The Eve of April – NaPoWriMo

is there a map back
to where we are going if
that’s where we’re going – back.
the familiar stream banks
fidget day to day
as cold early rains
return the clouds to earth
and remind the fields
they aren’t meant to be
always yellow and tan.
So even though these hills
and the curves of the road
are easy enough to follow –
each tree in rosy bud,
each twig added to nest
the quick burst of daffodil –
the world is turning remember
not returning, so go on.

The Eve of April – NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day Sixteen

Ginny and I had a chat this morning, before I fed them all and went out to paint.

Morning Chat With Cat

Don’t worry.
I love you.
It’s OK.
Someday,
we’ll both
be old.
But today
is not
that day.

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day Sixteen was originally published on

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day Four

Not sure this is it for today, but the suggestion was for a sonnet about sadness. Although I’ve found a few lines in the past few days of iambic pentameter it wasn’t happening for me today at lunch! And then at the last minute:

“She didn’t listen to a thing I said”
what a jolt to the man’s nervous system.
With all the world’s bleak incivility
there’s room to find in the heart’s recesses
a space for kindness or at least, manners
enough to hold your tongue and baser thoughts
If that made him angry, it makes me sad
to expect blind compliance, to obey
the old structures that have served him so long
that keep him bound as much as those beneath
until an unexpected slight shows him
the unreality is all his own
She listened no doubt with her own sadness
and shaking her head moved on without him.

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day Four was originally published on

NaPoWriMo Day 2

Bear with me while I expound a mite. The suggestion from NaPoWriMo/FB was “Today’s Prompt: Write a poem inspired by your favorite painting or piece of art (feel free to post that image with your poem)”

On the website, the challenge was “write a poem inspired by, or in the form of, a recipe! It can be a recipe for something real, like your grandmother’s lemon chiffon cake, or for something imaginary, like a love potion or a spell.”

Sorry, didn’t quite do either of those but was perhaps inspired by the first. I call bonus points for a Latin title!

Nullae apologiae

I am fond of my tools. No apologies.
I have made others swear
not to touch my scissors.
I am loathe to let the unwashed
use my cast iron pans.
This is not to say that I care for all
my tools equally. That would be a lie.
Many tools are just here
because of something broken,
something that required a
larger pry bar or higher step.
But my real tools…

Just Make That First Mark

Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas which says to the painter: you don’t know anything. — Vincent van Gogh

What sort of things did I do today?

I recently took several photos of a beautiful scene down the road and not a single one had the important part in focus and yet I like the photos – they’re all I need to remember the beauty of the moment and maybe use it to spark something else.

I started an autumnal road scene in watercolor – laying down the lights and general area. I like it. It’s nice and mushy. This is yet another reminder that sometimes you need to wait for it to dry.

And after trying out the colors in my travel paint kit, I decided to be bold and replace the cakes with my own tube paint. I’m assured that I have plenty of time for it to dry out appropriately for travel. At the bottom you can see the solid cakes all safely wrapped up for future use.

TGI… um what day is it, anyway?

Yes, I had that moment today. Thought I was going to writers’ group after work, thought I was off the next day… only to realize that it wasn’t Sunday after all, that it was Saturday and in fact I get to go to work on Sunday (all over again).

I made a quick stop at the Nassau Post Office on the way home and finally caught a Pikachu! Only the second one I’ve ever seen.

Then I came home and started a small sunset scene in watercolor. I’m trying to teach myself to wait, to let things dry before going on to the next part. Do like how the clouds came out though.

Then I looked at the little Windsor Newton Cotman travel kit I have and decided to add it to my color swatch page. It has half-pan colors in not a half bad array although if I was filling my own half pans I’d have different colors. I’d found some of the plastic corrugated board I’ve been using to tape paper down to and cut it to match the size paper I’ll be traveling with. At that point I didn’t have much oomph left so I watched a few “traveling watercolor kit” videos, two of which showed taping down a stack of paper to a board. That seems a little excessive. I don’t mind packing some tape. I was thinking of cutting some Arches paper to bring and that could go sandwiched between the two boards. We’ll see.

Things I do…

while listening to other things:

Sunday, August Is Flying

When I got home tonight, there was still the August Postcard Poetry Fest poem to get done. Earlier today I’d responded to a post on Facebook and thought and then forgot about the line which I thought, at the time, would make a great inclusion in a poem. I was a good way down the poem when I remembered! Yeah coffee! So the poem includes the line

the red caboose of contentment.

Because who could resist that line?

At the meeting, someone pointed out an actual slide from an actual Macworld keynote… I knew where my July 2001 badge was. It hangs over my desk. At some point, I had put my old-new name on it again, but everything else is as it was, before the world changed.

Three Hundred Thirty-three of you or so…

have looked at my site and the post re Kathy Nida’s quilts being pulled by AQS.

PLEASE if you haven’t actually written to AQS please do so:

bonnie.browning@americanquilter.com
terry.guill@americanquilter.com

and you could write or CC Studio Art Quilters Association, SAQA at:

ExecDirector@saqa.com

Discussing on FB and social media is great so please link to Kathy’s site and keep talking about it whereever you’ll rally support, but PLEASE WRITE/EMAIL. The people involved with those decisions need to hear from each of you. Not writing is silent consent.

Thank you.

#bobbincount (11), unexpected cheer and stuff

I plowed along tonight, listening to The Silmarillion and to music and enjoying the temperate temperature. 70’s is much nicer for quilting in than 90’s.

Bobbin count for tonight is 11, and I actually quilted 2/3 of another one, but you’ll hear more about that one tomorrow no doubt.

Last night I went down to get the laundry out of the dryer. It was late and I was just going to put it away and go to bed. As I came up the stairs my eye was caught something in the pantry-way along the cellar stairs – could it be? was there really a bottle of Moscato there? This was what greeted me when I took off the wrapper.

And this was the other end of the cork:

Hard not to be happy about that!