PROCESS NOTES

day one graduate study packet one, week one Feb 5, 2001

After doing my spiritual exercises this morning I have awoken from a vision for three paintings. One of the hand and the stars from a moment of playing with the wind out the car window driving late one night, and the other of head against the door from my Passionate friends story also with hands, and the last is just still only a feeling of love without the visuals. I have been also thinking about dividing my reading from a threefold.. one of consciousness reading, one of the craft of the art, one of context be it psychology/sociology/ history or biography. As a midwife we were always dealing with the energy of threes of being the go-between, between two worlds, the crack between two walls, the center. Constantly moving with the flow constantly vigilant, always supportive… allowing for the entering, the opening, the emerging of the life force… I have also been thinking I will be sketching out the paintings onto the canvas, a rough shape of the finished process, a hint of what the paint may bring later. Today I have taken pictures that may become the Princessa transforming through the first wall of the doors that hold her, and have read 20 pages of biology of love by Arthur Janov On the first page of he says.. this book is about "how feelings and emotions-the motions we make when we feel- direct our lives" Hmm, a very good place to start with movement of consciousness as it moves through the physical body.. as love especially in the creation of a fetus. The body imprints the memories… one can not think one's way to the sources one needs to feel to become both the pain and joy to find the love that is centered between the two. The threads within us expresses themselves if not outwardly through words, though our very breathing and nerves. through movement ie.. can't get to deep feeling by thinking ourselves there. In order to walk through walls, who would I be? How would I feel and move. These first drawings are tight and full of tension in the translations of moving as I walk through the loosening of the pose the drawings soften. If I were to walk through walls I would soften, not be held to anyone one thing I'd said or done, and yet being able to feel it all. I move from reading to drawing to mixing paint, to writing a letter of letting go of old stuff. Looking at a map of fensui? That someone gave to me and I've scribble on an evelope over dinner.. I decide to find it on the web.. can't spell for crap and come up with odd things in Japanese I don't understand. Something about fortune telling and the heart… J so if painting is fortune telling of the heart then that works for me. Feng Shui Fusui, Fuusui} + {tell, telling}

PROSPERITY

FAMEFIRE

RELATIONSHIP

ANCESTORYMEMORY

HEALINGEARTH

CHILDREN

KNOWLEDGE

CAREER

TRAVEL HELPFUL FRIENDS

February 6th

I cut kilos of pigment with my art mentor and another artist who tells me she likes that she likes she can say anything to me and I won't judge her. We are telling each other stories of ourselves and our lives as we giggle over the richness of the colors with childlike enthusiasm that is contagious.

February 7, 8

I paint and write letters on and off with my oldest son review some old poetry I don't even remember writing. Sharing with a good friend my work and sketches. I accidentally come across some drawings I drew from some old photographs that I never intended to show anyone and that embarrasses me. I realize my friend revealed to me something that had embarrassed him and so it seems fair. Very little embarrasses me, I am comfortable with playing the fool, but these drawings reveal too much about someone else and how I feel about them and it this accidental exposure of this person, that turns me red. I set up my palette based on some tidbit I read in Complete Course in Oil painting by Olle Nordmark. I turn one of my paintings upside down based on the fensui map to see how it felt. I decide to hang it that way and work on it from that perspective. My friend has brought me a book that jumped off the shelf at him with my name on it: Women in Celtic Myth by Moyra Caldecott. My breasts are swollen as if overnight with post ovulation puffiness. I am fertile in so many ways.

February 9th

"An artist's model who is intelligent, as all must be if they are to inspire such men as MacMonnies, Calder, French, Weinman, Bitter, Konti, Dodge, Aitken and Herbert Adams, learns a great deal about art and its uncertainties, its dreams and ideals and its disappointments as she passes from one studio to another in her daily work. From the temperamental painter, who is a great man one day and a naughty child the next, to the earnest, analytical sculptor, who is a cynic about women even while he idealizes them, the model learns art from all its perspectives. And the more she learns the more she is apt to ask herself in the privacy of her own room at night after a hard days work: "Just what is art afterall?" Audrey Munson, 1921

From: American Venus The extraordinary Life of Audrey Munson Model and Muse

I read this in a coffee shop this morning and it brought me to tears, in public.. I don't mind too much about crying in public these days.. there isn't a whole lot I can do to hide my pains my joys my passions my fears… it is the link to my mission to ask the question, what is the muse and what responsibility do we owe our muses? Just what is art after all and is worth the turmoil I have seen it cause. Sometimes I wonder what past life crime have I committed that winds me up so… Perhaps this is why I prefer painting myself.. it is only I that I can hurt that way. I learn so much from painting. Listening to the inner nudges of the creation to try this color or that to stop and wait… wait … wait, sit with this a moment, and see what it calls for… I call upon the divine to keep me sane to keep me balanced to hold forth while this body vessel of mine transforms both me, the model and the molecules that surround us both. Soon I will begin painting my pregnant muse. She's two months and already her small belly shows a tightness that suggest a very small pear-like growing uterus. Surrendering to love seems the only cure. To the love of doing what I have come here to do, to the love of the muse, to the love of myself and finding the balance between the three. My first two paintings are now waiting on further nudges as they dry and sit. I also look at the painting I bought sitting in my dining room.. sitting to see what it will reveal to me over time. It is the first painting I have ever bought, painted by an artist somewhere in the middle east who probably was not paid much for the work, nor that I will ever meet. Painted on linen, with intricate glazes that I hope will reveal their secrets to me. … yet it is not he artist that captures me, but the woman who stands centered amid the selling of her body. Do artists steal something from people they paint? This morning I bought a stem of brilliant blue larkspur so I can try and paint the deeps of the universe.. there is God in there it seemed to say as it leaped out at my heart while I walked through the wholesale florist showroom. Eighty cents for a small miracle. I bought some pussy willow too, I like the way it feels and hope to capture the feeling on canvas within the blueness of it larkspur. Yet along with the patience of the calling there is urgency in the buying of delicate flowers that will not hold their life for long. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I went to see the vagina monologues on Thursday… Eve Eisler's play about owning our bodies based on interviews with women from all ages and walks of life. Giving life to how we can own our language and our sexuality through the telling of women's stories… I was reading through the program and noticed that in the credits they give special thanks to me, I am in awe, I cried there too… but these were tears of gratitude, they turned people away at the door… women and men, to think I may have helped in some small way just skewers me with the honor. Everything in my life lines up everything is but a small piece of the puzzle and the miracle lies in how it all happens… seeing the connections is part of my job as an artist.. I could never explain or rationalize the universe no matter how I try.. I can only find snippets of the pieces and stand in awe, no matter how smooth or succinct my arguments. Yet seeing Vagina monologues I was reinforced on my reletaionship with a woman I know who was extremely offended by my use of certain language. I wrote her a letter, offering apologies talking about the play I said: I saw it in Nashville it was amazing.. seeing the play is best because it softens the blow because you can see the persons face and the stage presence creates the safety net for the feelings like a bubble of love. Without that safety net carefully intact you can't catch the meaning of transforming the shadows into something of beauty. Even the angriest monologue is buffered in the direct center of the play to hold it carefully. And I thought of you when I was observing this. There's another scene where a young woman is reclaiming a word that normally holds a very harsh vibration within the context of our world… but she softens it, curling her lips trying it on for size, transforming the word into something of beauty…I think she takes about 15 minutes with one word. The woman who performed the Nashville show is this petite pretty adorable looking young woman who couldn't hurt a fly, and it makes me feel that if perhaps if you had been able to see my face and perhaps if I had not been on a mad dash lunatic cycle and spinning wildly and given us time to get to know one another better you would not have come to the conclusions you did.

New poem:

Love softens me

Like cocoa butter

In a hot bath

Or linseed oil

In paint Spreading

Over the canvas

Of my life 2/11/01

This poem was written in honor of a contractor who would use those four letter words whenever he spoke to my husband, you know the kind constructions workers do… a man to man kind of thing But he fought dirty with me, in fact he wouldn't fight straight as he just smiled said he would send over a crew and then just threw me a bone with a sole plumber that fixed one tiny thing. The thing was every time anything got fixed they only left behind a bigger problem like when the painters painted the wall and left the covers off the light switches and I would go in with my screw driver only to discover the reason they did this was because the wiring was screwed in badly but always is was someone else's problem.. passing the buck and Sam I'll be nice and call him Sam (not his real name) would talk nicely to me as if it was something I should be pleased about, all the while claiming he wanted me to be happy with my new house and hoped I would be sympathetic to the woes of the working man who was obviously in way over his head… Suddenly I'm thinking my only recourse was to speak the man's language the kind he used behind my back, but being the artist/poet that I am I wrote a poem first to let off the first escapes of steam before I talk to him… I might be nicer in person.

Do you fuck sheep?

You must, because you know

Nothing about satisfaction

Do you imagine your smile

Is good enough for me

When the electricians have

Left half screwed in fixtures

That can't be fixed with

A twist of the wrist?

Or pretending that none

Of us know any better

About a job well done

MY God, you would make

THE lousiest of lovers…

Because I never asked you

To fuck me behind my back

And I'm certainly not going to

Tell you, oh baby, it was good for me

2/12/01

Played hide and seek in the dark last night with Ron and Galen and Morgan.. and the dogs the neatest thing I realized was how "clean" this house is.. no psychic leftovers form some old argument someone else had… nor ghosts of other lives. When I was it I could walk into dark closets with the clearest feelings and complete joy and playfulness. Another interesting tidbit about this neighborhood I live in, no one is home during the day. It is like living in the middle of a huge field.. clear of mental chatter. It may not stay this way after a few years.. but for now I am acutely aware of how badly I needed out of the city… how much I had been internalizing the world around me and needed to let it all out. Wrote four poems this week.. one for my personal gem files, one was a tongue lashing to someone who needed it, two love poems. I have often told folks recently that I am not afraid of going anywhere, well the flip side to that little tidbit, is thank God I don't have to… as balance comes home again. This house is so big on the inside and yet… it fits us, every room is used, every bit of space between cherished like letting water soothe a dehydrated heart. Reading more from the biology of love… He asks, How do we love a brain? Or better yet how do we love the person that carries around that brain. I am seeing more and more the pursuit of interdisciplinary art is the pursuit of loving wholly all of life. The loving of the bad boys the loving of good boys the loving of SOUL brains, emotions, bodies and all. When I paint someone I am loving all of them, even if they throw their pain at me.. the key is to take none of it personally and yet embrace it all as lessons in love. How do I love you best as a channel for the divine that flows through us all? I begin with me because, I am the one I know best.. if I know the answer to loving myself best I can then dance the dance of loving others.

Saw the movie, 14 days about the Cuban missile crisis with Kevin Kostner.. it illustrates so wonderfully that in a schizophrenic world where the polarities clash sometimes secrets can be useful.. finally in a place where the chatter does not overwhelm me I can know this and hold it sacred. There something to letting the art speak for itself. Those who hear and see will see and those who don't won't. I can not be responsible for any of it and yet only responsible for the love I find within my own sphere of God's love… It has always been the she wolf leaving the den that has been my issue… I like in here in my womb of a nurturing life how is it I include those on the outside? In the movie the Cell, it is only when she comes home to her own realm of her own mind that she can heal anyone… she could never do it on his terms. My studio is my home, my state of consciousness. My art is the most intimate part of myself. This I can share, but only on my own terms, in my own way… as I surrender to the formless. Today I will paint in blue before the flowers leave me. Larkspur blues from soft whitish blue to deepest richness.. I am through with this dark night of soul nonsense… There is only love anyway.. beyond time beyond space beyond it all.. and sometimes the most loving thing I can do is allow others to have their little fits without my interference. For all my issues with double standards, I can not pretend I do not love, however it manifests in my life.

Dark Night of SOUL Crumbs

I woke up this morning realizing that

The dark night of soul was nothing

More than SOUL pretending

It didn't love god back

Thinking there was a small chance in hell

That IT could be strong

Enough to stand without

Loving Its own true self

Do you love me God?

As I am right here right now?

I've been testing you

Like a wide eyed toddler

Who has just climbed onto the

Counter to steal a cookie

 

