A favorite pose

Mom's gift of a child reading - a gift she modeled, a gift she encouraged, a gift she enjoyed, a gift she inspired, a gift that endures, a gift in bronze.

Ars longa, vita brevis

 

Please click on video of Lorel talking about her bronzes.

                                Lorel Lu Kay
 
               April 9, 1926    -   January 9, 2013

Mother's Day, 2015

It's a Doggone Mystery

Yes, It's a doggone mystery to me,

Why those four best plants are now just three.

It's a doggone mystery how the canary got out

When the doors were shut and no one was about.

It's a doggone mystery why that sheet isn't there

When it was only this morning that I hung it out to air.

It's a doggone mystery why the company tripped

And how the big front curtain just happened to be ripped.

It's a doggone mystery about that rubber mat

But strange things are happening just like that.

It's a doggone mystery how my slipper disappeared,

The way things are going is getting very weird.

It's a doggone mystery 'bout that piece of birthday cake

And just what happened to the family Sunday steak.

It's a doggone mystery why the beds are all mussed up,

But we've a faint suspicion it's that doggone pup.

Lorel Lu Daus
Early Poems

Spring Time

The trouble with Winter

Is equivalence.

Each day is equal to every other.

The heavy clouds are all the same.

The rain is equal signs tipped

And slanting downward,

Falling this hour the same as the last.

Dull, boring sameness...

But, Oh!, Spring!

Each second now bears change with it.

There are so many things to watch.

Every plant has its zipping timeline

Rushing at break-neck speed.

From the first cracked, damp earth

That is rent apart by the escaping daffodil

To the triumphant bloom

To the hard green seedpod forming,

There is always something new.

The rhodi buds have been there all winter

But now they swell

With life, with red and pink,

Zinging along like a kid on a skateboard.

The clouds puff and then disappear,

Exercising your neck and eyes to follow them.

The thick, dappled shade beneath

The redwoods

Has pinpoints of light that dart

In and out like small mice dancing.

Spring is unequal.

It is Greater Than.

 April 23, 1999

Alive is so full....

Dear Diary

This weekend has been
A star-bursting, laser-beam, razzle-daz weekend.
Life is so good!
Dianne, MaryAnn and Me,
Huff-puffing up the curves, the hill curves, the loop curves,
Chat-chatting the kids news, the chill news, the scandal news:
While Eric timbered, 
I limbered.
Shards, slabs, and slivers
Patterned, placed and positioned.
Glass play.
Word play.
Moonlight and coals bright
Just right
On a sleepless night:
Because Friday I dined with Lockheed
But will breakfast
In the New Year
With new cheer.
One half of a Jolly Jugger
Is jolly.
Cost designs on phone lines.
There are so many people
I love.
Even T.V. loves a little tonight.
Matzoball soup for the pacified tiger lady
And warm toast and honey 
For the Honey Puss.
There are no problems,
The December sun sees no problems.
Alive is so full.
Such a big surprise package.
I feel
So alive.
                               December 5, 1981
                                                           Job offer from IBM

Volunteering at the library in Mendocino

Ode to a Bookmark

Pressed between words,
Caressed by numbered pages,
Sandwiched in trash or classic,
Separating past from future,
cutting the author's thoughts in two,
Serving as memory . . .
     This special bookmark
     Is soft and green and supple.
     It traveled with a friend
     As gift from Ireland...
Compressed by paperback and bound,
Embraced by poetry and prose,
Held firm by comedy or tragedy,
Marking a novel's progress,
Tracking the disclosure of knowledge,
Recording the passage of time,
Serving as memory . . .
     This special bookmark
     Travels loyally
     From book to book
     And is my friend.
 November 25, 2002

For Father's Day: Mom remembers her father

Paul H. Daus, a mathematician, bred iris in Los Angeles, sometimes enjoying blooms every day of the year.

Existence and Uniqueness

Dreamwise he stood in my early wakefulness
Holding out toward me what I could take.
Can anyone say anything unique about
Being father and daughter, that the leaves
Drifting downstream on the waters
Have not swirled by before?
He and I, closing mindwise only so seldom,
But more, to be sure, than with the others
Who have shared our time-space
Quarters as human beings.
For laughwise he was good for me.
Loud, gentle, with tall stories.
A rollicking parody on furry-footed hobbits
Written to me when I was ill and away from home...
Writing now, therefore is in his image.
And flowers -
Branching trident-like
Are his iris.
I recall mulched beds of pincushion flowers,
of snapdragons and chrysanthemums
That serve me now with happiness.
An iris has three standards and three falls.
Three upon three for three square
And 3 to the third power and thus
To infinity of natural numbers and
Infinity of real numbers.
Q.E.D., uniqueness and existence
Of my father and I are proved.
Who can doubt it in the 
Persistence of dreams?




August 6, 1973

Community Gardens, Mary Milne

Needlework

These hills of mine - 
These patchy valley squares - 
These muted colors
Singing morning songs.
I weave into their constancy,
A threaded needle 
Dragging life behind me,
Trailing cotton continuity
From one side of reality
Back to the other.
I leave uneven stitches -
A quilting pattern
Of sleep and consciousness
Across the crumpled
Valley folds.

May 11, 1977

Mother's Day: Generation(s) of Love

At the Daus 50th Anniversary

Grandma and Grandpa Daus

Oma and Opa Kahn

To Andy - Welcome Home


There is love in this household,
Fluttering startled from under
The eaves where the spring
Nests sit.
It crouches under the table
Brooding like a pouting child.
It splashes back and forth
In dishwasher arguments
And blazes in calendula
Oranges and yellows
Through damp mists.
This love is here in the leave-takings
And the love-welcomings
Where you expect it to
Make an appearance,
But it is also here
Poking fun at the irritations
Over broken garbage bags
And puncturing anger's
Whit-hot balloons.
This love sleeps peacefully 
Through slashing rainstorms
And waves a smiling red flag
To the mailman
At haphazard intervals.
It doesn't get wide media coverage,
But it curls up comfortably in small poems.
There is love in this household.

March 7, 1979

Generation Grasp: 

A favorite Kodachrome of my mother Daphne Daus's aging hand grasped by Aaron, her first great-grandson, was fading to indistinct pastels.  Why not create the image in bronze?  Intimidated by having to sculpt hands, I phoned Cynthia Thomas, a local artist whose work I admired.  "Could you give me a lesson on making hands?" I asked.  She worked with me for several sessions.  I practiced on small wax hands which are in several sculptures I did at the time.  Then I worked on bigger hands.  They were poured at the foundry she and John Dach run in Philo.  It is, I think, touching that my own hand is now the aging hand of my mother.

Leaving home for my castle in Wales, 1971

Away

Sons grow up and fly away in silver birds
Whose metal skins reflect and catch
The summer blue, the green spring.
The red excitement points of life.
Leaving grey small-boy ghosts only.
One after one after one
Grey hairs twinkle in the twilight,
Transparent tears fall earthward.
A heart can soar where colors are.

July 27, 1971