Half-formed, the Processes of Mary Stebbins Taitt

Making Homemade Block Print Christmas Cards

2011-12-14T07:47:00.001-08:00

drawing the block print design

carving the block print design

inking the block print design

first block print

block print inside

printing the block print cards and drying them

Making Homemade Christmas block print cards is a slow and tedious process with many opportunities to mess things up or even even ruin the work. There is no undo button.

ArtRage: skulls

2011-04-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

One of my ArtRage paintings: skulls

Jacob, Merjon, and the Great Fish (or, and the Sea Witch)

2011-03-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

This is the first draft (well, draft 1.5 or 2) of new story for a children's picture book and novel. It is for my grandson, Frankie, who shortly will be 5 months old.

Jacob Merjon and the Great Dream Fish
by Mary Stebbins Taitt, second draft (1.5, really!)

Back in the times when there was still magic in the world, yesterday, or the day before, Jacob, who gathered crabs and clams, lived with his fisher-folk parents. The times were changing and magic came less and less often, and many people said it was gone from the world, but Jacob knew better.

When Jacob was out clamming in the fog, he had seen merwomen and mermen rise out of the water, riding on the backs of dolphins, and had often wished he could do that, too. He knew that the word mer simply meant sea. These were the sea folk, who were blessed, in these days of fading magic, with more magic than the landfolk.
One day, when Jacob had bagged his clams in nets and set them in a shallow tide pool to stay alive until later, he went exploring, as he liked to do. He swam out to a little island with a rocky cliff around it. He saw no way up the cliffs, so he swam to the other side. The waves there crashed hard on the rocks, and Jacob almost turned back, but he saw a crack in the rocks, and swimming hard against the power of the crashing waves and the suck of the undertow, he slipped through the crack to a small beach.
A boy his own age was sitting on a rock in the water staring at the sky, and he turned to look at Jacob, and smiled. "I've been waiting for you," he said. I was hoping you would come."
When Jacob swam close, and sat beside the boy, he saw that the boy was a mer child. Under the water, which was clear and still in the tiny bay, Jacob could see that the boy had a tail instead of legs. He sat in the water beside him.
"You,” said the boy, “are not the 7th son of the 7th son, but you have the seed somehow, in spite of this discrepancy. You have the sight, the ability to learn magic. That happens only extremely rarely, so you are truly blessed."
"I thought magic was leaving the world," said Jacob.
"No. It's going into a hiding. That's almost the same thing. But the sea witch has seen you seeing us, and she knows. She will visit you soon, if you give the word."
"What is the word? And what will happen?" asked Jacob.
"Have you heard of the great fish?
"You mean the whale that swallowed Jonah?"
Not exactly, explained the boy. "My name is Merjon Marlin. (In expended story, he becomes Merjon Merlin) You can call me Jon. I am the seventh son of a seventh son, something that doesn't happen often, even among our people. We have fewer children now that we are withdrawing from the world. So seven happens very rarely."
"According to our people, there is a great fish dreaming the world. It is he who dreamed your sight. He swallows people, humans and mer people, and they ride in his belly and learn to see the world in a new way. Then he either digests them, or spits them out. It depends on what you see from inside him.
“Did you ride inside him? Yes. What did you see? I am forbidden to say. Everyone sees something different, according to his or her nature. But how will I know if it is safe?" You won't. But if you do it and succeed, we will be friends, and you can swim under the sea and play with me, and I can walk on land and play with you."
"I can't promise anything, said Merjon, the merboy, but I can tell you this: the point of being swallowed by the fish is to test you for magic, and even though you are not the seventh son of a seventh son, I know you're magic, because you're sitting here talking to me, and because you can see the merfolk, and always have been able to, since you were tiny. Do you see anything flying overhead?"
"Yes, said Jacob, “there are eight miniature winged dragons, about the size of seagulls. Only they are all the colors of the rainbow and flying in rainbow formation, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet." "We call them dragonets," said Jon. "Okay, said Jacob, I will risk the test. I am not eager to die and I am not without fear, but I will do it."
The next day, Jacob went crabbing and clamming as usual. When he returned to the fishing shanty for lunch, he senses a presence outside the door. He knew right away that t was the sea witch. He could ser, right through the door of the shanty, in her flowing blue and green gown. He knew she had come for him, but he was frightened, and left by another door.
He continued his clamming and crabbing, always aware that sea witch was waiting for him at the shanty. She floated, unmoving, a few inches above the stoop, waiting, patient. At dinnertime, he returned to the shanty through the back door. When his parents returned with their catch of the day, he suddenly remembers the sea witch who was waiting for him. He had been working all afternoon to not think about her, and it was hard.
He opened the back door, not the one where the witch had been waiting earlier, but the one he and his parents had used. A woman dressed in the rags of a peddler stood there. Her face was wrinkled and old, her eyes hidden in many layers of skin. But they were bright and piercing.
"Who's there, asked Jacob's father."
"A peddler woman," Jacob said, turning to his father, and holding the door wide so that the woman could be seen. But his father was busy cleaning fish and did not look. "Ask her what she is selling," suggested the father, without looking up from his work. Jacob's mother, too, was busy. She was peeling potatoes.
Jacob looked the peddler woman in the eyes and said, loudly so his father could hear over the sounds of his work, "What are you selling?" The woman wasn't there. One moment, he'd been looking in the eye, and the next moment, she was gone (don't forget the merman consort). She's gone, Jacob said. She disappeared." He felt a simultaneous rush of both relief and disappointment. Now, he night never be magic. But he would not have to face the fish that would swallow him.
"Nonsense," his father said. "She just gave up because you took so long to speak to her. Step outside and catch her." Jacob stepped outside and looked down the cobbled path for the peddler woman or the sea witch, but saw no one. Instead, he saw a whirling waterspout, a combination whirlpool or tornado, and before he could move or speak, it lifted its tail toward him, opened its mouth, and swallowed him.
The waterspout dove into the bay carrying Jacob in its belly, swimming like a fish. It swam deep into the ocean, moving faster than a bolt of sea lightning. In almost a single instant, coral reefs hey appeared around them. Jacob had never been that far south. But somehow, he knew what they were. The fish talked to him, not out loud, and not in words, simply in knowing.
The fish that Jacob rode in was as transparent as if it were made of glass. The glass was colored, like the stained glass of a church window, and the colors changed, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. ((Red-winged blackbird. It's eating crabapples. I took a shot of it, but it won't be good, too many branches in the way. Here's another, and another, tried another shot, also not good. The third one flew.)) The colors seemed most often to be yellow and a pale but bright orange. Red, blue, green, purple and other colors shimmered through. The more Jacob watched the shifting colors, the happier he felt.
Suddenly, Jacob was flying. He soared like an eagle. He remembered flying in his dreams. Maybe this was just a dream. He wondered if he could find Merjon Marlin. He pictured Merjon, as he has last seen him, sitting on a rock the shallow bay. Whoosh, there he was. But Merjon was standing on the rock with two human legs. Jacob landed beside him.
"You passed the test," Jon said. And he dove into the water. Jacob dove in after him. As they swam deeper into the water, their legs joined into a strong tails. Jacob whipped his back and forth to catch up with Jon, who already knew how to use his tail. As Jon swam deeper and deeper, and Jacob followed, it occurred to Jacob that he should have to breathe, to go up for air. But he didn't feel out of breath. It was the magic. He smiled. A great fish swam up and swam along beside him. Jacob felt peaceful and happy.
Jon took him to meet the merfolk and they welcomed him as a friend and emissary from human land. "We will teach you the great secrets of magic," they told him. They gave him crabs and clams and a huge tuna to take home to his family, since he'd been to busy for his afternoon crabbing. “I’ll take you dolphin riding tomorrow,” Jon promised.
When Jacob returned home, his parents were waiting. "Did you enjoy the sea witch?" his mother asked. His parents smiled. They knew his secret, and they didn't seem to mind. He was glad, and wondered if they too had met the Sea Witch.
The end. (--of the short, little-kid, picture-boo version. The novel version is much longer and involves evil and secrets.) No writing of it until other books are complete!!! (But I can make NOTES!!)) Mary Stebbins Taitt, 110323 1st draft

110328-1511 NOTE: There is another version of this somewhere—R’dale? The two need to be compared and justified! IMPORTANT!

here are two of the tentative illos for the book, or studies for them. They were done by me in Ballookey's Mole.

Art in Progress

2011-02-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

I love doing art! It's so satisfying and a great way to spend a snowy evening. This piece is for a book I am working on for my grandson. it's not done yet.

Click image to view larger.

Stay safe and warm!

Crickets, Brush painting

2011-01-09T11:42:00.000-08:00

What could be simpler than a Zen brush painting? One brush, one color, only a few strokes. Right. What no one tells you is how many times you have to do it over and over to get one to come out right. Practice practice practice. This painting is new. I did it the night before last. I did not follow a prescribed pattern, I studied instead the insect itself. Or--rather--some photographs of crickets. I have had no training. I just want to achieve simplicity on some level. I did, however, use a real bamboo brush, a large one--which is very challenging (for me). You can see how many I did before I got one I really liked.

I'd like to try some more when I have time. I think with a little more practice, I might be able to get it to be better and more consistent. MAYBE.

Considering, small revisions

2011-01-07T07:22:00.001-08:00

I didn't like the flea image (see previous post), it didn't sit well with the rest of the imagery and the mood. I also felt the ending wasn't clear enough. I wanted to leave a little mystery and uncertainty, but to indicate the possible ending more clearly. I hope I've done that. Feel free to comment on the changes, but don't be too offended if I go my own stubborn way regardless. Sometimes, I like suggestions, and sometimes, they fall flat.

Considering

No screams show on the map, though you know
they hide there, perhaps below the cryptic markings,
the dragons, mermen and tridents. Red
bleeds the tattered edges of terror. Jagged, the ink
hemorrhages into the long fibers of the map’s rough paper.
The ink burns the flesh of your fingertips when you reach
to locate the memories. You stand on that cliff looking
down, twitching your shoulders for wings, but this isn’t
a dream. This is your life; each breath catapults you closer
to his opened fists, his fingers poised at your neck
ready to close. Suppose you ran? Who can explain
the geography of the heart, the way the blood and ink
of your story is ground from the same DNA as his father’s
and his father’s father’s? Observe how your own father
holds hands with his father; conjoined twins—they connect
at the out-thrust jaw. Note how together, they caress the map.
They paint your name across a heart with a blade suspended
above it. Small stars indicate honing, and the tip
draws to point sharper and smaller than the needle canine
of a ferret. From the margins of the map, they erase your face
with a wash of your tears. When wind fills with the taste
of iron and fear, and you consider your options, you take
one small step toward a hurtling topography of rock,
shattered promises and silence.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Peter, Joseph and “the General,” with love (Also for Brian Powers)
110107-0940-2a(4), 110106-1537-1c(3), 110106-1023 1sr—1st poem of 2011

First poem of 2011: Considering

2011-01-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

Considering

No screams show on the map, though you know

they hide there, perhaps below the cryptic markings,

the dragons, mermen and tridents. Red

bleeds the tattered edges of terror. Jagged, the ink

hemorrhages into the long fibers of the map’s rough paper.

The ink burns the flesh of your fingertips when you reach

to locate the memories. You stand on that cliff looking

down, twitching your shoulders for wings, but this isn’t

a dream. This is your life; each breath catapults you closer

to his opened fists, his fingers poised at your neck

ready to close. Suppose you ran? Who can explain

the geography of the heart, the way the blood and ink

of your story is ground from the same DNA as his father’s

and his father’s father’s? Observe how your own father

holds hands with his father; conjoined twins—they connect

at the out-thrust jaw. Note how together, they caress the map.

They paint your name across a heart with a blade suspended

above it. Small stars indicate honing, and the tip

draws to point sharper and smaller than the baby toe

of a flea. From the map’s margins, they erase your face

with your tears. When wind fills with the taste

of iron and fear, and you consider your options, you take

one small step toward a topography of rock,

shattered promises and silence.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

for Peter, Joseph and “the General,” with love

110106-1537-1c(3), 110106-1023 1sr—1^st poem of 2011

Second poem of 2011 (a Haiku):

Sweeps of Blue

Like simple brushstrokes,

snowflakes whisper over drifts,

pile in arching curves.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

Baby with cat, in progress

2010-11-26T09:03:00.001-08:00

for my secret project. Not quite done yet.

Bethany with Crown of Thorns (The Human Condition II)

2010-11-11T22:09:00.000-08:00

Bethany

2010-11-11T07:11:00.001-08:00

I did this as yet possibly unfinished painting in the car driving to and from Krista's baptism last night. I did it on my iPad using Artrage. I did not start from a photo of any kind, not even a reference photo-- it's a freehand digital finger painting. I used almost all the available tools--experimenting with them, just for the fun of it. I combined things that might be hard to combine on paper: oils, acrylics, water colors, pastels, crayons, pencils, air bush, etc. I think I used everything.

I painted it in the car in the dark in the backseat hurtling along the freeway over bumps and around turns. I am working to learn the new iPad Artrage. I couldn't have painted with oils or acrylics in that situation. I couldn't even type--I tried it!

For some reason, I kept wanting to add a crown of thorns, but felt it would be sacrilegious. I was thinking perhaps it reminds me, maybe because of the colors, of a famous painting of Jesus with the crown of thorns. I had a painting in mind, after I thought of it, but I googled it and couldn't find it. Maybe it wasn't a famous painting. Maybe just something I saw in someone's house. Originally, Bethany wasn't smiling. Smiling, it seems like a crown of thorns would be wholly inappropriate.

Click image to view larger.

Writing Letters

2010-11-07T18:16:00.001-08:00

ONE more for the secret project.

Happy Halloweeh--in progress

2010-10-31T10:41:00.001-07:00

The making of the annual halloween card/self-portrait

Messy Baby Tentative Final

2010-10-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

I am not really happy with this, but mainly, I am unhappy with the scan of it. The electric blue, for example. The original painting is somewhat softer.

Look back to see earlier versions (process).

The Messy Baby project continued

2010-10-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

After an hour of severe flickering, our power went out last night--it flickered while I was cooking--making cooking difficult, and went out while were eating--I was painting this picture. I packed up and went to R'dale and spent the evening in my studio painting--a large area of GPF had no power--high winds, downed trees--but Detroit was unaffected.

I know there are lots of things wrong with this as YET unfinished picture, but I had such a good time painting it that I felt like an artist for maybe the first time ever. (NOT DONE YET!)

Remember, this is a SECRET project, so don't mention it.

Scroll down to the older blog posts see the entire process of this painting.

This is a multi-media piece, which so far has gouache, pencil, acrylic and water color. It is the final image I am interested in, not any sense of faithfulness to a particular medium. However, I must say, I really enjoyed the process.

Messy baby--started the painting with gouache

2010-10-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

First two colors added

Messy baby sketch

2010-10-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

The first (ha ha) step of making a painting is the sketch.

reference photos (art) for next painting

2010-10-27T10:26:00.001-07:00

I had to email the composit to myself and print it on another printer. Now I am ready to sketch. Scroll down to learn more about the process and up to see future steps, when available.

Messy Baby Digital composit

2010-10-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

I am going to start a new painting and I spent the morning creating a digital composit from which to paint--that it, a reference to study as I work. This is for a children's book I am working on--I'd say more but it's a secret.

Self-portrait of the artist with Andy Warhol showing original photograph

2010-10-26T09:22:00.001-07:00

Inquiring minds want to know. The original photo was taken at the DIA
by Heidi Chester. Click images to view larger.

On Process

2010-10-05T08:45:00.001-07:00

I got some posterboard for a project and am testing the paint
(gouache) on it. These are unfnihsed for now.

A Tale of Two Paintings

2010-08-15T18:15:00.001-07:00

Many years ago, I squatted in the pouring rain with my Nikkormat and my mother--who held an umbrella over my head--and snapped a photo of a yellow lady's slipper on the property of my botany professor, John L. Morrison. As a gift, he had the picture printed for me. It sat on the wall many long years and got all faded.

I was trying to learn Sketchbook Pro app on my new iPad and decided that I wanted to "finger paint" a picture of the Yellow Lady's slipper. It took me 3 1/2 weeks to complete it, in part because I was a newbie, and in part because I'm not that good. My friend Pam Perkins Frederick asked me to paint one on paper, which did--in gouache on green paper. I did it in three sessions.

The top picture is the new painting for Pam in gouache. The second picture is the same one 3rd draft, the third picture is the scan from the end of my first session working on it. I forgot to scan it at the end of my second session. The fourth picture is the iPad version which I made for Ballookey. I did not look at that while doing the new painting, I looked only at the original photograph. I did not draw either of these nor use a photograph in any way other than for reference. I painted them from scratch, both of them. The final picture is the original ancient photograph printed in 1971 but probably taken several years earlier.

I had considered doing one in water color and one in oils or acrylics, or both, but I'm tired of it for now and want to paint something new. (For some reason, I never get tired of painting Keith.)

Excerpts from White Horses by Douglas Milliken

2010-08-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

Pushpins

He always calls her at work. Like a faint insectile whine—while in the drafting room explaining a layout to a trainee or sorting out a plan, while in the cloakroom or walking down the hall to the bathroom—her name will drone over the PA. You’ve a call on Line 2. Then a pause, always a pause, implying the opinion of everyone listening. It’s your husband. Always needing to ask an irrelevant question. Always pulling her from her work. It’s embarrassing. If she’s on the road with her partner, viewing a site or just catching a bite to eat, her cell-phone will vibrate in her pocket or chirp like a lost bird from inside the hermetic confines of the truck, from where she’s left it behind.

He likes to know what she’s up to, he says. Little red pushpins on a map. He likes to know she’s okay. Meanwhile, April holds forth its war of attrition, floods the culverts with runoff and rain, chokes the gutters, makes a mess.

It’s not that he’s jealous, she thinks, suspicious or fearful of an imagined usurper. He’s just needy. Like a baby and its bottle. Never secure if too long apart. His voice is a hand on her shoulder. From her drafting table, she watches her co-workers as they come and go, protected from the elements by rain-lashed vaulting glass. She watches the way they move their legs, the way they flash their teeth, speaking in muscle and skin, and she wonders if this problem is pandemic. If men are always needy when they ought to be jealous. And if men are always jealous when they ought to be alone.

Sequence III: Night Country

The moon sets behind the silver hillside of your shoulder, spilling night over your heath and moor, your harbor and mountain range in slumber—knees drawn up and hands folded to your breast—as I lie in our bed beside you, reading the shadow map of your back-turned body’s keyhole silhouette. The tide of your breathing ribs. Clouds rising from your arctic lips. I lie beside you and yearn to sink into you. To ease my hand from the cool dark into the warm tangle of hair at the nape of your neck, to find and unbraid the stitching zipper woven along your spine. Pull you open and step inside as if into a labyrinth of root and stone, allowing your continents to draw me in and embrace me with their gravity. I press my feet through the inside of your feet. My hands through the inside of your hands. Feel my lungs inflate as your lungs inflate, your ocean engulfing the whole of my sea. Feel my eyes blending with what your sleeping eyes see. Feeling the distinction fade.

from A Broken Leg or Broken Wing

I found my cat in the hayloft above the horse stalls, above the snorts and knickers and hard clumping hooves. Above the lattice of girders and beams, the sweet smell of oats and cold manure, I found him: all narrow-ribbed and matted in the belly, striped in snow leopard grey. Over a foot of snow had worked its way in between the clapboards, sweeping in a single great drift over and among the heaps of loose straw, and on this drift my dying cat slept.

I trudged through the calf-bracing snow and knelt beside my cat. I wanted to touch him but did not want to wake him. I watched his belly slowly rise and slowly settle with cold breath, watched his twitching tail, watched his fur ripple with a chill as the needle pricked his skin. Watched the poison merge with and become his blood. Watched his twitching tail still.

Afterward, I didn’t know what to do with him. How can you bury a cat when the ground is frozen and buried in snow? So I did nothing. Left him where he lay. Curled in a cue in the misplaced snow of the loft. I told myself I’d come back in the first thaw, bury him then when the frost momentarily slipped away. But the truth was, I didn’t dare touch him. I was scared he might not feel alive.

Somehow I managed to avoid the loft for a week. The horses got oats and water and were fine with oats until the farmer found out and made me shuck down more straw. Wide-set eyes and chapped hands clutching a pitchfork, thrusting to pass it to my hands. The steps up were drifted over again, no trace of my last climb up or down, but in the loft my cat lay still uncovered. A curl of grey on the white. And before I shucked the frozen straw down through the empty center of the barn, I knelt again beside my cat and finally touched him, stroked him as I should have stroked him before the needle bit in—before I fed him to the pinprick—and when he looked up at me with cold black eyes, not angry but simply accusing, it was not horror I felt but regret. I shouldn’t have treated him that way. I should have treated better this small thing that I loved.

His name was Brick. Like in the play about the hurdle jumper.

Progress

2010-08-10T12:39:00.001-07:00

So far tonight, I started a new portrait of Keith, I wrote pages 132-137 in Disappearing, and saved chapter 2 to send to you. Last night, I saved chapter 1, but forgot to send it. :-(

I'm interested to see how this portrait will turn out with more work.

Sent from my iPad

Balance--a novel excerpt from Disappearing

2010-08-07T09:56:00.001-07:00

Balance

Travesty's third grade notebook was set up in a similar way to the
5th grade notebook Terry had been studying earlier. Faded blue mimeos
of the assignments were taped to the left side of the notebook pages
and the assignments were completed by Travesty on the right side, and
sometimes continued on to the next pages. Perhaps all the teachers at
her school had attended a conference or a school meeting and had been
taught or had agreed to do it that way.

In third grade, Travesty's writing had been larger and more awkward
than it was two years later, but at the same times, more care had been
taken with each letter. Terry found drafts in the notebook at the
back like the ones she'd discovered in the later notebook. Terry
couldn't believe how much effort Travesty had put into her work, for
such a young child. There were notes and vocabulary suggestions in
the drafts, which helped explain to some extent Travesty's seemingly
above average writing skills, but not entirely.

Terry flipped past the essay on summer vacation and the next couple,
eager though she was to read them. She knew she didn't have much time
before Travesty returned, and was looking for something a little
different, possibly with some fresh information about the girl.
She stopped flipping when she saw the 4th assignment, which read:
"Something New: Tell us about something you have just learned, not at
school, but at home or somewhere outside school. Use specific sensory
details from your five senses.

Yes, all the teachers must have gone to the same workshop, or they
were using some general system or something, or taking handout
material from the same books. Terry turned to the right to see what
Travesty had written. How old would she have been then? Maybe nine?

Look Ma, One Hand, by Travesty X Brown

Just last week, I learned to do headstands and handstands. I started
with headstands. They were hard at first. My mother showed me how to
put my forehead on the ground, then put my knees on my elbows, and
then slowly lift my legs over my head. At first, I would sometimes do
a somersault, which I'd only just learned to do last year. Or I'd get
partway up and lose my balance and crash down. Or my legs would
wobble all around and I would do a split if I didn't come down right
away. I practiced on the rug in the living room so I wouldn't get
hurt.

After a few days or maybe a week, I got so I could do it. I was so
excited. Then my Mom said, "Okay, good, now, how about a handstand?"
We walked over to Balduck Park. First Mom demonstrated how to do it.
She put her hands down onto the ground and kicked her feet above her
head and wobbled around a moment and then got steady. She balanced up
there, put her legs together, arched her back, smiled at me and then
dropped down. When she came down, she landed on her feet. My mom is
pretty athletic. She used to do gymnastics before she had me.
She showed me two more times, and then told me to do it. When I tried
it, I started losing my balance. She grabbed my legs and held them up
in the air until I was able to balance by myself. It only took me
five times to get the hang of it. The first time she didn't catch my
feet, I did a nosedive into the grass, and the smell of grass and
greenness was in my nose all day long. I could even taste it, sort of
like spinach.

Now I can do it almost every time I try. I don't even hear my heart
banging in my ears any more. I've gotten used to the way the world
looks upside down. I can do it in the gymnasium--I showed the gym
teacher. I'm so excited about it I want to show everyone. I will do
a show and tell for class if you want me to. The best thing is that
once I get into a handstand with two hands, sometimes, I can lift one
hand up and balance on just one hand.

Terry laughed. The teacher had given her an A++. She wondered if
Travesty could still do headstands and handstands. She remembered
when she had learned to do a handstand. She was in 9th grade,
fourteen years old. She'd been able to do headstands since she was in
second or third grade, but handstands she thought she'd never get.
Hah! She had gotten it, finally, and the pictures to prove it. She
was so proud of herself and happy. The pictures were at her parent's
house in upstate NY. She could picture the cabinet where her
childhood the albums were stored, and was sure they were still there.
She hadn't tried a handstand on land in years. She wondered if she
could still do it. She probably could do in water, but that was
easier, water was thicker than air and helped one get balanced. And
if you fell, you fell more slowly and just floated back to the
surface. Handstands in the water were fun and easy. But then again,
when was the last time she'd even done one of those? Not for a while.

Terry thought about balance. It took balance to do handstands.
Balance was something she had in short supply. Oh, she could walk
along a fence or stand on one foot for ten minutes. But her life was
out of balance in a much deeper way, and Terry wondered briefly how
she could fix that. What would a balanced life look like? She didn't
have a clue.

Terry had a feeling Travesty's life was out of balance, too, no matter
how good she was at handstands.

She heard Travesty coming, running into the house and then up the stairs.
Terry remembered her mother saying, as a joke, "Wipe that smile off
your face, you can cry, if you try." Terry wiped clean the expression
of sadness she'd felt overtaking her face as she thought about her
life, and replaced it with a welcoming smile for Travesty, who burst
through the door grinning widely.

Yellow Lady's slipper #100728

2010-07-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Lady's Slipper Again

2010-07-24T05:45:00.001-07:00

I am still struggling with this. You probably will not even be able to see how it is different, but I've worked on it for hours and hours since the last send, including today while waiting and waiting at the cardiologist. I am working on the iPad with my finger and with a "pogo stick". The iPad art programs are harder to use than Photoshop or Artrage.

If I ever actually decide it is finished, I will say so. It's sort of like working on a poem or novel, an endless process for me.

Did I mention that all the waiting at the doctor's office made my blood pressure go way up? Ha ha, even the cardiologist recognized that as a problem. He he he. Sent from my iPad

Still in progress

2010-07-18T15:59:00.001-07:00

BB has gotten up so we'll go start dinner. I will work on this later maybe. Sent from my iPad.

Unfinished iPad sketch

2010-07-18T11:02:00.001-07:00

I have a new program on the iPad, sketchbook pro. It has LAYERS. I wish it were easier and quicker to open the menus. I hope to work on this more later. Sent from my iPad

Galloping Alzheimers!

2010-07-16T20:00:00.001-07:00

I painted a picture of a homeless person (self-portrait) and had thend
turned wrong an no arm--I cut out a section of face, blurred it with
smudge and then with a drip spike in Art-rage. It's imperfect, but
better than no arm.

Crosswinds

2010-07-13T12:14:00.001-07:00

I painted this at Crosswinds restaurant in Whitehall, but I think I will do some more work on it. Click image to view larger. I did do more work on it.

Counting Sheep

2010-06-08T23:23:00.001-07:00

Counting Sheep

I force my body to lie still in the bed, tangle it with blankets

to tie it to the dark end of night, close my eyes,

and pretend to sleep, but inside my quiet legs,

my unquiet legs are running, running,

and the tattered moths my of eyes beat and beat

against the cage of my skull.

Somewhere, an invisible light keeps calling me,

a light I can't turn off, no matter how many times

I pull its chain.

I am as small as an ant. I am a song in the wind.

Sleep holds its breath and counts and counts,

but there are never enough sheep, never enough

boring stories to fix me in the womb of darkness.

I tumble like a weed, a diaspore. I am an exploding star.

A memory rising from oblivion. A haunting.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

100608-0220-1st

Sunflower painting, in progress

2010-05-10T08:32:00.001-07:00

I'm still working on this.

Not Sniping at Sleep

2010-04-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

"THE SNIPE HUNT" by Mary Stebbins Taitt (click image to view larger.)

Not Sniping at Sleep

Winged as a curlew, long-beaked as a woodcock,

sleep whistles and dives through the shattered night.

Searching, I scrabble through dark swamps

reeking of marsh gas and fetid with the smells

of rotting fish. My song bursts with yearning,

alternating chipping, burbling and fluting sounds,

like a sparrow held under water. My pleading

tastes like a mesh bag holding raw shrimp and crayfish.

Muddy ooze seeps cold through the knees and hem

of my nightgown, black muck and slime clings

to my fingers and toes. Burdocks and beggars ticks

burrow in my hair. I carry a snare for the snipe of sleep,

but when the bird swoops by and I reach to snag it,

my fingers pass, ethereal, through a taunting fantasia

of feathers, fog and clouds, of unborn sleep that drifts

past, damp, intangible and utterly unattainable.

Snipe dreams tumble by, hauntingly near

but always beyond reach. They refuse to descend

into my wake-parched eyes. I strain

toward the gibbering voices of dream phantoms.

They talk in tongues, whisper and twitter

in unlearned or unknown languages

and their aurora-colored feathers flutter

around my bed, falling like the warm snow

of dreams but never touching my face.

Long snipe beaks tear the night in strips,

shredding it into confettis of longing.

The snipe of sleep will be neither captured

nor kept. It cannot be domesticated.

Elusive, beyond wild, it ranges over

the incalculable waters of night.

It turns bedrooms into swamplands

and sanity into shrieking lunacy.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

A snipe hunt is a wild-goose chase or fool's errand. The term originated from a practical joke where experienced campers convinced inexperienced campers to capture a “snipe,” variously described as a bird or animal. The novice campers were given absurd methods of catching the snipe, such as running through the woods carrying a bag while making odd noises. Real snipes, shorebirds with long bills, are so difficult to catch for even experienced hunters that the word "sniper" originally meant someone skilled enough to shoot a snipe.

I am not a sniper of sleep. OR, on the other hand, maybe that’s exactly what I am! Perhaps I should stop sniping at sleep. Am I on a snipe hunt OR am I a sniper? If I CAPTURE a snipe, I can sleep—if I kill it, I shan’t sleep! This and the previous version at the Rolandale Silk Creek Retreat House in the Hiker Kitty Room. NaPoWriMo (National Poetry month) Instead of writing a new poem every day for National Poetry month, I've been working on the SAME poem over and over every day (pretty much like always.)

I redid both the art and the poetry and the new version can be found at The Smell of Sun (now called "Fool's Errand")

My name is Mary

2010-04-13T10:54:00.001-07:00

Hi. My name is Mary. I am eight and a half years old. I want to be
famous. Today I decide to be a famous artist. My Mom lets me use her
paints. I paint a picture of myself. I am looking at a picture my
father took of me, and I am wearing the same green and red bathrobe
over my Pajamas. But you can't see the color in the photo. My
painting doesn't look exactly like me. Mom says it's called "artistic
license."

Quick sketch of BB in progress

2010-03-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

#1)I get home from a walk ind find BB on the couch reading a motorcycle book.

#2)I grab my little sketchbook, water, a paintbrush, a pencil and a pen,

#3)and make a super quick pencil sketch. Even though I am quick, BB moves several times.

#4)I quickly ink the sketch with a pilot Precise (I change my mind about what pen to use).

#5)I brush plain clear water over the sketch. (I probably should not have brushed the pages of the book, but left them white.)

6)The nearly finished quick sketch. View a scan of the completed sketch here. (I will add the link tomorrow if I have time and maybe make these pictures bigger--I have to go now!)

process: Sketch with Marker and brush with water

2010-03-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

Marie and several others asked how I made this sketch. It is very simple, but not "easy," LOL!

Maybe I will make another and show it step by step.

But for now, here is what to do:

1)find a marker or felt-tip pen that is water soluble. I used a Crayola marker (or pen).

2)TEST the pen with a small brush and clear water to see how it reacts to wetting. It must produce "ink" or "paint" when wetted or it will not work. Some pens work better than others.

I was testing various pens to see how they would work--it partly depends on how large a sketch you plan to make--the larger the sketch, the larger the pen!

This is my test page--I wouldn't have made it so messy if I'd know I was going to share it. The aqua-colored arrows mark the better pens for this project, the hot pink one marks the pen I chose to use.

3)Draw the sketch. To tell you the truth, this sketch was an experiment--I measured my husband's nose and the distance from his nose to his mouth and his "inter-oculary" distance (pupil to pupil) and so on. Draw the sketch with the pen. Do not color much except where you want it to be very dark.

(I drew the picture lightly in pencil first, then lightly sketched with the pen, in this case).

4)Carefully, with a small brush wetted with clean water, brush over the pen marks and use the ink or paint that is lifted for shading.

Note: it is not very forgiving or correctable, once you start with the "painting" part, so use care. You may want to make a few practice sketches first to get the hang of it. The first one I made, I used too much ink and it came out very dark--I didn't like it.

And here's one for Marie--a page from one of my small sketchbooks (click image to view larger):

One more IMPORTANT thing: water color paper or at least heavy duty sketch paper works better for this than plain paper, which tends to buckle.

Bird of Paradise plant, art and photgraphy

2010-02-28T10:16:00.000-08:00

I took the photo at the Belle Isle conservatory and then "painted" the picture with pigment markers (Faber Castell PITT artist brush pens). Click images to view larger. (I also photographed some of the leaves in another photo.)

Skunk man

2010-02-05T08:26:00.001-08:00

with pigment markers.

A Bridge in Sardina

2010-02-05T08:25:00.001-08:00

A Bridge in Sardina, Gouache, from a lesson, by me of course, this iteration.

Distance in Process

2009-12-07T19:39:00.001-08:00

Two stages midway through the painting of "Distance." See the completed version here.

Benthic

2009-12-06T15:53:00.001-08:00

I painted "Benthic" first in Watercolors and then scanned and added a gradient. I did nothing else to it. Click to view larger.

Raven Spirit Guide yet again

2009-10-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

Still unfinished, but I'm working on it.

Night Vapors

2009-10-30T08:09:00.001-07:00

Here is a brand new poem still in process

Night Vapors

I noticed green light like in a dream,
and I thought, if this is a dream, then I can fly,
but I stuck to the ground like a bug
on gooey-paper, my body heavy as a Mack truck,
my iron feet clinging to the magnetic earth.
Obviously not a dream. I was at a bus stop
and it was dark, but faint green light
illuminated one side of the nearest building,
just the edges of the stones, and one side
of my face reflected in the big black store window
as if I were etched there in pale green acid
that glowed dimly as foxfire. I was naked.
You're not supposed to write the word naked
in a poem for some reason I guess because
if the reader stopped and imagined me naked
and threw up, if might slow the forward
motion of the poem that is heading for a collision
with that oncoming bus with its headlights
not really lighting up the dark street
but only floating before the bus like two
bobble-head baubles with three fireflies in each,
only I don't look like me anymore. I'd say skinner, but
I don't look like anything. No, that's not right, either—
I look like an empty glass shell
with nothing inside me but more of this darkness
and maybe the light missing from those bus headlights
shining from my breasts. Oh-oh, I think
I just said another word that is high in the lexicon
of forbidden words. Don't say naked or breast
because someone will think you're writing
an erotic poem and come to the table or to the bed
with a whole set of inappropriate expectations
and be disappointed and maybe even angry.
This is no dream because too many words
Nestle in the pit of its stomach, trapped like moths
spinning under the dimmest of streetlamps,
and, obviously, I am still not flying, even
though the sheer husk of this shell I call "me"
is filled only with night vapors which Milton
describes as lighter than helium
and my bones are more hollow
that the bones of a humming bird and my legs
are whistles of wind and the stars
are caught in my hair.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
091029-2306-1b(2) at The Rolandale Silk Creek Retreat House

One more draft of Raven Spirit Guide

2009-10-30T08:03:00.001-07:00

I can only work on it in small bits. Compare to previous.

Digital painting in progress

2009-10-30T06:55:00.001-07:00

I started a new digital painting.

New Piece in Steve's Mole

2009-09-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to record the stages of my paintings, but I keep forgetting to stop and do it, so here's an unfinished painting I'm working on in Steve's Moleskine.

variations on a theme, fractal

2009-08-26T08:42:00.001-07:00

I can't resist playing soemtimes--AK!

process

2009-08-25T11:21:00.001-07:00

The second, or lower picture was the "original" for this smudge painting--it came
from a photograph, but I don't know where the original original is.

See variations below.

Farm by Moonlight

2009-08-25T11:17:00.001-07:00

Well, these are two of a number of variations I made on this painting.

Fractal Friday Thursday

2009-08-20T08:21:00.001-07:00

Playing with fractals from Fractal works. I have no idea why that first one posted fuzzy, very annoying. The original is VERY CLEAR! :-( You can click on it and it will get large and you can see how sharp it is. But you will ahve to scroll around to see the individual shots.

Painting Grandma 090808

2009-08-08T14:57:00.001-07:00

Painting Grandma 090808

Bean tendrils curl like memories, twisting from the tip
of my brush onto the canvas before me. Clipped crookedly
to the easel, small, bent and dark, an old sepia photo
calls memories of my grandmother into this distant studio.
To please and satisfy the whims of her only granddaughter,
she let skin form on the farina they way I liked it, brewed me
strong coffee at an age my parents called "tender" and "too young,"
sweetened it with cream, sugar and chocolate, warmed me
on winter afternoons with hugs and homemade soup, baked
cookies for me with sweet surprises hidden inside. And her garden
I remember, and her in it. As she bent to pluck peas or pull weeds,
rolls of her flesh and stocking tops showed below the hems
of her slips and skirts. I loved the neat perfection of that garden
with its black, glittery soil, and its bounty that filled her pots
and pans, her table, and our bellies.

The dark little photo invades my painting. Brushed in first,
tumbles of white cotton candy ride brown, flat-bottomed barges
across a brown sea of sky. I borrowed them from the photo,
too resonant in brown to paint in blue. Tall beans wind
around rows of poles and pile one onto the next over mounds
of cloud, leaves sepia brown on the bottoms and greening
gradually toward the top. I paint the photo's dark woman
secure between the rows, round as a snowman in this unlikely
season. She wears a bib apron, pink with red flowers
over a grizzled blue gingham housedress. I paint her square face
a tea-stained brown, leathery and wrinkled
as shed layers of sycamore bark.

As the old photo revives my memories, Grandma
becomes the brightest point in the painting.
Her grey braids wrap thin around her head and she reaches
heavy brown arms to pluck beans from the plants I paint
before her. The tips of their leave overlap her reproachful face.
I remember the smile that stern face always turned toward me
and I smile in return toward the small scowl I paint on her lips
and forehead. "Don't," she warms my father, "Point that camera
at me." Through the shining, iridescent lens in my father's hands,
through more than fifty years of silence, my grandmother cannot see
the granddaughter who with a brush traces the sun-edged clouds,
suggests the light in her eyes, and defines her bean-burgeoning
apron, nor see, beyond me, the great granddaughters and great,
great granddaughters who across five generations touch
her still-damp face with their smiles.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For Nicolina Ciaranello

⇑This line and everything below ⇓ this line are not part of this poem, please ignore.
090808-1648-3i(11), 090721-0856-2, 1st 090719 on back of SMM Ms in pen in car
send this to Maria Mazzotti Gillan (or hand deliver?) for Patterson Review
fresh and green, pot, pan to the easel, small, faded and bent at the edges. Forgotten , dreams creep into my painting, a third thing, not the memories trace, or the photo, but an awkward merging. To visage enhanced bending to

Firestorms (Desire’s Eyeteeth)

2009-08-05T15:01:00.001-07:00

Firestorms (Desire's Eyeteeth)

When venom trickles acid from your lip, I peel
away my remaining smiles, grow my eyeteeth
and go to war. Wolverine-toothed, sniper-eyed,
and foaming with fire, I mean to make you tremble.
Your voice ricochets through a throat of stone,
slices me, shrill and sharp as leaky mansion windows.
Wilted in your anger light, I pour my caustic stare
into your face until my eyeballs scorch
and wither. You refuse to capitulate.
Beneath each of my skins blows a desert
of windblown sparks, a heart of cinder.
Driven perhaps by astonishment or boredom,
you ask if I would come to bed. I taste the tears
brightening your eyes, the salt
and sorrow of them, and turn away.
Already, I've forgotten which shreds
of your words offended and catapulted me
toward rage. I wish you held in your hands
first the blossomed fantasy of my truth and then
my face. Otherwise, whom would you touch
tonight? Should I drain the moat, swing open
the door to some old remembered mermaid wife
or an invading dream-breasted and antlered witch?
Outside, cicadas whine, drone and parch,
but heat never keeps you from your delightful
and deft desire. Yes, I will come to bed.
We may regret these firestorms we ignite,
but they blaze two ways. Yes, take my hand.
Your touch soothes me, rouses me, is sweeter,
wiser and hungrier than all these filed yellow
teeth and useless tears strung between us
like broken pearls and opals.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090805-1800-3h(10), 090804-2047-1b(2), 090804-2038-1st

Daisies IV

2009-08-02T09:53:00.001-07:00

Daisies IV, by Mary Stebbins Taitt, another variation on a theme. I
intend to do more if I can.

Daisies in my Moleskine

2009-07-30T16:59:00.001-07:00

Daisies, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Brand new sketch this afternoon with
pens from Andrea. I used all the pens drawn in random order and no
other pens or media. Andrea sugegsted we share what we are doing in
our returned moles.

Everyone We Love IIIa

2009-07-29T08:20:00.001-07:00

Everyone We Love IIIa, by me.

Still playing. AK. See Previous Post.

Everyone We Love

2009-07-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

Everyone We Love, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. For Jim Doran. The sad fact is that everyone we love will die--including ourselves. WAHN! ;-(

I've been working on this off and one for a week. The original is 3 x 4 inches. (Moleskine size and smaller). It may be done now, but I'm not sure, probably not quite.

It came from an accident where I inadvertently printed a DAISY on the instructions brochure for the paper which had gotten put into the printer with the paper by mistake. The third image is one where I attempted to put back the original daisies--it is called "Pushing up daisies, but I don't like it; it's too messy looking and hard to distinguish.

The second image is a scan of the original picture, which was done with markers over the top of daisy on the how-to brochure. If you look closely, you can still see the daisy underneath. You can click on it to see it bigger--remember, the original size was very small. On the third iamge, I attempted to add the daisy back in, and called it "Pushing Up Daisies," but I don't like it because it looks messy and is hard to decipher.

The Broken Ear and all its Monsters

2009-07-27T14:10:00.001-07:00

The Broken Ear and all its Monsters

Waving a spoon back and forth over a candle,
like the master of an ancient and primitive ritual,
my father heated oil to pour into my brother's ears.
I imagine, but don't remember, a quiet incantation,
his voice soft and low, mumbling strange phrases
and the room darkening dreamlike from its ordinary
brightness. Earaches plagued my brother, who
was maybe eight then, and the warm oil, my father
said, would help. At nine, I did not believe him
and pictured ghastly torture. I watched
my father tip my brother's head, the bent
ear first, and ceremoniously pour a long thin stream
of oil into the offending ear. My brother winced,
my father held him steady, made him wait.
I stared at the bent edge of my brother's ear.
My father, when provoked, would grab
my that ear and twist it hard, hauling my brother
up and close to berate him. My brother
perfected the skill of needling my father—and
everyone else. Later, all three of us provoked him
with a thrashing teenage angst that began early
and lasted well beyond our teens, but my brother
started first. He grew out of it first as well, or managed
to hide it better. Then, he became my father's favorite,
and I the outcast. At nine, I thought my father's
repeated twisting of my brother's ear had broken it.
But perhaps he was born that way, broken,
with the seventh-generation curse from our pirate
ancestors or with some genetic psychic contortion
no nurture could overcome. Broken ears or not, we each
drew on ourselves the fury of first our parents
and then our partners with the flailing, incendiary
monsters we kept caged within.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090728-1128-3a(3), 090724-1006-2a(2), 1st, Thursday, July 23, 2009, 12:43 PM

The Broken Ear and all its Monsters 0...

2009-07-24T07:18:00.001-07:00

The Broken Ear and all its Monsters 090724-1006

Waving a spoon back and forth over a candle,
like the master of an ancient and primitive ritual,
my father heated oil to pour into my brother's ears.
I imagine, but don't remember, a quiet incantation,
his voice soft and low, mumbling strange phrases.
Earaches plagued my brother, who was maybe eight
then, and the warm oil, my father said, would help.
At nine, I could not fathom how. I watched
my father tip my brother's head, the bent
ear first, and ceremoniously pour a long thin stream
of oil into the offending ear. My brother winced,
my father held him steady, made him wait.
I stared at the bent edge my brother's ear.
My father, when provoked, would grab
my brother's ear and twist it hard, and my brother
had perfected the skill of needling him.
Later, all three of us provoked him
with a thrashing teenage angst that began early
and lasted well beyond our teens, but my brother
started first. He grew out of it first as well, or managed
to hide it better. Then, he became my father's favorite,
and I the outcast. At nine, I thought my father's
repeated twisting of my brother's ear had broken it.
But perhaps he was born that way, broken,
with the seventh-generation curse from our pirate
ancestors or with some twist of genetics that no nurture
could overcome. Broken ears or not, we each
drew on ourselves the fury of first our parents
and then our partners with the flailing, provocative
monsters we kept caged within.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090724-1006-2a(2), 1st, Thursday, July 23, 2009, 12:43 PM

The Broken Ear and all its monsters

2009-07-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

Brand new rough first draft not time to work right now:

The Broken Ear and all its Monsters

In a spoon waved back and forth over a candle,
like an ancient and primitive ritual, my father
heated oil to pour into my brother's ears.
I imagine, but don't remember, a quiet incantation.
My brother, maybe eight, was plagued with earaches
and the warm oil was supposed to help
in some way that I, at nine, could not fathom.
I watched my father tip my brother's head, the bent
ear first, and pour a long thin stream of oil,
my brother wincing and starting slightly.
My father, when provoked, would grab
my brother's ear and twist it. My brother
excelled at provoking my father , we, all three,
provoked my father, with our thrashing
teenage angst that lasted well beyond
our teens, but my brother started first.
Later, he became my father's favorite,
and I the outcast. At nine, I thought
it was my father's sudden twisting
that had broke my brother's ear. But perhaps
he was born that way, with the seventh-
generation curse from our pirate ancestors
or with some twist of genetics that no nurture
could overcome. Broken ears or not,
we each housed flailing monsters
who drew on us the fury of first our parents
and then our partners.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
1st, Thursday, July 23, 2009, 12:43 PM
.

Breathing Fire in a Vacuum

2009-07-21T11:29:00.001-07:00

Breathing Fire in a Vacuum

The glaze that films your eyes like a skim of ice
on an autumn pond worries me. When I speak,
your ear bends to the sound of a distant motorcycle
or the hum of a twin engine plane, rather than to me
and my words, and your eyes stray to flowers,10
roving insects, dead mice, anything but my face.
Shadow by shadow in the long afternoons,
your attention leaves me. And who would not
be bored with prattle about insomnia
and fibromyalgia unless they, too, housed
an invisible fire-breathing dragon? Remember Florence
going on about her heart? If anyone had listened,
could we have saved her? Can we still save us?
I think so. Pain stretches the distance between us,
but sometimes we still reel it in with a touch.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For BB
090721-1414-1st4702

Painting Grandma

2009-07-21T06:02:00.001-07:00

Painting Grandma

Like curls of bean tendrils, memories twist green
from the old, sepia-dark photo. It hangs crooked, clipped
to the easel, small, faded and bent at the edges. Forgotten
dreams creep into my painting, a third thing, not the memories
or the photo, but an awkward merging. Brushed in first,
flat-bottomed brown clouds sail through a sea of brown sky,
bearing tumbles of white cotton candy. I borrowed them
from the photo, too poignant in brown to paint in blue.
Tall pole beans wind around rows of poles and pile
one onto the next over mounds of cloud, sepia brown
on the bottoms and gradually greening toward the top.
I paint a woman between the rows, roundish, wearing an apron
pink with red flowers over a faded blue housedress.
I paint her square face tea-stained brown, leathery and wrinkled
as a shed layer of sycamore bark. The old photo invades
my dimming memories, but she is still the brightest
point in the painting. Her thin grey-black braids wind
around her head and she reaches with heavy arms to pluck beans
from the plants I paint before her. The tips of their leave overlap
her reproachful face. I remember the smile that stern face
always turned toward me and I smile toward the dark visage.
"Don't," she warms my father, "Point that camera at me."
Through the shining and iridescent lens in my father's hands,
she cannot see the granddaughter who holds the brush
that traces the sun edged clouds, shape of her face,
the bean-burgeoning apron nor see, beyond me,
the great granddaughters and great, great granddaughters
who touch her still-damp face across five generations.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For Nicolina Ciaranello
090721-0856-2, 1st 090719 on back of SMM Ms in pen in car

Memories and Repcruussions 2

2009-07-20T09:58:00.001-07:00

Memories and Repercussions

All my faces I burned at the your door, stepped
over your threshold blank as the first piece of paper
slid from a newly opened ream. I fanned the ashes
of self into your dogwoods and lilacs, but they filtered
in through the poisoned earth to remind me who I was
before I met you. Those shadows, though immolated
in flames, still dance in dreams. Every day a new face, old
as its tortured scars, blossoms from the blank visage
I donned for our wedding. One by one, I claw
them off and they scuttle like rats under our bed
to screech and whine for my attention. They interrupt
the soft touch of your hand on the curve of my hip
during the long wakeful hours as I listen, helplessly,
to their squabbling and pronouncements. So many
of them pile around our rooms, like wadded
and rejected drafts, that I can no longer find the unblemished
self I tried to give you. For your protection. And mine.
Nor can we find each other now among the heaps of drooling
faces, the raging masks that bury and drown us both.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For K
090720-1254-2, 090720 1st

Memories and their Repercussions hf

2009-07-20T07:47:00.001-07:00

I've been working on a new novel, a children's novel and sequel to Frog Haven. I am hoping to send Frog Haven out soon (again). But I wrote a new poem last night (on paper, not transcribed yet) and another new one this morning (below) (Oops I've revised it, see new version above):

Memories and their Repercussions

All my faces I burned at the door to your house, stepped
over the threshold blank as the first piece of paper
slid from a newly opened ream. I fanned the ashes
of self into the dogwoods and lilacs, but they filtered in
through the poisoned earth to remind me who I was
before I met you. Every day a new face, old
as its tortured scars, blossomed out of the blank visage
I'd tried to don for our wedding. One by one, I clawed
them off and they scuttled like rats under our bed
to screech and battle for my attention. They interrupt
the soft touch of your hand on the curve of my hip
during the long wakeful hours as I listen, helplessly,
to their squabbling and pronouncements. Now,
so many of them pile around our rooms, like wadded
and rejected drafts, that I can no longer find the unblemished
self I tried to give you for your protection. And mine.
Nor can we find each other among the heaps of drooling
faces, the raging masks that bury and drown us both.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For K
090720 1st

process

2009-07-10T20:12:00.001-07:00

Mole to "art"--and I think I'm not done yet.

Daisy Rain

2009-07-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

Daisy Rain, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. A sandwich of two pictures taken
on my recent trip to Whitehall. Sandwiched in Picasa.

through a window darkly lightly

2009-07-02T10:33:00.001-07:00

Through the window of a rest stop in Michigan on the way home from the
trials of car failure. I'm hoping to make one or more art pieces from
this.

Poetry Primer Passage 090527-1200-1d(4)

2009-05-27T09:13:00.001-07:00

Poetry Primer Passage

The poem looks ordinary enough, at first, dark-haired,
green-eyed and with a winning, cheerful smile. Her gingham dress,
a classical shirtwaist with red, heart-shaped pockets edged with lace,
flatters her slender young figure. She pushes her glasses
down on her nose and peers over them at you, holding a primer.

The poem speaks your name, once, quietly, as if taking
attendance, though no one attends her but you. Her lilting
voice's dulcet tones grate with an odd harshness
that sends flickers of chill up your spine and cause the hair
on the back of your neck to stand up. You taste acid bile

and as you bend toward her pretty words, you notice
she smells of ginger and wake-robins, those dark red trilliums
that grace the spring forest, sweet on sunny days
and smelling of rotten meat during cool cloudy periods.
A stench of putrid-flesh words weave subtly among her heady

freshness and when you glance behind you, looking for the path
that brought you to her, a hooded cape flutters in your peripheral vision,
a pale skull with dark eye sockets winks in and out of sight,
and bony word-fingers reach toward your face. When you turn
back, the poem smiles again, sweetly and blushes slightly.

The primer's title touches the curve of the poem's breast;
the title faces away from you, but somehow you know
what it says. Everything has led you to this: A Poet's Primer
of Death. Kindly and with soft eyes, the poem smiles
at you. You want to turn away; you want to run,

but not many words remain, and you feel compelled
to read on. The poem sweeps her arm toward you, indicates
a seat in her classroom. When she leans over you, her touch
simultaneously burns and freezes. Still, somehow, her fingers
on your shoulder calm and reassure you. As she opens

the pages of her book on the desk before you, a door
swings open, a door of words, light and darkness.
The poem offers you her hand, and together,
surrounded by these words, you walk through,
leaving your crumpled body behind on the other side.

Mary Stebbins Taitt, 090527-1200-1d(4), 090527-0918-1st

Poetry Primer Passage

2009-05-27T06:47:00.001-07:00

Poetry Primer Passage

The poem looks ordinary enough, at first, dark-haired,

green-eyed, cheerful smile. Her gingham dress,

a classical shirtwaist with red, heart-shaped pockets,

flatters her slender young figure. She pushes her glasses

down on her nose and peers over them at you, holding a primer.

But when you glance away, behind you, toward where

you came from, a hooded cape flutters in your peripheral vision,

a pale skull with dark eye sockets winks in and out of sight,

and bony word-fingers reach toward your face. When you turn

back, the poem smiles again. Sweetly. Blushing slightly.

The primer title touches the curve of the poem's breast,

the title faces away from you, but somehow you know

what it says. Everything has led you to this: A Poet's Primer

of Death. Kindly and with quiet compassion, the poem smiles

at you. You want to turn away; you want to run,

but not many words remain, and you feel compelled

to read on. The poem sweeps her arm toward you, indicates

a seat in her classroom. When she leans over you and opens

the pages of her book on the desk before you, it is a door

that opens, or door of words, light and darkness.

The poem offers you her hand, and together,

surrounded by these words, you walk through,

leaving your crumpled body behind on the other side.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090527-0938-1b(2), 090527-0918-1^st

What kind of perfume is she wearing? What do you smell or taste when the door opens? What does her skin feel like when she touches you?

Vertigo Fear Shadows

2009-05-12T10:22:00.001-07:00

Vertigo Fear Shadows

At the edge of a shadow cast by the neighbor's oak,
sun shines on my face, a breeze rustles my hair
and the shadow of the oak shifts and wriggles, restless
and hungry, withdrawing and then approaching
my bare toes, over and over while the whole dancing
shadow with it's patches of sun slides slowly closer.
Shadows of leaves, shadows of branches, shadows
of baby acorns nestled among the leaves. Shadows
of robins passing each other with worms and insects,
shadows of their babies opening wide their mouths.
Such a chorus of pleading. Wingbeats, then stillness.
A touch of cold startles me. I look down to see darkness
on my hands, isolated and with no visible source
from the tree. The deep, cloudless sky throws no shadows,
but the shadow on my wrist expands toward my heart.
Compelled to drink from that well of night, I bend toward
my hands. A black wave engulfs me. The earth tilts, the sky
spins and the tree lurches. I smell bruised grass, damp soil.
Feel tiny pebbles mashed into my cheek. Taste salt and iron.
Sweating and cold, I watch the jonquils and tulips leap jaggedly
in the garden. Jump and twist spasmodically. On my knees,
my body curls in Bala-asana, the child pose, and I close
my eyes to still the jumping. The darkness
behind my eyes turns and jerks raggedly. I breathe
slowly. Feel a passing chill, another shadow.
I open my eyes to see a vulture circling, its shadow
passing over me again and again.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090512-1319-1b, 090512-1229-1st

NOTE: This did NOT happen as written, but is a combination of the earlier experience of vertigo with the later experience of the shifting shadows and the mysterious one on my hand.

Freewrite for Poetry 090512

2009-05-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

Freewrite for Poetry 090512

I have just had an hour-long episode of vertigo that has left me feeling nauseous, dizzy and worried. I made a note of it for my doctor, who I happen to be going to on Friday, Muna Beeai. She's my GP. My neurologist thinks it could be silent migraines. I am afraid to do my normal morning exercises, because I am feeling dizzy and I am worried the vertigo will start up again--it came in two batches this morning, first lasting only 2-3 minutes, and then when I thought it was over, I moved and it started up again. So now, of course, Ia m afraid to move.

Oh-oh, appears my fears were well-founded--I just moved and it DID start up again, with a vengeance. 8:40 start. Room spinning bad. I keeled over to the left. Hit my head, not hard. Curled in a ball on the floor waiting for it to subside. Burst into a terrible sweat. Managed to crawl--literally--over to the computer and get into my chair. It seems to be subsiding again. 8:50 on Leo's clock, seems to have mostly stopped--ten more minutes of vertigo--but I think it is still with me and will return if I move.

OK, so let me start this freewrite again. I'm feeling dizzy, nauseous, worried, frightened. The room is spinning--OK--not spinning, holding relatively still now. But I'm afraid it will spin again. There is an odd dull feeling on my left side. That is, the left side of my head--I think it is starting to hurt. I had a lot to do today, and I am bummed about that as well, but also worried about what causes these spells of vertigo. Dr. Moudgil says it could be migraines, but it was also suggested that it might be a smalls stroke or a seizure. It's very scary, especially when I fall suddenly. That fall was very reminiscent of the time in Hamilton, Ontario where I suddenly lurches to the left and bumped into the wall of the hall. Nothing more happened then, but I did the same thing just now--lurched suddenly to the left.

The sun is shining brightly and I would like to go outside. I need to feed the squirrel, rocky, the wild birds and clean Rocky's cage and Eager's cage and make breakfast and shower and dress and get going on my tasks for the day. BUT I am afraid to move.

I can think of nothing unusual that I ate yesterday, only things I've been eating fairly regularly: steel cut oats, brain, rice milk, pork, calamari, shrimp, scallops, mushrooms, broccoli, yellow squash. I feel pretty sick. I can't do this, I have to go lie down.

10:00 I've had two more incidents of vertigo and still feel sick. 9:11-9:14, 9:40-9:55 accompanied by sweating and nausea. Fairly bad vertigo and nausea--probably not four incidents, but one long one, not over yet. It's been THREE HOURS NOW--I feel like it's wasting my whole day on the one hand and on the other hand, am quite scared. Worried about what it is and means. I got up out of bed because I have to pee and get a drink. I also need to feed the squirrel, but that involves bending over, which tends to exacerbate the problem.

More than 3 hours of vertigo, during which time I was unable to accomplish anything and spent most of the time in bed. Finally got up, made breakfast, sat out in the yard next to the shadow of the silver maple in the neighbor's yard--that is, I was in our yard, but the maples is on theirs. I had a weird experience where a shadow appeared on my hand that did not seem to come from the tree.

Vertigo Shadows

At the edge of a shadow cast by the neighbor's oak,
sun shines on my face, a breeze rustles my hair
and the shadow of the oak shifts and wriggles, restless
and hungry, withdrawing and then approaching
my bare toes, over and over while the whole dancing
shadow with it's patches of sun slides slowly closer.
Shadows of leaves, shadows of branches, shadows
of baby acorns nestled among the leaves. Shadows
of robins passing each other with worms and insects,
shadows of their babies opening wide their mouths.
A touch of cold startles me. I look down to see darkness
on my hands, isolated and with no visible source
from the tree. The deep, cloudless sky throws no shadows,
but the shadow on my wrist expands toward my heart.
Compelled to drink from that well of night. I bend toward
my hands. A black wave engulfs me. The earth tilts, the sky
spins and the tree lurches. I smell bruised grass, damp soil.
Feel tiny pebbles mashed into my cheek. Sweating
and cold, I watch the jonquils and tulips leap jaggedly
in the garden. Jump and twist spasmodically. On my knees,
my body curls in Bala-asana, the child pose, and I close
my eyes to still the jumping. The darkness
behind my eyes turns and jerks raggedly. I breathe
slowly. Feel a passing chill, another shadow.
I open my eyes to see a vulture circling, its shadow
passing over me again and again.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090512-1229-1st

NOTE: This did NOT happen as written, but is a combination of the earlier experience of vertigo with the later experience of the shifting shadows and the mysterious one on my hand.

Private (and not-so-private) Poems

2009-05-09T15:01:00.003-07:00

Private (and not-so-private) Poems

Through the honeyed air, bees lurch and stagger, drunk

on the nectar of poems. Profusions of wild poems litter

the forest floor like candy spilled from a hundred piñatas.

We could gather them by the armful and swallow

their luscious purples, rich yellows, delicately flavored

whites and beiges. Arranged by an unseen poet,

the poems' bright curving phrases delight the eye.

And their smell, ah, the fragrance of these poems, sweet

and heady, almost as intoxicating as the poppies of Oz.

We could bask in that odor. We could sleep in it,

day and night. But remember, among these feral poems

grow dentate ones with terrible tearing teeth. Those lacy poems

emit the odor of garlic and the poems that resemble tulips

reek of onion. The monk poems with their mottled brown hoods

stink of skunk. And these poems, white under green umbrellas?

Poisonous! Look, but don't devour. This poem is very private.

See how it wraps a cape around itself? Open it carefully,

word by word, and peek inside. The poet secretly striped the interior

with purple and green, gay as the awning on a carrousel.

If you listen carefully, you may hear music pouring from its throat,

the sound of an organ grinder, there, at the center, with his monkey.

They want no coins. They ask for nothing

but sunshine, fertile soil and bees, though surely,

they must also love our visits. They must want to share

the compositions, the beauty worked at so hard, or so gently.

Some rare and endangered poems hide so deeply in the dense forest

we must search and struggle to find them, with their unusual

and striking sequences of velvety words. But notice the rays

of this common poem. Many say it is full of clichés

and needs to be weeded out, but see how it resembles the sun.

Glorious, I say, though it dusts my nose with yellow words

and makes me sneeze. Along this trail that wends

through spring trees soft with tiny new leaves, poems

rise and whisper to us. To us and anyone who cares to listen

or read their colors on this green and vernal page.

Dear explorer, dear wanderer, if I give you this poem,

would you pluck its long white five-fold petals one by one,

loves me, loves me not? Half-hidden in the golden center

of the poem, woven in double spirals of pattern and meaning

you'll find the answer: always poetry, always yes,

always love.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

This line ^ and anything below the line is not part of the poem

090509-1737-3g, 090508-1537-2c, 090504-1b, 090503-1st

Note on draft notation: ★090509 etc is the date: year, month, day

★1537 etc is the time, 24 hour style, so at 3:37 PM I completed that draft
★3g etc is the draft number, the # being the nth day and the letter being the nth draft on that particular day, so 3g would be the 7th draft on the 3rd day of working on the poem
In this case, at 3g, there have been a total of 12 drafts over 3 days time.

Today, I worked on a poem

2009-05-09T15:01:00.001-07:00

Today, I worked on a poem

struggled with recalcitrant words and stumbling phrases
for hours. While I wrote, I did not weed the garden
vacuum the house or wash the dishes. I did not start
the tomatoes or re-pot the African violets. I stared
at blank white pages, scribbled and re-scribbled
the same words over and over, rearranging them,
just a little, a tweak here, a phrase there, a word added,
another subtracted. As I worked, I worried
about how to make the poem sing and how to get the chores
done and would anyone care. Why tackle poetry?
Sometimes, you can't pay someone to hear or read a poem.
If they listen, grudgingly, do they understand? Who has time
for poetry in the face television and internet?
Could poetry matter while jobs disappear and a war rages
in Iraq. I feel guilty. I worry I should do something
important. But wait, this poem would be so much better
if I just deleted that darned cliche.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090508-1319-1b, 090508-1300-1st

Later, when I abandoned the poem to weed the garden,
prepare dinner, wash dishes, the poem called, making distress cries
like a baby bird or squirrel, help me, I need to grow.

Private (and not-so-private) Poems

2009-05-09T07:47:00.001-07:00

Private (and not-so-private) Poems

Through the honeyed air, bees lurch and stagger, drunk

on the nectar of poems. Plethoras of wild poems litter

the forest floor like candy spilled from a piñata.

We could gather them by the armful and swallow

their luscious purples, rich yellows, delicately flavored

whites and beiges. As if arranged by an unseen poet,

the poems' bright curving phrases delight the eye.

And their smell, ah, the fragrance of these poems, sweet

and heady, almost as intoxicating as the poppies of Oz.

We could bask in that odor. We could sleep in it,

day and night. But remember, among these feral poems

grow dentate ones with terrible tearing teeth. Those lacy ones

emit the odor of garlic and the poems that resemble tulips

reek of onion. The monk poems with their mottled brown hoods

stink of skunk. And these poems, white under green umbrellas?

Poisonous! Look, but don't devour. This poem is very private.

See how it too holds a hood around itself? Open it carefully, word

by word, and peek inside. The poet secretly striped it inside,

gaily, with purple and green, like the awning on a carrousel.

If you listen carefully, you may hear music pouring from its throat,

the sound of an organ grinder, in the center, with his monkey.

They want no coins. They ask for nothing

but sunshine, fertile soil and bee visits, though surely,

they must also love our visits. They must want to share

the arrangements, the beauty they work so hard at, or so gently.

Some rare and endangered poems hide so deep in the forest

we must search and struggle to find them, with their unusual

and striking arrangements of velvety words. But notice the rays

of this common poem. Many say it is full of clichés

and needs to be weeded out, but see how it resembles the sun.

Glorious, I say, though it dusts my nose with yellow words

and makes me sneeze. Along this trail that wends

through the spring trees soft with tiny new leaves, poems

rise and whisper to us. To us and anyone who cares to listen

or read their colors on this green and vernal page.

Dear explorer, dear wanderer, if I give you this poem,

would you pluck off its white word-petals one by one,

she loves me, she loves me not? You'll find, half-hidden

in the golden center of the poem, double spirals

of pattern and meaning.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090509-1044-3a, 090508-1537-2c, 090504-1b, 090503-1st

Today, I worked on a poem

2009-05-08T10:20:00.001-07:00

Today, I worked on a poem

struggled with recalcitrant words and stumbling phrases
for hours. While I was writing, I did not weed the garden
vacuum the house or wash the dishes. I did not start
the tomatoes or re-pot the African violets. I stared at blank white
and scribbled and re-scribbled the same words over and over,
rearranging them, just a little, a tweak there, a word added,
another subtracted. As I worked, I worried
about how to make the poem sing and how to get the chores
done and would anyone even care. Why was I doing it,
anyway? You can't pay someone to hear or read a poem.
If they listen, grudgingly, do they understand? Who has time
for poetry when there is television and internet?
Jobs being lost and a war in Iraq. I feel guilty.
I'm afraid I am wasting time. But wait,
this would be so much better if I just deleted
that darned cliche.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090508-1319-1b, 090508-1300-1st

Today, I worked on a poem

2009-05-08T10:09:00.001-07:00

Today, I worked on a poem

struggled with recalcitrant words and stumbling phrases
for hours. While I was writing, I did not weed the garden
vacuum the house or wash the dishes. I stared at blank white
and scribbled and re-scribbled the same words over and over,
rearranging them, just a little, a tweak there, a word added,
another subtracted. All the time, I worried
about how to make the poem sing and how to get the chores
done and would anyone even care. Why was I doing it,
anyway? You can't pay someone to hear or read a poem.
If they listen, grudgingly, do they understand? Who has time
for poetry when there is television and internet?
I feel guilty. I'm afraid I am wasting time. But wait,
this would be so much better if I just deleted
that darned cliche.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

Friends

2009-05-04T01:27:00.001-07:00

Friends

OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I detest work

but I need a milkshake. Ready? Here goes:

I saunter in the kitchen door.

“I love you, little Sweetness and Light,” my mother says.

“Whatever,” I answer, and keep on walking.

Hear the grump in my voice? She deserves it.

First, I’m not little. I’m a teenager, and I tower

over her. OK, only by an inch or two,

but she’s no dwarf.

Anyway, I’m not little, I’m not sweet,

and I generate no light, except

perhaps toward any witches who see auras.

Mom might; she’s that weird.

I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back

and give her a hug.

"OK, what do you want?” She asks.

“Friendship,” I say.

She guesses right, of course.

I hug her mostly only when I want something.

The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background

or disappears off my radar entirely.

She knows it, too.

I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money.

I want to stay up all night and sleep all day.

I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games

and watch TV. Hang out with my friends.

I want no school, homework, baths, clean clothes.

I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room

clean the bird cage and bury the compost.

Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .

I hug her again, stroke her hair. “Friend,” I say.

“Milkshake,” I say. “Real friends

make their friends milkshakes.

You’re my friend, right Mom?”

“Oh,” she says, “you want to make me a milkshake,

how sweet. You charm me with your generosity.”

“Awwwwww . . .” I release a big sigh

and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her,

but already, she hauls out the milk

ice-cream and sugar.

“Chocolate,” I yell, as I dash upstairs.

Don’t tell Mom, but I often create a perfect milkshake.

I just hate to wash the blender.

Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon

or George killed any monsters yet.

And she can wash the blender.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090504-1157-2e, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1^st of this version (earlier draft/version was a short prose poem)

earlier draft below:

Friends

OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I need a milkshake

but detest work. I saunter in the kitchen door.

"I love you, little Sweetness and Light," my mother says.

"Whatever," I answer, and keep on walking.

I hear the grump in my voice, but she deserves it.

First, I'm not little. I'm a teenager, and I tower

over her. OK, only by an inch or two,

but she's no dwarf.

Anyway, I'm not little, I'm not sweet,

and I generate no light, except

perhaps toward any witches who see auras.

Mom might; she's that weird.

I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back

and give her a hug.

"OK, what do you want?" She asks.

"Friendship," I say. She guesses right, of course.

I hug her mostly only when I want something.

The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background

or disappears off my radar entirely.

She knows it, too.

I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money.

I want to stay up all night and sleep all day.

I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games

and watch TV. Hang out with my friends.

I want no school, homework, baths, clean clothes.

I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room

clean the bird cage and bury the compost.

Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .

I hug her again, stroke her hair. "Friend," I say.

"Milkshake," I say. "Real friends

make their friends milkshakes.

You're my friend, right Mom?"

"Oh," she says, "you want to make me a milkshake,

how sweet. You charm me with your generosity."

"Awwwwww . . ." I release a big sigh

and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her,

but already, she hauls out the milk

ice-cream and sugar.

"Chocolate," I yell, as I dash upstairs.

Don't tell Mom, but I create a perfect milkshake.

I just hate to wash the blender.

Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon

or George killed any monsters yet.

And Mom can wash the blender.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090504-0340-2c, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1^st of this version (earlier draft/version was a shorter prose poem)

A Trick of Light

2009-04-20T09:03:00.001-07:00

A Trick of Light

When her compass of shadows points only to darkness,
a rumble slashes behind her, a torn crack of sound.
Imagine the girl, hair brushing her waist, gown hitched up
and clinging damply to her skin as she wades through
the tall wildflowers that brush her bare legs with dew.
She turns in the meadow, resplendent with reds from the low sun,
curious and afraid. She holds the purple asters and goldenrods
close to her chest, flowers that evermore will signify the end
of summer, half the end, in a way, of everything,
but she doesn't know that yet. Not quite yet. She sees the horses
first, black, green-eyed, drooling spittle, dancing in their harnesses.
They paw at the air and rock; sparks fly from their hooves.
She sees the driver next, dark, handsome, old. Then young,
a sort of trick of the light. He is already in front of her
before she thinks to bolt. He seizes her, scoops her with an arm
around her waist, just as she begins to scream. Her head falls back,
flung on her thin neck by the upward rush as the chariot spins
and turns downward again. Dangling like this, she sees
one last glimpse of the darkening meadow, the flowers
a sea of colors, the stars whirl, the moon sets precipitously
at the edge of the chasm. The Underland seethes with the dead.
Their eyes and skin glow greenish, like foxfire or fireflies,
giving the vast caverns an eerie light. Creepy. In the throne room,
Hades makes diamonds for her by crushing coal in his bare hands,
a nifty trick, but Persephone will not stop crying. When he touches her,
the flowers blacken in her hands. She calls and calls for her mother.
He offers rubies, emeralds, pork chops, polenta, chocolate. Of course,
the pomegranate stops the tears. Her mother had fed them to her
as a child, one seed at a time, but when Hades feeds her his seed,
all trace of sweetness disappears from her tongue.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090420-1141-2a; 090419-2016 1st completed 1st draft

confined

2009-04-20T07:17:00.001-07:00

Confined

Fawn lilies, pale in the shadows of trees, open their throats

and call the bees. Bees, drunk with sleep and winter,

stagger from the hive. The hive hums with its own morning.

Spring caresses the forest lightly. If you hurry, you will see nothing

but the dark still-sleeping trunks of trees. But stop. Place your ear

to the trunk and listen. Sap thrums in its veins, singing

to the buds who hum softly as they gather their new leaves

to unfurl. And in a spot of branch-filtered sun, the first

mourning cloak butterfly fans slow wings among the fallen leaves.

You might mistake it for one of them if you didn't pause and look.

But I cannot look. Confined indoors, I miss the birthday

of the forest: the doe, licking her newborn, pressing

with her nose to balance it as it wobbles toward

its first breakfast. Picture me longing, aching; see me imagining

instead of watching, as, stepping among the white lilies

that bear its name, in a moment never to be repeated,

the newborn fawn takes its fleeting first steps.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

for Keith

090419-1153-1c; 090418-1916-1st completed draft

The fawn in the composit is by Berrybird. The word layout is by Wordle (from my poem). I took the trees and the fawn lily and made the composit. For Creative Every Day.

Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

2009-04-17T20:08:00.001-07:00

Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

Writing as I walk, I follow word trails through a forest of thought,
each word linked mutably to a host of images and memories.
An Icabod Crane tree hangs over the path: twisted. The word twisted
links to broken, broken to shattered, shattered to glass
and to my heart, that old saw, that cliché that still feels so rich and real
to me, so true, in spite of centuries of overuse. It's difficult
to be a poet when you love clichés. My glass heart shatters from anger,
from a hand or fist or knife, smashed against a face, face links to fly,
fly escape bird wing fast fancy fallow Farrow Darcy.
I liked that name, Darcy. But I could not name
a daughter Darcy because of Darcy Farrow, though any name
must link to some tragedy or other. A good name ruined.
Alicia was another. I'd chosen it as a possibility until Robert Garrow
raped and killed Alicia Houk and abandoned her body along the trail,
the trail I walked to school each day. A beautiful girl left all winter
under the snow, no a trail of words, but a trail of horror. Strange
what we remember and what we forget. A trail of memories.
Reading old letters, I discover that I wrote my parents daily, twice
daily, often, after I left home. Such an outpouring of confusion,
a plethora of words, forbidden words, like fire hunger beg drugs,
like robbed, beaten, kicked, evicted, like plethora, a word my teacher
says not to use in poetry. Much of what I wrote my parents
I forgot, but occasionally, a favorite story surfaces, suddenly revisited,
shiny in the moment of it's recording, fresh with excitement
and pain or matter-of-factly written as commonplace,
two of us cramming into the turnstile together because we only
had one subway token between us. The half-rotted fruit
we pulled from the dumpster behind the grocers, devoured, grateful
for any sustenance. Sitting on the fire escape to get even the slightest
hint of breeze. "Don't send money," I wrote repeatedly
to my parents, "if I can't make it on my own, I'll come home."
Unlike Darcy Farrow, unlike Alicia Houk, I made it home eventually.
Boyfriend lover husband anger fist hit bleed abuse. Finally, escape.
Twisted, broken, shattered, home. I made it home,
if that breathing but mangled girl ringing my parents' doorbell
was still me.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090417-2124-1c; 090417-1641-1st (complete) draft

word image from Wordle.

