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Letter Box — Newsletter #32

| Next Letter Box | Previous Letter Box | Thoughts on Creativity #32 | Newletter Index Monterey, CA

YOUR GARDEN OF MIND

I walk into the garden of your mind to connect with your soul
that
I see so clearly—follow the path in your garden
Sometimes getting lost in it's many twists and turns,
but
I always seem to come to come back to the main path

To follow the path in your garden of mind
is
always a challenging course for me to take
and
because of it's creative depths and insights,
it has many rewards—

To walk in your garden of mind is a celebration:
For it reflects all that I am and possibility could become.

Rowaine Kram

WHITE BIRCHES

White birches in a dark wood
Reaching upward as they stood
Bending briefly as they swayed
Breathing slender shafts of shade.

Huddled closely in still space
Filling forest with calm grace.
No more need to further scan
For full view of nature's plan.

Yet upon profound inspection
Note this picture of perfection.
From the landscape of the whole,
This small cluster tends the soul.

Illia Thompson

I enjoyed our last Creative Arts Fellowship meeting so much. It's like a home for the soul.

TELEPATHIC CONVERSATION BETWEEN PERSON AND CAT

I want to know the secret of your contentment.
I AM CONTENT BECAUSE YOU TAKE SUCH GOOD CARE OF ME.

A cat-evasion. There's more to it than that.
WHAT MORE? MORE THAN FOOD AND A WARM PLACE TO SLEEP?

I have food and a warm place to sleep, and I am not content.
PERHAPS YOU SHOULD TRY MY FOOD AND SLEEP ON A CHAIR.

Now you're being smug and catuous.
AND YOU ARE BEING NAIVE AND HUMANGENOUS.

Your calm drives me to distraction.
AND YOUR DISTRACTION DRIVES ME TO SLEEP.

How can I get you to answer me truthfully?
BY NOT ASKING QUESTIONS.

I have no more questions.
HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT I DO NOT WEAR A WATCH?

Charlotte Sky
Caballera1@aol.com

Thank you for The Creative Edge. "Reading everyone's words gladdens my heart." I'm moved to write you this note...I'm simply enjoying the wonderment of the doing of the sending and being sent.

Mili Kari

CANOPY

My mother named me Cynthia,
after her best friend. Nineteen,
she knew nothing of Olympus, of Zeus,
of golden Apollo or his twin,
the maiden goddess of the moon,
that razor of light which slices
the night into ebony ribbon.

"Tu eras veramente la luna,"
he whispers into my hair.
I want to reach beyond our bodies,
to wear the planets on my fingertips.
I want to weave myself into the lush
velvet of night, like stars, learn
the tune light plays for the universe.

COOKING LESSONS

My muse is in the kitchen again, humming
to herself among the smell of coriander and cloves,

the cymbal crash of ladles, pots and pans
coming off the stove.

Her stout fingers are white with the flour
of half-baked ideas, her face flushed.

A pan of tragic verse cools on the counter.
She greets me with, "Where have you been?"

Her eyes motion towards a smartly folded apron
waiting for me, content to whisper my name.

She ties the crisp linen into a perfect bow
and pats my shoulder. We work side by side,

tasting everything just to be certain.
My muse is in the kitchen again.

Cindy Pinkston

QUIET SUPPORT

The world was blessed by
falling rain
holy water sent to cleanse and release,
quiet support for a
new age.

Alone beside a roaring hearth,
I remember returning in winter
from youthful play,
ready to leave cold crystalline darkness
and enter the light-filled
heat of home.

Standing at the threshold breathless
I peeled dripping layers
from a body no longer able to tolerate
clingy protection
leaving soggy offering
for the one I knew
could manage the burden.

Tonight,
I gently repeat that ritual.
Intolerant of habits
once donned for self-protection
whose cloying presence now
threatens my survival,
I dislodge tenacious patterns,
wrap them with appreciative words,
and reverently place them at
the alter of a deep-rooted
forest savior,
grateful to shift
responsibility to one I know
can handle the burden.

Lighter now,
I open myself to possibilities
sensing my way back into
heartfelt passions,
exposing the skin of my soul
to the heat of a home
I had lost in the layers,
quiet support
for a new age.

Carol Mathew-Rogers

LABYRINTH

She walked the Labyrinth today
in front of Grace Cathedral,
curved and patterned
circles in stone
black on white

like the one at Chartres,
a thousand years old,
covered with rows of chairs
when she visited,
a student in France
looking in those days at the glass,
the magic of the windows,
not knowing where she stood.

This then her first walk,
on a grey-bright San Francisco morning,
hands nesting together at her waist,
dark eyes looking down,
watching the patterns and curves,
the turns,
after step,
black sandled feet
tracing
the meditation of her walk.

In places following long paths of graceful curves,
the way clear and wide open,
but ending though
at turns,
sometimes to more clear sailing,
otherwise into twisted series
of back and forth
cluttered with sudden
changes of direction,
curve after curve after curve.

Until she reaches the center,
its eight alcoves
and heart
for looking
through tears
back to God,
past the spires, the towers,
beyond the sound of the bells
striking the start of the service,

This her first day of Advent.

