NaPoWriMo – Day Fifteen

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

Day started out nice, cool and bright. Great clouds. Painted quite awhile and started a larger format moleskine watercolor sketchbook. Came home and started setting up the worm box. Fedex showed up on cue so I dumped on those worms and everybody was happy.

Sat down to watch billy Collins give his 5:30 poetry talk and reading and BLAM. No internet or phone. so I ate dinner and watched billy on my iPhone. Called consolidated and they were very sorry about the problem and did I have any dogs or gates they should know about.

 

I’ve grown accustomed to the irregularity
the tricky business of “working” when
there’s no work to go to.
So I do my own work. Do the work.
I’m always preaching this and now
it’s mine to own and practice.
Do the work. I get up each morning
and make breakfast. Most days I go
out to paint. I come home and then,
it’s time to write. So I sit down,
hopefully having written something
in the pocket notebook I carry
just for the pleasure of capturing
all those fugitive words and phrases.
I compose myself, looking for a start.
And then, metered or no, it’s done
and as my notebook scribble said today,
it’s time to “stick a pen in it.”
Rinse and repeat tomorrow.
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NaPoWriMo – Day Fourteen

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

Busy day doing not much of anything and I’m trying to work with the NaPoWriMo prompt and now I’ve forgotten what it was really all about…

You’ve taken that quiz: what x number of
people living or dead would you dine with,
if you could choose? Classic conundrum.
The answers are wide-ranging, the reasons
personal and predictable, but for
me — give me a table full of folks who
call New England home. Set a place for them:
Emily, Robert, Norman, HDT,
Mary O, Winslow, and John Sargent too.
Billy Collins, (New York, but close enough)
We’d gladly pass potatoes and the night.
What would we talk about? Weather, of course
and love, death and happiness and all things
under that changeable New England sky.

Why these people, you and others may ask?
I like them for their New England natures
They speak their truth and let it surprise you
without too much fanciness. No big fuss.
I like things conversational, and so
like our dinner, simple and to the point.
Twist optional but appreciated.
I tire of the endless highfaluting.
Speak to me simply – what you saw and why
Show me what it did to you that morning
or how the light passed while you watched it go
how birds flew rising and falling like waves
Tell me in plain language how it changed you
all that light, all that living, all those days.

And I’m pretty sure I could tell these folks all about my re-entry into the world of vermiculture and how today I prepared for that.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. — Winston Churchill

Posted in Art in the world, badass-ness, Do the Work, From the Quote Box, In the neighborhood, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, weather | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

NaPoWriMo – Day Thirteen

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

Well, to say the least, it was raining. And then it rained some more. And then Billy Collins did his live reading at 5:30 – Thank you Billy!

When the rain came down
making circles in circles
of the world already so wet
Out painting, grey isn’t
what I was there to do
so I broke out the tea
thinking this will pass.
It poured and I poured.
On my phone, a poet
reading. How amazing,
to sit in your car and
watch a favorite poet
read and talk about
his words. He was, in fact,
apologetically in Florida.
While he spoke I viewed
the fuzzy world past two
watercolor palettes and
laughed so I painted
them and him and went home.
It was a good day despite
the endless rain and news.
Another day of staying home
or at least alone, painting
and writing and finding
a scrap or two of laughter.

I can’t complain really, this morning it was so wet and windy that I stayed in and painted this.

Art to me, is seeing. I think you have got to use your eyes, as well as your emotion, and one without the other just doesn’t work. That’s my art. — Andrew Wyeth

Posted in coffee and tea, covid19, Do the Work, en plein air, food, In the neighborhood, life on the web, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, reads, Ripped from the headlines, the creative process, watercolor, weather | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

NaPoWriMo – Day Twelve

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

I think many are experiencing these sudden grabs of emotion.

Every day, a swath of tears
leaps unexpected
a cut of green against weeds
in an April landscape
The rest runs to rules
hills fading to light and blue
above the darker mid-ground
with hints of pinking trees
But nearby the sudden
dailiness of death
and in the moment of fearing
where can I plant my feet
to understand and accept
those insistent buds,
these insistent tears?

Posted in Do the Work, en plein air, In the neighborhood, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, taking time to look, the creative process, watercolor | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

NaPoWriMo – Day 11

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

The mail brought a postcard and the NaPoWriMo prompt brought a link to a lovely archived version of Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers. Lovely indeed and a welcome diversion on this cold April morning.

I looked up the meaning of forsythia
hoping to write a poem for you.
The only things in bloom here
right now are maple, forsythia and
of course daffodils.
But, according to my book,
the bright and bobbing flowers
in the front garden mean “regard”
and the hills of maple now a-blush
stands in for “reserve”
which seem like such a
Brontë-ish bouquet –
much room for misunderstanding
and resulting hilarity or tears.
Forsythia though, didn’t make the list.
Looking up other names
brought me to flowering olive
also not in the translations, and
Easter tree, while fitting in the
calendar, didn’t earn a second look.
So I gave up the old resource and
did what I had to do and googled it
and was told by several sources that
forsythia, being an early flower,
means “anticipation”
Since we are all guilty of looking
every time we pass, hoping for
that tell-tale yellow budding
I’ll accept this. And hope you
will accept my child’s fistful of
sunshiny anticipation and regard
on this chilly April morning.

Daffodils and Mailbox

From the quote box:

He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Posted in Do the Work, gardens and flowers, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, reads, taking time to look, the creative process | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment