Composer (1983) and Poem (1983)

and a poem: IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY CONTRADICTION WE LOOK FOR TEARS THROUGH A TELESCOPE 

Why should we go on watching each other through a telescope? -- Bob Dylan, Street Legal, 1978 

There is a drought and no messiah in sight 

Look at the thirsty land 

Look at the magnifying glass sun 

But no hand holds the glass 

No heart is moved by our sorrow 

Through a telescope we look for healing hands, 

A human heart, and eyes that shed tears. 

In drought and in deluge

These suns and gods 

Are distant 

Though amazingly graceful and near 

While we watch through telescopes 

Our church of sky, land and sea 

Fills with healing hands, 

Human hearts and eyes that shed tears. 

I couldn't remember the title of the above drawing until I found a list of drawings and paintings I had done that my mother had placed on the walls of their home. My mother chose this one for a place high on the wall in their living room, knowing that it was based on a photograph of Bob Dylan from the 1960s. Her title for it, though, which I did remember, was "The Judge." A friend of mine referred to it as the drawing of the "hockey player." The image is open to interpretation. When I drew this I was thinking of both Bob Dylan and Johann Sebastian Bach and Beethoven.  As I looked at this drawing for the first time in a long time, I remembered the poem I had written which was inspired by the words of a song written by Bob Dylan in 1978. When my mother died in 1994, the drawing came back to me.

Caught Between Impossible Questions and the Wild Blue Sky of Day (1982)

Looking back at these drawings from 1982, what a shock it is to add up the years and acknowledge that nearly twenty-five years have passed. Seeing this chalk pastel drawing after so many years, at first I couldn't remember the title I had given it. What is coming out of this process of retrospection is that I am remembering how much I have forgotten. As I looked at today's image, I thought I would have to give it a new name, but then the words "wild blue sky of day," from a poem I had written in the early 1980s, came back to me. I couldn't remember the title of the poem but knew where to look for it and found that it was titled "A Nation of Sleepless Woman with Moon and Birds." The last two lines were the title I had given to this drawing. 

A NATION OF SLEEPLESS WOMEN WITH MOON AND BIRDS  

Awake and alert

As full and fragmented as the moon 

Rising and reflecting 

In a western sea 

We hear night birds 

Singing in the shadows 

Mocking darkness 

Mocking darkness 

The moon asks an impossible question: 

Do I control you 

Or do you control me 

In my circular journey 

We ask the moon an impossible question: 

Do we control you 

Or do you control us 

In our cyclical journey

We hear night words

We sing in the shadows

Mocking darkness 

Mocking darkness 

Imagine us at dawn 

A nation of sleepless women with moon and birds

Just above the hills of childhood 

Caught between impossible questions 

And the wild blue sky of day. 

Sometime in February I will be coming to a drawing/painting I did which I called, "Woman Trying to Remember What She is Trying to Forget." 

How could I forget that I am a poet, too?