Categories
Poetry

Swim in an Outside Room

I watch the city as it leaves over my shoulder

and I watch the moon and star follow

one another, the star circles the cusp of the moon.

.

Churches are resurrected off glossy faces in the mountains

I swim in an outside room, the small rooms grab you

I am in the vast mountains

floating myself in a pond to take leave

floating back to a rock sky

disturbances are counted in the number laps

back and forth, reaching my toes

like children throw pebbles into a brook

the ripples we have made eventually fade.

.

One wine with my dinner

I set my table alone

then drive around the mountains again

down a dark road in the evening.

.

There are such towns of people

where codes, law and peace

all abide between yellow houses

and gold hills

Their minds have sought and their children discovered.

I touch dusk just after it is black

and make a drawing to suffice myself.

Categories
Poetry

Spring Flower

Flower Ball

.

A daylight lamp

turns sparingly on

the world she covers.

.

The seasons warm and cool

in rhythmic paces

so common and reassuring

to the plans of spring.

.

The roses continue to grow

even where the old steps lead

no where, and where the concrete crumbles.

.

The peonies are balls of thin seashells

a rounded woman’s belly,

about to become a mother

emerge like bees from honeycomb,

butterflies from the nest

a newborn baby

too heavy to hold their head

the peony blossoms fall to the ground.

Categories
Poetry

Grounded

Grounded

There is life between the peaks

grey ash falls from the glaciers

direct triangle orders ascend

until they break off at the sky

or at the top of my paper

when I drew mountains as a child.

White clouds take over the mountains

just before storms

and just after.

The sun swirls like ovals

into the red-orange sky, black shimmering rock

most of the landscape

the mountains, the alps

one large echoing room.

.

Grey soapstone rivers to the left and right

grey ice rivers

the mountains cup in the south

a hilly incline to the Jungfrau

we walk into their huge valley over the saddle

and head north to the gorge

are held in a glove until leaving Switzerland for Italy.

.

The alps are so large that cities hide in her shadows

an orchestrated sound of wind strikes

far away church bells and cow chimes

sound like dropping stones into a shallow creek

the mountains are an entire raised ocean of frozen waves

we walk in the dissipating midst

easily disoriented

there is a jagged sunset, the outline of the sky blurred

with the misty clouds.

we capture the sunset on the underbelly of a cloud

smoking the dusty alpine air.

.

In a cave

along the black rugged walls

granite rock, my husband

releases his hand

opens it to many years

of rivers and verrigation

of a dusty sky

a wispy earth.

Categories
Poetry

Inspirational People

Inspirational People

When I went to a cathedral in France for an afternoon concert

The boys came to us from all directions

from the mountains

the sound of their young voices

pierced through the thick stone walls

the colorful stained streaks of sun

the dusty pews, the full crowd

pulled us closer

Closer to our insides

a beating heart pulled out

now, here was a place to think,

sound to guide.

In Padova, Italy at St. Anthony’s Cathedral

people pray

place their hands on the grave

leave pictures and notes of awakening

Without warning I feel connected with these people,

pulled in

elevated beyond my reach

to explain why the concentration of a church crowd praying

allows something inside of me to open.

Categories
Architecture Poetry

What I’ve read lately

Research Driven Work : In Architect Magazine, Toshiko Mori,

Poetry, & Seeds of Deception

Too busy to think? It’s so easy to get in the groove, but so hard to get out of a rut.

I want my architecture to be smarter. I want to be an architect to come to with the best answers and a well thought out practice.

In an effort to live life to the fullest and have my everyday perceptions inform my work, a friend and I from architecture school are collaborating to do just that. The first thing we need is devoted time to thinking and a goal. So… stay tuned.

This article by Mimi Zeiger highlight’s a womans efforts to evolve research driven work in her own practices. Toshiko Mori is between many  practices including her own NY firm, Toshiko Mori Architect, teaching at the Harvard Graduate School, and her latest think tank, VisionArc. Isn’t she pretty?

VisionArc is a consultancy run in tandem with Toshiko Mori Architect, the practice founded by Toshiko Mori (pictured) in 1981. Mori also teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and chairs the World Economic Forums Global Agenda Council on Design.

“Architects see spaces in plan, elevation, and section; we have a way of analyzing problems in a three- or four-dimensional way. We can slice through an issue that may not connect in plan,” Mori says.               I suggest reading the whole article here.

 

Poetry

Depending on the Wind by  James Galvin

.

Coloring Book
by Connie Wanek
Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book’s authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the ten commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a title, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere do we come upon
a blank page where we might justify
the careless way we scribbled
when we were tired and sad
and could bear no more.

Connie Wanek

 

Also, currently reading for the Environmental Book Club at the Schrader Center of Oglebay every third Thursday of the month: Seeds of Deception by Jeffry Smith

Categories
Poetry

Blues Fest Tear Down

Blues Fest Tear Down

All at once the wind came

the quick sudden change, shifting

a light grocery bag across the boardwalk

filling the sails of a four-poster tent

just beyond the reach to catch it.

Categories
Poetry

Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl

Deep room debate

silent adults sitting in a circle

hunched shoulder arena

nothing left to do

the birthday girl wants to leave

but no one else wants her to

so we all wait.

Categories
Poetry

People ways

People ways

How the sun must rise

red stone step

places to pray between rock and shadow

holy in our movement

we hear the faint sound

shut our eyes and keep our mind open

to boys who come from all directions

by the sound of their young voices

from the mountains they had come to sing

their oval mouths blossoming like spring.

What is at stake

taking in where you live or

living where it takes you as

traveling

opens your mind,

like seasons,

and touching nature.

Categories
Poetry

At the Edge

At the Edge

When at the edge of a mountain

you should do nothing but look

after climbing a tower see the

people ways

hallways through stone

down to the Great oval circles scribed in Sienna

When conversations don’t need works

and the world in different languages

appreciates dancing

hands speak

touched

palm to palm

danced circles

in the piazza

Forget your thoughts

and when someone speaks

listen.


Categories
Poetry

Rose

Rose

The deep veil.
An exterior with
ruby remnants
turns the color of a
crusted leaf.
Twisted, wrinkly, permanent
a still color.
.
The color
of a brown rose
until the last petal falls.
.
We planted in the yard last fall
hundreds, into a hibernating sleep
losing track of them and
keeping score.
.
In May, the blossoms came
all at once, almost unexpected
the bed kept so many
warm within the blankets.
.
By August, the blushing shade of
weddings, warmed with summer
they were almost open
pulling away
each succulent piece taut
keeping together the crisp
essence of what lies beneath
each fold and petal.