
that she wraps herself in,
this the nest she sleeps in;
the memory of her cheek against his
neck,  breathing deeply…

copyright 2007 Kuriosities.com, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted without permission from author

(. . .)

three dots
and the space that surounds them
deceptively hollow, sit crouched
close to the line
waiting
for me to fill in the blanks

three dots
were made
for waiting and
wrong ideas, they can
wait here forever,

suspending the sentence

until the cows come home
and the herd is at pasture
filling their heavy sides with lush green grass
as i wait alone

three dots
hold everything you did not say
between them, they trail off into the night
their morse code tapping
on my skull, a water torture
of punctuation

three dots
stepping stones to a
place i cannot travel
 

We don’t write letters anymore…Letters used to be a place to confess one’s deepest emotions, seduce our lovers, cement friendships, express ideas and open the path to new thought. But we do not take the time to write them out anymore. This is sad to me – for so many reasons…

I have been reading about Lou Andreas-Salome and Ranier Maria Rilke (as I mentioned before). The book that I have been reading is very intriguing, but it has left me cold in some ways. I want to know Lou, not just the clinical details of her life. I want to know her heart. I want to find her, and step inside. Finding her in this book is not an easy task, I can tell that she is hiding somewhere between the words, like a secret. But I’m not sure which words.

How can one woman have enticed so many of the greatest thinkers. What did they find when they looked in Lou’s eyes? Did they see themselves reflected back, only kinder, more fierce, more intelligent? What was the magic of Lou? Nietzsche stated that she was the most evil among women, but that sounds suspiciously like the sour grapes of a spurned lover to me. I imagine that Lou’s heart could swell and overflow with compassion – that she had a keen knack for limbic resonance. That her great understanding made her more valuable than anything else in their world. “Mirror, mirror on the wall… ”

So now I am in search of her own words, of which, most luckily, there are many. Letters upon letters that she wrote back and forth with the likes of Rilke, Nietzsche, Freud. Books of letters. Little pieces of Lou to put together into a portrait. Many different Lou’s to ponder, to adore, to fear, to know.

I am so glad that there are letters to read. What will future generations know about our great artists? Our songsmiths, our painters, our poets? Will they be left with the transience of leftover text messages, cybercodes to translate. What exactly did she mean when she texted ODTAA BTWITIAILWY BWDIK? Was she sincere? 

And what a rare pleasure, a box of letters. The texture of paper carefully selected. Perhaps they still smell of the writer – a hint of grapefruit or musk. The indulgence of holding them close to your face to see if you can find the scent. Holding the paper by the edges. Carefully folding and tucking them back away, for another time, when the embrace of a dear friend is needed, but far away…

As a little girl I would play in my grandmother’s bedroom, and would quietly, with great reverence pull the box of letters from the dormer closet. There were hundreds of letters, still in their carefully opened envelopes, filed neatly by date. I never read them. They were private, and even a small child can sense the importance of this. But they were beautiful to me. I would take them out one by one and run my fingers over the envelopes, trace the stamps and seals, and then just as carefully return them to their spot. Hundreds of letters my grandfather wrote to her during the war.  I don’t know what happened to the box. I asked my mother about it once, but the answer was evasive. I suspect they were thrown out…I wish I had them still. I wish I could touch them and feel my grandparents nestled between the pages.

I was thinking about Lou while I was soaking in the bath last night. The water smelled like papayas, and it made me nostalgic. I felt a poem brewing, felt it stirring deep in my belly the way these thing do when they are getting ready to be born. I can’t let them come before I am ready, or thy fly away like so many sparks into the night sky, never to be captured again. So I got out of the tub earlier than I wanted – my back was in knots and I had wanted to soak… got dressed and listened to the words. Anyways, what resulted was a letter of sorts to Lou.

we don’t write letters anymore 
by K.  

 Lou, I have been searching
for you all night, and cannot find you
I must confess I have come to this -
turning stones in the hayfield
holding my breath for clues
but have only turned up the
fragile bones of salamanders, the
scurrying of insects rushing
from the light.

It is dark, Lou, and
I am alone out here. Only
the cows are talking in their low
languid tongue, and I do not
understand them. I’m
afraid that what they say about you
is true.

 Lou, it’s late now
and I’m cold. The lamplight that
surrounds me like a fiery cocoon
will run out of fuel. Sooner,
rather than later,
I’m afraid.

I hope that it does.
I hope that it does.  

Copyright 2007 Kuriosities.com, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted without permission of the author

holding my breath
by K.

 I ran 2000 miles to the edge of the sea
without pause or care to watch the road’s
ribbon unraveling behind. Or to see you
at the end of it pulling threads.