2/17/01

By the time I got to Goddard I was already in deep process. I'm a little bizarre to be around when I am like that. Triple rainbows, serendipitous phone calls, magic explosions of time and space, and non stop babbling to dispel the energy off skin so hot I feel like I've a fever. My poor roommate! Sorry if I threw you too many sparks. After almost a week of this I found my way into Cat's movement workshop and she gave me the grounding line through the center of my physical being that, after the fact, seemed an almost too obvious thing and I thought myself the complete idiot for not seeking her out sooner. Ah, well, all in its good time. Trust the process, trust the spirit, and trust that something knows more than I do. The loosely choreographed improvisation we did at the evening cabaret anchored me to the ground in a feral way that would reveal itself for a longtime after. It became the turning point of my of the long road up from the dark night of SOUL I had wandered into... that and seeing my fellow artists magnificent works especially Jason's wonderful film of the spontaneous living canvas, and Fay, the coffee lady, who will hold a piece of my heart forever the sheer brilliance and lunacy of the coffee project that made me laugh. Ray grounded me back home before and after the trip and then the loss of my father-in-law took me someplace I can't even describe… cleared everything out that needed clearing out. Like the washing of a school blackboard with a wet sponge… lots of tears sometimes does a person good, no matter what the circumstance. And I thank everyone who has ever broken my heart, whether through my own pain or yours its all a part of the labor of love. And I emerged, giving birth to myself yet again, knowing from the inside out from the stretch of a hypotenuse, the razor's edge, from the iron in my blood to the babble in my head, from the center of the Sugmad, what it means to paint like a midwife and why. And so begins the real journey of what I came here to do. Honoring all that I am and all they we are as human beings, in every which way I can. Through movement, through poetry through story, and through that wonderful glorious thing called art for which I am grateful to know in action. To paint like a midwife is nothing more than playing with the paint softly... poking and feeling for the response to find out where the baby lies. For Cat You took this fallen angel Babbling with the grief of Too many lovers and mended Her wings shouldered firmly Clasped with arms that said, trust me Weight falling into, back arching over You fall into me these legs unsure of Their grounding and we walked into The future and into our pasts A closing embrace of dance That heals the Soul Broken wings have never Known such sweet mending For Ray Raymond Sleeps on my couch Keeping watch on our hearts Like a vigil scholar he hugs Each one of us and makes me Smile to see his truck parked in the Street when I pull in the drive For Grieving Grief is the clearinghouse For that which needs to be let go And all that needs to be reclaimed A place where all hinge dwellers Need to visit from time to time To remember the place where We stand in the moving sands Trusting that even if we sink The sun will always shine, and does

1/18/01

I finished the Morgan's birth Painting this afternoon. I think it is the first painting I feel complete about… Wrote letters to folks who e-mailed me Dear folks, Thanks for your kind words and love. One of the beautiful things about spirit for me is that it's never what it seems.. and there's always a another step to take.... A couple of years ago my cat Arthur died (translated). We had a very close bond, the translation went so smooth I hardly noticed a missed heart beat in her presence. There literally was no pain!!! Piece of cake, I thought.:-). But I guess, there are some things in this life that I am very, very good at letting go of and others, well... like all of us, it's not as easy. But I think these places that are not easy for us, are God's gifts to help us grow and learn more of love. We have chosen this life, all of it, every single hair on our backs and every moment. In my life, my father-in-law would come and go in ways that I was totally detached about. I really didn't expect his passing to hurt. We knew it was coming. Yet it was the surprise attachments that threw me for a loop. This path to God is one where we get to know ourselves and our relationship to God and others in such an intimate honest way. We are so lucky in this aspect. I had not expected the places where my attachment was strongest.. odd little places, like forgetting to send birthday cards, or not having the money to go with him to Africa. But spirit always prepares us for everything. There are no REAL surprises. When the onion skin is peeled the truth is so obvious it seems silly. And you know you knew all along. We always do. I've been reading this book about the biology of love. Its oddly about the razor's edge and balance from a biochemistry point of view, the author talks about how we physically face hormonally the places where we have experienced or perceived a lacked of love in our lives in very physical ways and our bodies are constantly working to bring it into balance.. The author (Arthur Janov) believes that the lack of love we experience during our pre-verbal times (prenatally and first years) needs to be addressed to truly experience love fully. I'm not sure if I agree with him there, but to me its just another metaphor for the ECK teachings... kind of like karma being processed within the body. In other words, one has to go through the imbalances to get to the other side and we are all seeking balance. And even if I understand or believe that SOUL doesn't enter the body until it is born, that doesn't mean the physical mechanisms aren't mirroring the heavenly worlds and the karmic conditions aren't being put into place at the earliest stages. As Paul says we choose our parents. We choose our bodies. This takes it on a biochemical level. Yet, the hardest lessons are gifts, not burdens. It's like when folks began doing goal lists to create better lives... Suddenly those of us who wrote of companionship found loneliness, joy found grief... etc etc.. And some of us got what we asked forJ Loosing my father-in-law I really got to see how attached I was not only to him, but especially in those wonderful social areas I have spent a good part of my life avoiding. In the eyes of many from a very social perspective, I was a "bad" daughter in law. I'm lousy at sending out birthday cards, my husband and I didn't have the finances together for most of our lives so he worried about us alot, and we would do insane things he didn't understand at all. When we did get together, we didn't have a whole lot to talk about. So what was there? Love. Our relationship existed out of love. He knew and I knew there was love, regardless of our differences. And when all those social concerns came to haunt me.. the ones that said I wasn't the one who was there for him, and who didn't send holiday cards… we got to see each other face to face and none of it matter. Of course I knew that, inside… and I knew my life led me in places where he could not go and vice versa, but I got to experience the little places of social judgment I carried with myself. It's the little nexuses that seem to carry the most impact. To me this is why spiritual leaders stress those small steps, why it's so important for each of us to trust and rely on those nudges to guide us through each moment.. to practice the spiritual exercises daily... For me it's almost like we get to experience our little imperfect seesaws, so we can fully experience the balance within the center of the spirit..... adjusting to the sound of the HU every new moment of the day the finest tuning to the razor's edge… and the more abrupt ones when needed. The most dynamic and wonderful balanced thing about crying out my grief this time was there was no fooling it.. I could not hold it back if I wanted to (and believe me I tried even though I knew better.) My whole body surrendered to the finding of the equilibrium in a very demanding way, I couldn't pretend I was full of joy like when Arthur translated. When Arthur died it would have been silly for me to cry, this time I needed to just let it go in a very physical manner. Who knows what will happen next time... to me there is such utter honesty in life and each moment is unique and changing in accordance to the perfection of the moment. And the next wonderful thing about crying was that I every time I reached the end of the tears, the inner flow just got louder in my inner ear and there was only love. I think too this is all about giving space to ourselves and others to just BE. When get to face ourselves with all of imperfections and KNOW that we are loved by GOD. In spite of it because of it, regardless of how we may pretend otherwise We are exactly who we are right here right now... and there's no way to force ourselves to be different. We each are a unique aspect of God. And there's no pushing against the door that opens inward. There's no hurrying a birthing child, there's no amount of judging ourselves is going change us... its just the slow methodical practice of the spiritual exercises and Being who we are where were are one step at a time. My father in law was a living example of this. HU Karen