Robert Nielsen

THE PRINCESS ON THE MOUNTAIN

—at the Visitor Center (9,300 ft.), Onizuka Center
for International Astronomy, Hawaii

A princess is coming up the mountain. A cluster of cars, her entourage,
passes too quickly. Were she dressed like a princess with jeweled crown
and sequined gown, we would easily pick her out. The cars stop on the
road above us. Before heading to the top of Mauna Kea to look at the stars
through the Subaru telescope she is to dedicate, Princess Sayako must
acclimate. Even princesses are human.

Earlier, when the thick mist-clouds parted,
Mauna Loa revealed herself bathed
In the light of the setting sun. We walked
To the start of the unpaved road. Later,
In the dark of evening, we brace ourselves
Against the cold, look at the dark edges
Of the half-face of the moon, and at Mars
And Antares. Moonlight sheens your full-length
Jacket. You wear a tiara of stars.
On the slopes of the mountain, shimmering,
Revealed to the naked eye, my princess.

Elliot Roberts

I've now been transfered to yet a lower security facility. My, with just over 4 years remaining, I'm now considered "short time"...seems obscene to me.

Creativity? Sure, lots... my drawing (cartooning) has improved a great deal. Of course Smiley is still doing his thing, and somehow I guess you could call him my "alter Ego." He does what I only dream to.

The creative process is, as always, continually growing, from various applications to new ways to see not only my art, but the art of others as well.

My salvation came through art, in and of itself. The creative process is a very healing thing, and while it takes horrendous concentration, the result is absolutely worth the effort.

When we first wrote many years ago, my self-esteem was not too high. Your compassion in befriending me via Kevin Locke, well, it made a difference. It bolstered my feelings of self-worth to see it printed in The Creative Edge...for all this I offer my humble thanks.

J. Levi Ford
#901024 E-2W
WCF/IDC PO Box 473
Westville, IN 46391-0473

I AM

I am the remembrance of ancient
walks and long ago dreams

I am the breeze that caresses my face
and the sun that sparkles on the waves that
wash my soul

I shine with the radiance of my rememberings
and I no longer feel to be of human form

I am weightless—but not empty

I am full of feelings—afraid of nothing

My courage has an edge—I beckon for
more to come my way

The love is not enough—I want the ecstacy

The hate is getting stale—I want to feel the rage

I say no to nothing but complacency and fear

I allow the world to flow through me

I am all that is

I am ALIVE

Julia Blixt

ON THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY
OF YOUR DEATH (August 14, 1999)

Everything reminds me of you,
Glorlosa daisies,
Sunflowers,
Queen Anne's lace,
shiny orange hips
of the Rosa Rugosa,
the throb of locusts.

These hot dry days, dearest, the way
they tasted when we harvested
carrots, beets, marbles of potatoes,
onions, old skinned like dried up women
lying on their sides, to put our stew.

In the nursing home, those last weeks,
sitting by your bed, cradling your
great warm hands in mine,
twisting your gold signet ring,
round, round,
as, mummy-like, wrapped in white
cotton blankets, you let me go.

Anne Dewees

From my book Songs of Silence.

THE RETURN

It is spring—
Persephone rises again,

Reaches out
her hand to another,

The trees
burst into bloom.

The sun
smiles upon the land,

She blinks—
and pauses.

Such beauty,
requires a moment of prayer.

Patricia Ann Doneson

NEVER THE SAME WAY TWICE

Each of us tells the same story—
-------beginnings, births,
cosmic expansion of breath into lungs,
-------the motion of limbs,
heartbeats and genetic imprints.

Each of us sets out on a path,
-------discovering mercy
and heartbreak
-------along the milestones,
forks in the road, detours.

I tell it differently than you,
-------stirring in images
of seashore, shyness and death.
-------My blend of losses and triumphs
not more nor less than yours.

I tell it differently at 57 than I did at 17,
-------and next winter the fable
will be fresh again.
-------Tell me your tale at least
three times before we part.

SOLITUDE

"Solitude, great inner solitude, going into oneself
and for hours meeting no one."
—Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)

Coiling breakers, white rimmed,
roll into the beach at Montana de Oro.
I keep watch, no tortured compulsion
for company other
than sunlit jade waves,

I go into myself,
take pleasure from mica,
bits of shell, black grains,
the mineral heat of sand,
transient gulls,
mantles of silvertop and sea fig
spilling over the folding dunes.

After a long time,
I discern the curve of the horizon,
coexist with the edge of the planet
one afternoon in July.

KEEPSAKE

Sometimes you forget
the blushed globe
of a ripening pear,
sunlight through the green-veined
lace of grape leaves.

Sometimes you forget
morning mist on a lake,
sky's pathway—windstream
for meringue clouds
iridescent blue parchment
butterfly wings.

Sometimes you forget
the echo image of forest
reflected at the bank of a pond,
seismic woodland presence,
upstanding slender stems
of delicate larkspur.

Sometimes you forget
your wildness,
your lightning voyage
within eternity,
your quiet core.

I only want to remind you.

Laura Bayless

I invite readers to share their own creative works with a few words about the context of their work for either the new Letter Box On-line or regular hard copy version. I look for work and comments I feel support understanding and encouragement of the creative process, and hence, the process of life.

Submit your name, city and state with your works to Donald@creative-edge.org for publication. I also encourage you to approve adding your E-mail address. Submit images in 72dpi GIF or TIFF format.

The Editor

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