What was important
was the salt, was to sink my longing
into the clinging red sands, was to shake you from me
cast you into the fathomless waters
like a small round stone.

and there i stood four years
eyes fixating on green hills of a distant shore
ankle deep and bitter,
begging the feckless tides to take you

 and yet you return
again and again, washed up by the waves
crashing down before me, threatening
to pull me under.

copyright 2007 Kuriosities.com, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted without permission

I don’t know if you could call me an optimist or not. I’m pretty clear on the risks involved in reality…and most days my feet are firmly rooted in the red soil of this strange little island in the sea. It would take stronger than gale force winds to sway me (depending, of course, on my current weather – some days more predictable than others – some days when I say it is going to shine, you had better not forget your umbrella and galoshes). But… there is more than a drop of the idealist in my soul. I am hopeful, would be a good descriptive phrase. Perhaps a phrase of introduction….”Hallo, I am K, and I am also Hopeful.”( yes, with a capital H.)

Now that is not to say that I am without moods. That I never have been known to forget where the last place I put my hope was. Did I lose it while shopping? Did I leave it on the bench when I sat down next to the sour faced woman who was berating her child with the beautiful eyes? Does she have it now? (wouldn’t that be  nice though?)

But somehow hope always comes back. I find it like the $20 bill in last winter’s coat pocket – and a celebration ensues. What a find! What a miraculous thing that this hope hid out the whole summer in such a dark safe place, and here it is just when the cold wind is ready to set in and turn me blue right down to my bones!

And sometimes I trust it to the wrong places for safekeeping, and it comes back dinged up and tarnished and needs some work to restore it. But sometimes, the patina makes everything more beautiful…sometimes old battered things are far sweeter than the shiny new ones. What good is a brand new toy that you never take out of the box? I guess you could sell it on ebay? I think that would be a shifty deal, money in exchange for hope. And what would you set the reserve at? And what if it was a knock-off, not the real deal, what if it was false?

Nah, I’ll just use mine thanks, and just trust that it won’t break altogether. And if it does – I’ll figure out a way to fix it. I’m good at fixing broken things, like hearts, and horses. And if I can’t do it myself – and this is where the optimism fits in I suppose – I’ll bet that somebody else can. And I’ll bet that I will find them at just the right time. Things work like that, they really do.

I am excited about it all- about all these mysteries. All of the things that are to be learned. There isn’t enough time to discover them all – but I’ll do my best. I’ll try.

So, I was thinking today about art, and artists of all kinds, and mainly about Inspiration. And where that comes from? Where do you find it? You surely can’t buy that on Ebay. Look it up though, maybe you can, you’d be amazed at what you can find there these days. But what I was thinking is that it is strange – specifically that interviews with artists are strange. That somebody will ask a musician who inspired them the most, who influenced their music? And you will usually get “the list”.  A list of other musicians who are perhaps similar in style or topic or some such thing. Maybe an alignment of souls? Inspiration has been known to work that way for sure…but what I was thinking – was wouldn’t it be neat if you asked a popular musician who most inspired him to play, and he said “Monet”. Or “Walt Whitman.” I would like to hear a painting, to feel the rhythm and melody of a very good poem. What if he said instead – “My heart told me to play music when I saw that the little girl with the beautiful eyes had found the lost hope of a stranger on the bench in the mall. That’s when I knew the song was in me – and it has been playing through me ever since.” 

And my inspiration? Right now it is coming from music. But I am writing, and drawing, and carving wax and shaping silver and gold out of what that music is saying to my soul….

That is what is inspiring me – that and riding Lyrical (the most magical of all rosey grey ponies) across the fields of this strange red island at breakneck speeds and laughing, and being a child again – free of worry on the back of a pony. If you have ever had a dream where you could fly…that is what Lyrical is…exhilaration on four hooves. In fact, everybody should have a pony. If they did (and now this is just something I feel in my heart – no scientific studies have been completed or any such thing, but) my hunch is that it would be a happy world indeed.

Somebody wrote a song about that feeling once, and now I know what he’s singing about….

 And if I had a boat
I’d go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I’d ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat 

Well, I don’t have a boat, but I sure do have a pony… and I ride her on the edge of the sea, so that is almost as lovely.

And unrelated, but one from me that’s been mulling around….maybe the start of something else, I’ll let it sit a while and see what it does. 

the marks we leave behind 
by K.

i felt your footsteps fall
on this red earth – knew the vibration
through the sole
of my own foot. the air
shimmered, even 

the potato blossoms
stopped growing and perked up
to listen. 

copyright 2007 Kuriosities.com, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted without permission from the author

“curiouser and curiouser” cried K. and she dug deeper…the rich earth of new discovery collecting in the lines of her hands…

How to start? It’s been a lovely day of thinking, and interesting things falling into my lap to contemplate. All to do with this current tangent and exploration of the cycles of safety, retreat, suffocation, restitution, hope and venturing forth. It is all swimming around dizzyingly in my head – and makes a pure and pristine sort of sense to me – but I am sure will spill out on the page rather muddled, and not at all what I want.

I have been busily reading The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired in which there is a lengthy section on the poet Rilke and his muse Lou. Although I have read Rilke’s work before, it had been years upon years, and so inspired by the book I did a quick google search to be able to immerse myself in some of his poetry. I only had a few minutes, as the everyday mundane tasks of feeding both horses and people were calling, so I only managed to soak in a handful of his poems to mull over while I did my barn chores.
 

(more…)