Paper Follies ~ A Bit of Whimsy

Somewhere Between Day 5 and Now

{Day 23: Life is Sweet}

 

...life is sweet ~ natalie merchant

They told you life is hard
It's misery from the start
It's dull and slow and painful 

I tell you life is sweet
In spite of the misery
There's so much more
Be grateful 

Who do you believe? 
Who will you listen to
Who will it be? 

It's high time you decide
It's time you make up your own sweet little mind 

They told you life is long
Be thankful when it's done
Don't ask for more
You should be grateful 

But I tell you life is short
Be thankful because before you know
It will be over 

Cause life is sweet
And life is also very short
Your life is sweet

 

{listen here} ❤

illumination

{I want painting to be my flashlight.  ~ Squeak Carnwath}

 

Candle Hat

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates: 
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes, 
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness, 
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather 
from painting The Blinding of Sampson. 

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror 
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio 
addressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel. 

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew 
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head 
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders, 
a device that allowed him to work into the night. 

You can only wonder what it would be like 
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head 
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall. 

But once you see this hat there is no need to read 
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates. 

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him 
lighting the candles one by one, then placing 
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work. 

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention, 
then laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow. 

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house 
with all the shadows flying across the walls. 

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door 
one dark night in the hill country of Spain. 
"Come in, " he would say, "I was just painting myself," 
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush, 
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.

Billy Collins - a.k.a "he who saves me daily"

 

{look}

{linger}

{listen or create your own}

{love}

{locomotion in Albuquerque - come join me!}

 

{click on any of the above to look, linger, listen, love and locomote(?) too}

 

 

 

hello there...

"Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light."

Helen Keller

 

~listen

~linger

~love

 

{click on any of the above to listen, linger, and love, too ❤}

shelter

{listen}

{learn}

{love}

{lift}

{linger}

 

❦ click on any of the above to listen, learn, love, lift, linger, too. ❦

 

gypsy girl dreams

 

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth;

not going all the way, and not starting.

Buddha

 

{listen}

 

 

the comfort of

"drunk with the light..." Billy Collins

 

{listen and love}

{learn and lift}

{linger and listen}

{click on any of the above to listen, love, learn, lift, linger}

 

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Moon
 
The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.
 
It's as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby's face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth's bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.
 
And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.
 
And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.
 
And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.
 
~ Billy Collins ~

 

(Picnic, Lightning)

the love project (a belated thursday la,la,la post)

 
"poetry began as song." ~ Quincy Troupe

 

{listen}

{learn}

{love}

{lift}

{linger}

{click on any of the above to listen~learn~love~lift~linger too}

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~1246~

The minute I heard my first love story

I started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.

~Rumi

 

"we have to invent a sea of tranquility in the heartland, a calm world in a curve of trees, spacious, silent, cooling the fevers with a landscape of HOPE and REPOSE."

~don gordon, "sea of tranquility"

 

  {listen}

{learn}

{love}

{lift}

{linger}

{click on any of the above to listen~learn~love~lift~linger too}

 

for pablo neruda

This day

like no other

will soon pass.

But now

the galmorous sea

flaunts her diamond surfaced brilliance.

The sun traverses the sky awakening other

worlds of sleepers

The moon will climb

its silken laddered perch

and embrace us in its

milky attraction

and a little sadness.

Soon, this day

like no other

will be gone.

Deep in the night

I feel the kiss of the sun

the murmured seduction of the

wind

the tingling feeling of sand on skin:

The results of this day unlike the morrow

or the morrow, or the morrow.

This day when we are alive.

~Maketa Groves

getting the music out

 

{Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside us.}

~Oliver Wendell Holmes

{listen}

{learn}

{love}

{lift}

{linger}

{click on any of the above to listen,learn,love,lift,linger too.}

 

irreverent baking

I should be upstairs with the others, drumming up ways

to heal the world, save the animals, pray for water

in a far-off continent, devote the remainder of my days

to a catalog of restorations. But this morning, it was the matter

of scones that drew my gaze, and my feet remained

planted in the kitchen. One must never ignore the instinct

to create, is what I told myself, and soon the counter was stained

with flour, my hands sticky with dough, the house inked

with the smell of blueberry possibility, and I knew I was not wrong.

This was my prayer, my act of healing, my offering, my song.

—Maya Stein

 

yet who will love you

 

listen...listen...listen...

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

    love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver