creative ramblings & reverie

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Reflection

I'm breathing lovingkindness
for the little junco, after
yesterday taking away her friend
or true love, better self, companion
of her heart, that other bird
so like and so seemingly responsive,
moving when she moved—
towards, away—exactly matched
and met each time again.  And yet
not responsive at all, strangely,
always silent and cold and not
downy, no tender mantra of feathers
but hard as truth can be,
in the reflective surface
of the shiny silver kettle I'd left out
last week unthinkingly in the backyard.

—Christie

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Writing Spaces



image:  Gregory the Great dictating to his scribe Peter, from the 12th Century Moralium of St. Gregory

Polarities

To be still
without being inert,
receptive
without being greedy—
the excesses I would love
to tame, to temper,
the unruly Gemini twins
of my nature, always
leading me a breathless dance
between the two polarities.
I vow to breathe, to find
the pivot point, the quiet
wooden spindle, spool,
from which the thread
can play out
without snagging or tangling,
graceful, steady, temperate.
Torn though I am,
and scattered easily
as a bright carnival of confetti,
I'll make an honest effort.

—Christie

Writing News


I'm pleased that my short-short story "Italian Hand Gestures" was published earlier this month by Dime Show Review.

—Christie

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Writing Spaces






image:  vintage photos, women writers

Koshare

storm hanging all day in abeyance
still hung, as night comes on,
sky lowering,
canny old rooster wind vane mute,
black trees in silhouette against
the smudge of gray, cedar or sage,
uneasily portentous
like the witches in Macbeth,
the weird sisters,
or koshare, sacred Pueblo clowns—
the black-striped spirit-possessed
mud clowns, Thunderbeings,
innocent and wise, who tease
to their climax the quickening dances
of spring,
who usher in the Cloud Beings
and through their necessary mischief
fed with melons and tortillas
mediate for rain


—Christie

February Inklings

a flooded field
planted with white egrets
________

the Pescadero market
with artichoke sausages,
olallieberry jam,
a carton of duck eggs
________

ragged huddles of Christmas trees
in February coastal fields
like highschool students
hanging out together after school
awkward and yet to find themselves
________

a visit to the tea and rug shop
with smoky garnet kilims
to buy a paper packet of
Ancient Beauty oolong
________

a white horse
in a winter field
________

Nebbio winery,
grapes ghosted with fog
________

the sign for carnivorous plants
at one of the roadside nurseries
snapping up customers
________

hand-lettered signs
for local honeycomb,
strawberries, artichokes
________

driving up the coast from Pescadero
to Pomponio to Half Moon Bay
the fields are all impossibly yellow
between ocean and highway,
highway and distant sky, Van Gogh
let loose with an enormous paintbrush
________

the little market at the bottom
of the winding road to Half Moon Bay
offers as it has all the years I can remember
fresh sandwiches and bait & tackle (though
I see the roasted peanuts are now gone),
and today in addition, laid out by the open door,
bright-striped sarapes and a painting of Jesus


—Christie