Two Poems, a Prayer and a Painting

            Thank you everybody who has commented so kindly on my self-portrait. I painted it in 1977 and I recently came across it when I was look for the pencil drawing of Lady Hollyr I had made at the same time. Now here's the real deal: I just don't know how to paint faces! It's really not mysterious or spiritual; it's just a few bold brush strokes. But, as a tiny icon on the computer screen, it translates to a few bright colors of a woman reaching for the light. I have been having a lot of fun with my new scanner. It makes a better picture than the original!

When I joined Gaia and was asked for a nickname, I had to think a minute. I was trying to lose my childhood diminutive of my name, so I certainly didn't want to encourage that. But I have been working on Hollyr's book, and she has been on my mind quite a bit, and she is a titled Lady, so that also took care of that. The first manuscript was written in the seventies, and that is what I am working with now to get it into printable shape for submission. I had a real burst of creativity at that time that I am still tapping into. I was in college and there was a lovely woods with trails down to the river. I wrote a poem that was published in the college student journal. I submitted two poems, and I believe that the one they didn't choose was really the better of the two.

There

Were you near the maple trees,

Flowing northward in the winter's breeze

Along the river's frozen edge

With children everywhere;

And like the stars across the sky

Danced there in the summertime

Deep within the tiny seed

Held in sleeping, timeless wastes

Of love, and soft embraces.

Yes, I was there, I was there with you.

Did you see there ragged men

Taking money for their cares

Like bums or golden demigods

Walking where the brave men say

Only they can go;

While peasant women laughing there

Of their life's bending sorrows show

That in the flickering candlelight

Is all we have tonight.

Yes, I saw it there with you.

And did you feel the passing cloud

Along a moving rainbow bowed

To touch the earth curved back in blue

Like a dying dancer lying there,

A clown to fit for life to care

If death comes into view;

But takes it all in loving arms

And gives it gently back to you

To hold within your heart.

Yes, I felt it all in you.

Faerie Music

Down in a clearing in the woods,

A magic place of old,

A Faerie Lady's dancing there

Beneath the boughs of gold.

She's dancing to a faerie song

That only she can hear.

The whole woods stops to stain to catch

The music floating near.

She wears no jewels or costly gems;

She sparkles more than these.

She needs no perfumes from the East;

Her hair smells like the breeze.

The leaves that cling to branches high

Are waiting for the chance

To grab the nearest passing wind

So they can join the dance.

The sun is shining down on her

Just like a warm embrace.

The sunbeams tumble from the sky

To touch her smiling face.

The gentle river sighs at her

While lapping at her feet.

The fishes swarm around

To hear the magic beat.

She's throwing kisses to the squirrels

Who chatter from the trees.

She's calling to her rabbit friends

Who scurry through the leaves.

So if you come upon that glen

Of songs you cannot hear,

Take care you do not startle her,

Or she will disappear.

But rather watch her from afar

And maybe you will learn

The faerie songs inside her head

That makes her sway and turn.

If you enlarge and look closely at the painting you can just make out the legend Faerie Lady. JLD. 10-26-77.

So, every time some one writes me about the painting I have to laugh, because it's really not very good, it just ended up being really good 30 years later for a completely different purpose! Several people have asked me to join groups on the strength of that image and my short replies of my profile. (Some of the groups I joined because I was interested in the topic, it turned out they were not very active anymore.) Sometimes these little pictures are called icons. Here is a lovely prayer I have posted by my computer wok area along with some favorite photos:

God's Window

God of my childhood

And my call,

Make me a window,

Not a wall.

So like an icon,

May I be

A sign of love's transparency,

And through the love

That lives in me,

Proclaim Your lasting

Love for all.

That's by Miriam Therese Winter from her book The Singer and the Song. It pretty much sums up what I would like to be here at Gaia. I know my life falls way short of that ideal, but here is place, like that woodland walk to the river, that I can be free to be me.