Venus on a Bad Hair Day

 At Stanford’s Cantor museum, a bust by Giacometti was constructed of 2 planes at right angles - shoulders and narrow head.  Picasso usually slammed planes together into 2-D paintings.  This is the way Venus started:  profile on bare shoulders.  Then I began giving her hair with wavy, untamed strands that shaped a 3-D head.  Then I saw Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" with her right hand reaching up toward her throat.  So I gave my lady a hand (which incidentally, stabilized the piece), and her name: Venus on a Bad Hair Day.  She was welded together from hand, head and shoulders by Yori: art by committee; both in ideas and fabrication.

 

Venus's "Make Up"

Orchards of disarray

Things Are Not So Bad

Things are not so bad.
I stumbled and fell over
A witch's pot of moon-orange apricots
In our orchard of disarray yesterday,

But my leg did not break
Or even turn black.
It looks nostalgically skinned
As if I can later pick at the cracking
Scabs of childhood.
Morris died at 93
Of complications from his broken leg.

 

I had just told the tree-
The grandfather tree
Who seeded the ranging seedlings-
That his fruit was still the best,
But I believe that he tripped me anyway
In spite and admonition,
With an old man's humor.
It was a subtle way
To say
"Don't mock me.
You and I are not so old.
Your leg is not broken
Nor are my branches.
Things are not so bad."



July 4, 1978

Celebrating the fungus among us

Catalina Ironwood - Lyonothamnus Floribundus

Verticilium Wilt - A Soil Fungus

The Catalina Ironwood
Survives pathological seasons;
Non-lunar, non-solar
Leafings and dyings
Dictated by fungal equinoxes.
Where better
To search for irregular springs
Than on our weed-bearded land?
In a clean shaven parcel
The fungus would be labeled
Criminal; not tolerated.

July 29, 1979

Conference in Mexico: Lady's Program

We wives
Are the Americas,
Sitting on the eastern edge
Of the warm Pacific,
Modeled blue
At La Mansion Gelindo
By the pool.

 



















We wives
Are the Americas,
Brought together by slow rockcurrents
To make a fleeting continent.
We have high, aloof plateaus
And lush young tropics.
We have sophisticated cities
And earthy village wisdom.
We have a  crustal unity
In the splashing sun,
We have the awareness, though,
That we were formed 
In the crashing of tectonic plates.
The image
Wells up hot and live
Through thin fissures
When we talk of countries,
Of children, of past wars.

July 21, 1979

Plate tectonics  - and the iconography of "past wars"?

Chapter 4 How the first rainbow was made...

"Once upon an early time,
    A Pomo couple of the land--
Arkila, Komi--in their prime,
    Hunted well, wove baskets grand.
But now the story in this rhyme 
    Tells how the two earned reprimand.

Young Komi in his hunt was lax
    And did not pray before his kill,
So we Gods sent him harsh attacks
    Of chill and fever, made him ill.
Arkila tended to his lacks;
    Then tried to win back our good will.

She wove a basket, beautiful,
    Its rim alive with colored dyes:
Blueberry, lupine, never dull,
    The green from fern to please her eyes,
With dandelion yellow full,
    Then poppy and strawberry prize.

Sun God and Rain God found this bowl
    So perfect we set one-half high
As arch of rainbow, pole to pole,
    Across the blueness of the sky;
Made Kome well; Arkil told:
    "the rest is where your child should lie."

Whether by way of threat or laziness, nature can rework to beauty

Glass Beach Near Fort Bragg, CA

Litter

Philosophically
I prefer to think of the beer bottles
As defiant gestures,
As raised symbols
Thrust at the mature and well-off,
Threatening...

It is somehow sad
If they are only limp
Residues of laziness.

July 29, 1979

 Feb 8, 2014, Eric and Lorel's anniversary: They harmonized, they improvised

Another musical theme: Mom learning recorder

Timelessness

The Lorel Tree, California Coast

Inevitability

I am falling
Through time.
The distance between the bridge
And the dark water
Diminishes 
Swiftly.  Still
I see crisp sailboats
And feel the sweet wind
Rushing past my ears.
How did I become gripped by gravity?
I did not jump. 

May 31, 1980

Green Snow

California has straw hills
Ornamented by dark oak designs.
Their cereal crisp crunchings
Hot dust our nostrils
Until year-end.
Then comes the overnight magic green snow;
A sparkling blanket
Covers road ruts,
Cow trails, highway cuts,
Gullied quarry walls.
Your boots want to stamp patterns in it
And your mittens
Want to pack crystal grass snowballs
To bombard enemy barn doors.
Most of all
Your legs want to 
Run non-stop over green hills
Until you drop exhausted
On the emerald sled slopes,
With you heart beating whizzfast
From the exercise 
And beauty.

December 29, 1981


Mom would have been inspired by Simon Beck's efforts.  See:

Your boots want to stamp patterns in it  ...

The Chase and Red

CHAPTER TWO

THE CHASE

The earthbound watchers ran to cars

     To track the disappearing craft.

Meanwhile, though lifting toward the stars

     In their floating windborne raft,

The kids feel joy that nothing mars--

     They looked, and clapped their hands and laughed.

John used his knowledge in the chase.

     He rode the wind and cut the gap,

But not enough.  With Indian grace,

     With chant, with song, with rhythmic clap

He called Blue Herons to the race.

     They thrust him on with each wing flap.

The gap was closed.  John thanked his friends.

     He told the children what to do.

They tied the crafts with cable ends,

     Shut off the heating flame of blue,

And pulled the levers to descend.

     So nothing bad could now ensue.

But unexpectedly they stopped

     And found a rosy light all round.

No one was hurt by this flip/flop

     But neither had they reached the ground.

They'd hit the rainbow, way on top,

     Caught on an airborne, crimson mound.

CHAPTER THREE

RED

Down far below they saw the earth.

     They saw, there, cars in caravan.

Around themselves, for what it's worth,

     All things were pink or red.  "Oh, Man!!"

Said Josh, without a trace of mirth,

     "That headdress there is like a fan!"

Towering above them was a God,

     Red flames and feathers on his head.

"The Sun God!!" John cried, looking odd.

     "Yes.  Greetings,"  the huge being said

And raised his right hand where he stood.

     "Welcome to the Land of Red."

Please, Mister God," Fried blurted out,

     "Sir, can you help us get back home?

Our folks are frantic now, no doubt.

     Your rainbow's nice, it's like a poem,

So pink and pretty all about,

     But down there's where we'd rather roam."

The Sun God smiled, "Of course, my child.

     Just listen to my ancient tale

As it has clues;  just keep them filed

     For use along the rainbow trail

To help with problems, tame or wild,

     Until you reach the Rain God's vale."