I didn't mourn my unborn child

Until after her sister died like an unbroken

Thread of karma unto the beginning of time

Nor did I accept my mother's lack of awareness

Until, I heard my father's sister ask,

"Why does that man have "Such large breasts?

"And how come those women have

Such large bellies?" "They are pregnant," I tell her

"These paintings are not my cup of tea"

My mother adds her punctuation

Ancient denial ridden into retarded bones

I grieved now the loss of unborn mothers

Never accepted, overburdened , choosing a hard love

Whose backs will never straighten in this life

What could I say for this woman? Nothing…

Suddenly there was a peace in letting go

Of my life's biggest heartbreak

Of the things I couldn't change

Of the things I refused to become

And knowing now, I was never in

Danger of becoming any of them

So I drink a cup of soft tea with a smile

Now my mother gets squirrelly

And tells me my son gets

All his artistic talent from his father

But she's also asked me about THAT painting

The one that looks like her Who is that?

And I tell her it is the part of you

And me that is the same

And then she asks me the most honest

Question I've ever heard her say

"Why is she so scary?"

But I let my mom, discover her own

Answer to that one

***

ménage

The two women sat

Across me at dinner

Both in love with

The same man

A ménage, how funny

I never saw it

The twin and the wife

No wonder they are so

Weird about sex

And are scared to death

Of my paintings

Some poems I will

Never print

Some secrets Never speak

***

You are so patient

She says and I think I am only clear of

Whatever is bothering her

**

Healing Hands

He holds his hands, just far enough to feel IT

Over mine and I am smiling

At the tickling energy around my heart

Ray talks of Jesus and being Catholic

And she secretly tells him he must be

A saint and I can't stop giggling,

At his choice of words to bridge the peace

She can feel the flow between his

Pagan god, and hers and mine

She's thinks I'm not being serious enough

Because I'm giggling, because she's caught

It regardless Of what IT's called

And I can't stop laughing, listening to his

Words carefully to see if he slips

She thinks he's a Catholic saint and perhaps

He IS

Feb 28

As I've been percolating the answers to my model muse dilemma, questions have arisen concerning tolerance patience detachment and love and respect. As usual the cross discipline life experience approach has been paramount for me. My premise has been the there is an important difference between patience and tolerance. From a political perspective I have been included in debates among friends and colleagues regarding enforced tolerances regarding affirmative action. For sake of simplicity I will quickly categorize the argument. My more liberal friends would argue that enforced tolerance is necessary because it allows for freedoms of individuals. A redneck bigot employer from the south should be forced to hire a certain number of minority employees because said employer would not voluntarily do so, and without outside (social and legally determined) rules, tolerance cannot be enforced and all social advances of the last twenty or so years would disappear. My more conservative friends would argue the same thing that affirmative action should be abolished because this would allow for freedoms of individuals to hire individuals who they may be able to work well with. On a more personal level the social tolerances for behavior when I was grieving were different than those when I was not. I was aware of my own tolerances shifting. For example, I took more naps. Gave myself permission to cry in public places. The tolerances within the human body regarding needs for food, rest, love, touch, are very exact to the measures of specific hormones being released into the system at specific times to maintain balance or equilibrium. So for me patience is the stasis of balance and tolerance is a fiery struggle outside of balance wanting to achieve that balance. For those of us who are artists who deliberately step outside of our comfort zone and dive into the imbalances… well, we better have a very solid anchor with a strong tether. Too many of us dive off and don't come back up again… both muses and artists… the edge can drop off father than we expect. Which is why it is crucial we are the judges of where we step and we better trust the one who belays. Putting a human being who for both internal and external reasons cannot tolerate certain circumstances, but is forced to (by himself or outside rules) to tolerate a circumstance creates a tension, a struggle to find balance. This is why painting like a midwife, finding and clearly defining my anchor and tether has been crucial. Everything must be clearly determined in the moment. Like being at a birth People generally don't recognize when they out of stasis and being naked or undressed metaphorically as an artist in the midst of the creative process is a form of vulnerabilty. I guess it seems to me, a way of seeking balance with my model, to be vulnerable so as to make their own vulnerability comfortable. Midwives are vulnerable when they are at a birth… they are holding the energy. They are responsible.. and yet they surrender to the process of something greater than themselves and the birthing woman. Everyone involved is doing this. I chatter and move when I am struggling with something. This is also true with painting. This also is true of birthing women.. we can hear the changes happening in the uterus through the sounds of a woman's groans. It is less a rationalization or explanation of excuses for my actions and more a process of seeking equilibrium. When it is blocked it pressure cooks… if the model or muse are flying wildly off center than people can get hurt. Like a love affair gone awry. So this is how I see my responsibility to myself and my models and my audience. This is why movement is an important part of the process. I want my models to move with me before I paint, before they settle into a pose. I want them to be able to loosen and dance unlock the imbalances they hold in their bodies. I want them to feel the joy or pain or release, and yet I must be detached from the outcome of what comes through. To tolerate clumsiness' or cruelty at critical junctures of transition in the transforming of the work seems unconscionable, to hold patience for the both of us seems vital. My personal protocol for painting people in the moment, whatever it becomes is like having a magic birth bag full of herbs and instruments, and lots of things I don't even know I should have that will just materialize as I need them. This is very different from painting an unknown model at a life drawing class. I was speaking with a songwriter friend who just recently started a life drawing class. An accomplished artist but new painter we discussed how the masters painted models they knew who reappeared in their paintings. We also discussed the interesting synergy of being naïve and fresh within a new art form and bringing the power of a mature creative process into it. This is what attracted me to the interdisciplinary approach of exploring the creative process. We can dive deep innocently and come back up for air. I feel feral when I dive into painting, but the feral wildness is bleeding into my experience of writing. The writing itself does not seem any different, at least I cannot tell at this time, but the experience of the writing has gone deep… perhaps as Janov might say, to the lizard brain, or as others might say closer to the source of life… … surrendering to that which is greater than all of us.

Found a poem in the files…

If I Dive

If I dive into icy waters knowingly

Will that save me from the shock?

Burning along these veins of mine

The ones that bruise easily for the

Core lies just under my skin

Just a prick, and you can find

tunnels of pipes so wide,

I can hardly breathe from the rush…

Not even a shiver floats amid miniature bergs

I wake up in the middle of the night sweating

If you can call it waking…

To a turbaned brown eyed ghost in the darkness

Slowly he dissipates, lingering only long

Enough for me to know he was really there

Juggling my lives where only the merest kiss

Touches my hands, and I am flying again

Karen Walasek © May 28, 2000