When I began doing these seasonal series I used the alphabet and bits from my childhood dictionary as prompts to create collaged images. So, it’s no wonder that I was drawn to a project that Alex Dimtrov did in 2012 where he posed 26 questions, one for each letter of the alphabet. His goal was to write poems that were portraits of people he did not know. But instead of poems he made collages. He also read more than he wrote. I similarly give myself assignments as a way to keep going, to keep asking questions, to keep putting things in my pots, and to keep taking photos.

Poem for the Reader

Since we’ll likely never be together
anywhere but here — what season
are you most alive in?
Is the morning blue or green?
How would you use freedom?
What part of your body do you trust the least?
Permanent rain or never-ending snow?
When are your most difficult hours?
Would you want to know who you were
before this? Why or why not?
And now that there’s fire —
the bridge or the river?
More money or love?
Do you sometimes avoid happiness?
If asked, would you return?
To Earth or anywhere else?

–Alex Dimitrov, on his Substack, The Reader

I did an online yoga class this morning. The teacher is the sister of an old friend. I enjoyed her view into familiar poses. As we balanced in tree pose I studied my back deck and the beech tree beyond. I noticed not only the marigolds in my outdoor pots, but a crow balanced in a branch.

My Crow

A crow flew into the tree outside my window.
It was not Ted Hughes’s crow, or Galway’s crow.
Or Frost’s, Pasternak’s, or Lorca’s crow.
Or one of Homer’s crows, stuffed with gore,
after the battle. This was just a crow.
That never fit in anywhere in its life,
or did anything worth mentioning.
It sat there on the branch for a few minutes.
Then picked up and flew beautifully
out of my life.

–Raymond Carver, this poem appeared in All of Us: The Collected Poems by Raymond Carver, published by Vintage Books, 1996.

Placing flowers in my pots, arranging them on backdrops, and taking photographs creates a conversation with my pottery, a dialog that leads to future variations in form and surface.

“Writing is a conversation with reading; a dialogue with thinking.”

–Nikki Giovanni, quote from her book, Racism 101

I often buy my own flowers. Warren knows I love them but it is not his language. Recently, when we went to the grocery store together he reminded me to look at the flowers but I said, “No, now is the season of flowers in our garden or at the farmers market.” But then, as we stood in line to check out, I really admired the peonies the man in front of us was buying. So I went back and treated myself to the moon-like peonies.

Listen,

I want to tell you something. This morning
is bright after all the steady rain, and every iris,

peony, rose, opens its mouth, rejoicing. I want to say,

wake up, open your eyes, there’s a snow-covered road

ahead, a field of blankness, a sheet of paper, an empty screen.

Even the smallest insects are singing, vibrating their entire bodies,

tiny violins of longing and desire. We were made for song.

I can’t tell you what prayer is, but I can take the breath

of the meadow into my mouth, and I can release it for the leaves’

green need. I want to tell you your life is a blue coal, a slice

of orange in the mouth, cut hay in the nostrils. The cardinals’

red song dances in your blood. Look, every month the moon

blossoms into a peony, then shrinks to a sliver of garlic.

And then it blooms again.

–Barbara Crooker, “Listen,” from Line Dance,
copyright © 2008 Word Poetry.

I walked this morning thinking about shadows. The green grass was muscular and the light was striking, although slightly muted by the Canadian wildfires. I and our dog, Luna, moved through the field, the path and along the road parting the grass and the air. We noted the shifts of shadow from the looseness of the knee-high grass to the clarity of mowed trail to the sharpness of the shadows on the paved road. Luna and I each have our reasons for moving and walking even if it only involves chasing our own shadows.

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in   
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

–Mark Strand, Keeping Things Whole from Selected Poems, published by Alfred A. Knopf, © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand

Our friend, John Neely, died this weekend. At the North Carolina woodfire conference in 2022, for some an opportunity to showcase large pots and macho egos, John Neely exhibited a beautiful and sensitive selection of small woodfired cups. I tried to buy one but they were all sold. I told John how much I liked them and he offered to trade. So when we got home we each sent the other two cups. Warren and I have often treasured these small objects.

John was an organizer and presenter at this year’s conference. Last week, each evening after the formal events of the conference, John happily filled everyone’s cups with liquids along with stories and laughs. I have no desire to go back to school, but sometimes I have wished I was a fly on the wall of his ceramics program at Utah State University. John’s former students seem to have gained so much and move through the world in great ways.

The shock and sadness of John’s passing on Sunday has spilled through our nervous system.

My Cup

They tell me I am going to die.
Why don’t I seem to care?
My cup is full. Let it spill.

–Robert Friend, from Dancing With A Tiger: Poems 1941-1998 (Spuyten Duyvil).

Last week I was at a North Carolina woodfire conference where my job was to listen; to be part of the ecosystem of the clay world. Now back in the garden in the ecosystem of my home I am able to bury myself in the lush green leaves of kale and pick my favorite garlicscapes. I toggle between garden and studio attempting to be witness to the season.

Sanctuary

Suppose it’s easy to slip
into another’s green skin,
bury yourself in leaves

and wait for a breaking,
a breaking open, a breaking
out. I have, before, been

tricked into believing
I could be both an I
and the world. The great eye

of the world is both gaze
and gloss. To be swallowed
by being seen. A dream.

To be made whole
by being not a witness,
but witnessed.

–Ada Limon, Sanctuary, in “The Hurting Kind”
published by Milkweed Editions