I write and draw pages in my sketchbooks and they outline the substance of our lives. They mark the cups of coffee and spring noodle bowls, summer oysters, the fall Osage Orange collections, and the winter dried flowers. My words document hopes and fears, memories and dreams. They are carved from the habits of our lives and minor deviations in routines. I am working towards firing the wood kiln, soaking peas to plant in the garden, drawing on a new backdrop for a photo to mark the equinox. Each week I try to take at least one photo with the good camera. Everyday phone photos provide a chronology, a tangible record of daily actions. Quick images transform impulse into a visual language which helps to articulate the nameless inspiration so it can be further shaped.

“… poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”

–Audre Lorde