recent life: found a poem i love called "Owl's Song"/ made a list of things i want to do

Owl's Song
(Ted Hughes)

He sang
how the swan blanched forever
How the wolf threw away its telltale heart
And the stars dropped their pretence
The air gave up appearances
Water went deliberately numb
The rock surrendered its last hope
And cold died beyond knowledge

He sang
How everything had nothing more to lose

Then sat still with fear

Seeing the clawtrack of star
Hearing the wingbeat of rock

And his own singing

-------------------------

list of things/ideas i want to do(december 27 2009)

stitch lines from dreams into fabric often
draw or paint pictures in my book and write poems next to the drawings
feel as free as possible and let my imagination feel that way too
write my book: of love i should be so full/ book of birth
(it is called that so continue to let it be called that)
draw or make anything i wish
make sonnet quilts (14 lines down and 7 words across?)
have several everyday tasks: for example, everyday sew one word on the sonnet quilt
sew words, in general
again, make dream quilts
make word decorations for rooms
make songs

recent life: making (walnut/raisin bread, peter pj pants, finn bowtie/vest/pants christmas outfit!)

recent life: finn with snowlady; with scarf made by mama!; with cottage cheese in hair!

recent life: solstice making and solstice being (cat & britt coasters, smeared ice trees, peter-made artichoke feta pizza, adrienne house tea mat)

shoes in the bathtub

file under:: new baby trick:::::::the rearrangement of shoes

writer-mother notes (somewhat depressing)

file under: note-takings from Mother Reader (an anthology)::"What does it mean to love, for a woman? The same thing as to write. . .WORD/FLESH. From one to the other, eternally, fragmented visions, metaphors of the invisible." "Successful creation, like all creative living, depends on the trust and self confidence first developed in the child's earliest realationship to (his) mother."

"Genuine feminine innovation will not be possible until we have elucidated motherhood, feminine creation, and the relationship between them."

and

"Guilt, desperation, splitting of the self, alienated role playing, resignation to lower accomplishment, renunciation of the writing self--these are some of the realities, some of the possible choices that writing mothers live with."

light light beribbond'd light

file under: pictures of light:::::::went to "a christmas past" a lovely festival in west branch, iowa. we rode in a horse carriage (snort snort) past historic hoover houses and, we ate fresh doughnuts made by boys scouts at this fire that you can see if you look into this here phot-o-graph!! the best doughnuts i've ever had. (snort snort neeeigh neigh jingle jingle) lighting up the tree and finding the treasures of last year, like this beautiful prancing f ornament made by jj. . .

caught some light on a caracole-y curl-up

plops of light

light settling and saying

bath at 16 months

puddle walk framing cozy

towards the puddle in green bootswith auntie janna at uncle leaf and aunt kelsey's

being entertained by aunt kelsey as mama tries a holiday photo shoot

puddly

watercolorings (thanks kissings) (barn kissings)

file under: created things with paint::::: extinct horses (50 animals) (if we are lost then why is there a road) barn fantasy (place i want to live with my family and make art)

p.s. thinking about houses and homes and where to live and how to live. when we pulled up to our current home after driving around to various midwestern cities for thanksgivings, finn said 'house' for the first time. we drove on iowa roads i've never driven on before, and i saw barns that i fell in love with, and dreamed dreams of a writing/art community somewhere out there in the hills and corn. all of the sudden, really in love with barns. and not certain at all as to how we can live, but trying to have a kind of faith. bye!

how we get through the novemberries

file under: old poem thing::::::::::this poem hangs in my mom's room; i think i wrote it as a teenager? or maybe earlier, or later file under: owl gift#1:::::thank you melissa--now it gleams by me as i write

file under: found a cool thing under my nose:::::somehow peter hid the fact that he had this typewriter from me! but, now i know. and sometimes i sit & write. lately, a series with map in the titles of each, probably because i'm thinking on this collaborative project. . .

file under: owl gift #2::::::::jen thanks! and see the green owl shirt fits perfectly. plus, sometimes this one picks up the phone and says clearly HI or YEAH?

file under: what it is to be the november woods in iowa::::shown here with hickory hill creek and appropriate dusk feel

visit back home (chatham illinois

file under::: first, alliteration. then, description:::::forever free finn in just-finished grandma-knit orange sweater (she walked to home ec and picked out the yarn when i was in early labor) frolicking in the forest

funny finn look

flarfing and flipping and falling the leaves down (faleta and finn)

fascinatin' fellows (father--make that grand! father-- and finn)

red hat is complete (but the boy is wiggly)

file under::::a completion:::::::::finished (imperfectly of course) my first hat ever;;;i may need to put a strap-like thing on it after all if finn keeps pulling it off--nevertheless here it be! (those cables are owls though some of the owls are horribly disfigured i admit)

palimpsest and erasure and epic and

file under: fitting first art project by finn::::look what he has done to the book i was about to start reading~ a palimpsest of sorts (that's how i feel too) file under: project from a 60's poetry anthology book my first love gave me:::::it's a book about to be turned into erasures and i'm keeping the photos intact!
i will call the project "on!on a if! of water"

crow! see?
haunted sky! see?

(as finn says)

file under: project that keeps bending and morphing:and i keep getting fancy paper to write it on::: but i am i am i am going to keep working on it, this epic poem i'm calling "book of birth" and so then!

in the book of birth mammal existence.
in the color of birth the whale mooing in the sky
deepstar on its toe.
Birthcolor rising a fox-soul tramping
and alongside the book, one minute.
and alongside the minute, moss.
form and matter in the book of birth (at the back) a small day stubbing its toe.
in chapter 2 there is a soul guardian like yourself!

and a psychopomp, and a midwife