White Duck in a Green Pool

2009-04-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

For National Poetry Month and for Creative Every Day

White Duck in a Green Pool

The Clinton River makes an acute turn, chews
up the banks and topples trees whose roots hang fibrous
and ungrounded into the green water. Mallards, quacking
and grunting, slide along the current like pucks
in an air hockey game, smooth on the wrinkled green surface,
interrupting the reflection of willows and phragmites
with their shiny blue and green heads. When the river cuts
back far enough, it will rejoin itself, abandoning
this U-shaped oxbow to stagnate like an old appendix.
Already, the trail caves into the river and disappears,
almost impassable between the plunge to water
and the thicket of brambles. Already,
old oxbows ring islands of trashy willows and weeds
where Canada geese nest, the males hissing,
trailing intruders, attacking with wing blows,
with the heavy thump of breastbone against neck and shoulder.
No one in this dismal place is jubilant, but the white ducks,
resting on the sandbar opposite the bend of the river preen
their spotless feathers with bright orange smiles.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090416-1025-2a, 090413-1730-1b

I've been posting most of my poetry that I have time to post, including the drafts, to The Smell of Sun because I've been too busy to do what I usually do, which is to post the early drafts here and the later ones there.

Acting "As If"

2009-03-11T10:33:00.001-07:00

Acting "As If"

"Sometimes," the woman says to her husband as she butchers a chicken for supper, "when I think about who I am, I hate myself and want to commit suicide." She has set the butcher knife down to wrest the skin from a leg and thigh. He picks up the knife, holds it handle toward her. "Here, let me assist you." He smiles slightly, but his eyes look serious. A knife is too much pain, she thinks, afraid, and then for half a moment, considers stabbing him rather than herself. Instead, she continues cutting up the chicken. She says nothing, but inside, a pack of devils dance in her heart, laughing gleefully and poking sharply with their pitchforks. The dinner is delicious but nearly wordless. The man listens to his music, reads the CD covers. Says something she misses but doesn't ask to have repeated. The woman takes potshots at the devils in her heart. But there are so many of them. I will act "as if" I love him, until I do again, she tells the demons, but they only laugh. She lies awake all night, her husband's words running through her mind in an endless loop, the fiends jabbing and jabbing. In the morning, she gets up, fetches his paper and slippers, makes his coffee, his eggs, bacon and toast, places three dark chocolate kisses on his napkin and puts some Bach on the stereo, his favorite music. She answers quietly when spoken to, but volunteers no words of her own. After he leaves for work, she builds a recumbent snowman in the trees, carves her husband's features onto the head, and squatting alone in the spruces, pisses on his face and watches it melt into a yellow puddle.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090311-1323-1c; 090311-1139-1st

Willow Waiting (tonight's workshop poem)

2009-03-09T19:45:00.001-07:00

Here's my "Model Poem" from tonight workshop.

Willow Waiting

Slumped under the weight of snow-dense clouds, lacy,
fingered and blurring wetly into the roofs and fading ridges,
a clump of scrubby bushes clings to the outer penitentiary wall,
stunned, scrawny and rusty but glazed with white.
Even the few brown leaves twist and fill with snow.

One slender stem uproots and shuffles
among the others, blunders, furtive,
a dark shape growing paler, struggling
against the deep and bending branches. The shrubs huddle,
shrink into drifts that rise to swallow them.

Snow buries the periwinkle, the picris, the dock,
Reaches up the willow stems, biting, hungry, cold.
Tomorrow, the bushes might disappear entirely,
but for the rootless one, moving, pausing, stamping,
separate. The shrubs hunker into the snow and sleep.

The girl twists her scarf tighter around her neck,
feels the snow melt icy into her too-short boots,
listens in the fluffy silence for her father.
He raises his window an inch and sings
to her though the bars.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090309-2241-1f, 090309, 1st
from a workshop piece in Dawn McDuffie's class.

I need to do a new image for it.

Of course, I completely made it my own.

It seems that everything I write wants to turn into a NOVEL!

This poem is called a "model poem" because the first draft was modeled after another poem. However, I changed it substantially.

The Casks

2009-03-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Casks

The woman watches Jesus play with the sun. He tosses it into the air and catches it, throws it behind his back, bounces it like a rubber ball on the yellow pathway through the lawns and parks of Heaven. Through his body she sees trees, bushes and an odd black sky with unfamiliar stars. Jesus shines translucent white, bright, but not too bright. He bounces the sun, lifts his leg so that it bounces under to the other side. It passes through the light fabric of his robe unencumbered. He catches it, places it back in the sky above the earth, and turns to smile at her. He offers her his hand and she takes it. It is warm and feels like ordinary flesh, like her husband's hand. Like love. They descend a long series of stairs into the darkness. She thinks Hell, and when he opens the small oaken door and ducks inside, the scene there does not dissuade her from that
fear. Dwarfs, elves, and monsters. Wormy things sitting on benches and stools. The room glows red in spite of darkness; a huge fire burns in the fireplace. Gargantuan oaken casks rise behind the bar from floor to ceiling. Everyone talks, laughs, drinks. At the bar, Jesus orders them each a drink. His glows yellow and she watches it enter his body, which brightens and shifts to a yellower hue. She tips and rolls her glass, sniffing. It smells of chocolate, coffee, and raspberries, tastes like roses. It makes her terribly sleepy, and she awakens, of course, in bed. Her husband snores loudly. She wants to rouse him and tell him her dream, but knows he will dismiss it. 'Just another dream about death,' he would probably say. She might elbow him sharply for that unspoken comment if it weren't for that glowing hand on her shoulder. Instead, she accepts another drink and goes off to explore the future.

Mary Taitt
090309-1012-3a, 090308-2236-2a, 090307-2110-1c, 090307-1122 first

This is a new PROSE POEM from two back-to back dreams. (See dreams here).

A Perfect Love

2009-02-24T10:38:00.001-08:00

A Perfect Love

In the graveyard at night, the woman collects fabric rose petals scattered in the snow, red ones, gold ones and black ones. They whisper across the dark drifts like the remains of autumn leaves. She chases them through ever-deepening snow, fills her pockets with them. She takes some of each, but since her pockets won't hold them all, she favors the red and gold ones over the black. She carries them in her pockets for years, taking them out only to launder the pockets. When she does, they escape, and roam around the house, multiplying. Her husband kidnaps them, trying to rid the marriage of the curse of the fabric rose petals. Only he notices that the gold petals are turning red, the red petals are turning black and the black ones are getting blacker and blacker. Velvety with soot. The woman rescues them. She now sees only gold petals, shining, delicate and light as a ray of sunshine. "Love me; love my rose petals," she intones to her insensitive husband. Since he despises the black rose petals, he immediately files for divorce. The woman fills her bed with translucent golden rose petals. They caress her skin. That night, while dreaming of a perfect love, she drowns in petals clinging to her face. When the man returns for his belongings, he finds her dead in drifts of black rose petals, a look of quiet satisfaction still lingering on her face.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090224-1249-1d; 090224-1237-1st

This is a brand new poem I just wrote today and then I made the sketch as an illo for it, it's in Peggy F's sketchbook. I may, if I have time, make a "broadside" of the poem and a painting of it. This is a prose poem and does not have line-breaks.

Surrounded by Sky 090223-1440

2009-02-23T11:46:00.001-08:00

Surrounded by Sky

A woman imagines she has cholera and worries she will be eaten by a shark. She fears she will slip under the fence and be swept over the falls at Niagara. When she eats, her belly explodes and kills her and when she flies, she dies in a plane crash. Every snowy car ride turns into an automobile accident and every Ferris wheel collapses when she reaches the top. She collects clippings of people killed by wildfires, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, escaped lions, burst appendixes, rabid rats, ice falling off church roofs, infected toenails, knowing each of these deaths is the one that will claim her.

One day, the once worried woman, who had already died a million imaginary deaths, lies dying. Dementia consumes her and she fails to recognize death's teeth at her throat. The reaper pulls the black hood off to his boney face and she only smiles. She dreams she is a child, and afraid of nothing. She climbs the tallest pine in the forest, a cabbage pine with branches like a ladder. Up and up and up and up, like Jack on the beanstalk she ascends, effortlessly, to the tippy top. It sways in the breeze. The sky surrounds her. The treetop bends, then breaks. She should fall. Instead, her body inflates with sunshine and she flies. She flies so high she can see the individual rays of starlight and each has a voice and a song. When the woman joins the song, a terrible rasping pours from her throat. No one at her deathbed recognizes the angel voices in the cacophony flowing like a fountain from her lips.

Mary Stebbins

090223-1440-2c; 090222-2135-1e; 090222-1756-1st

This, in case you can't tell, is a prose poem, which I wrote for Paul Roth, sort of. I may explain later. I think it may be the beginning, or the end, of a new chapbook. YIKES!

I'm doing this backwards, in a sense, posting the latest, newest version on my process blog when I've already posted an earlier version to The Smell of Sun, my poetry blog That was becasue I wanted to post it, unfinished though it was, to Creative Every Day.

My place at the dining room table at 3 AM

2009-02-15T16:06:00.001-08:00

Today I made this digital painting from the sketch I drew last night
when I was insomniac at 3 AM. It took me all day to paint it, by
hand, not with filters, on my old computer using a MOUSE in PS7. (I
did use liquify to bend the brushes on the left to "match" the bed in
the water bottle on the right. I did not use either of my tablets or
pens, because I felt really terrible and wanted to do it the old
fashioned way, LOL! (slowly, slowly.))

Living Inside my Words

2009-02-04T08:09:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a poetry class that meets on Monday nights. I've been doing this off and on for several years, with Dawn McDuffie at the Scarab Club. Every Monday night, we get an assignment. Every Tuesday morning, God willing and the creeks don't rise (Forgive the cliche!), I write a new poem, based hopefully on my assignment. Every Tuesday night, I review and and revise. Every Wednesday morning I review and revise, and so on as the week passes until Monday. Monday I spend a good part of the day working on my new, week-old poem, and finally print copies to take to class.

The reason I do this is becasue I have learned that if I inhabit the poem, if I really live inside it, I make discoveries about myself and the world that enhance the poem, at least for me. And each discovery is a little joy, a little euphoria. Sure, there is struggle, panic. Sure there is the tedium of searching thesaurus for the right word and of changing phraseology, only to change it back, three, four five times. But then, there is that aha moment when something inside the poem opens to admit me deeper into its mysteries, deeper into myself.

The poem may still not be done, but it's one step closer, and there will hopefully be more ahas and more revisions. Not to beat a dead horse, but revision means to Re-VISION, to re-see, and vision involves awareness of the self and world, of the interconnections of things. And it applies to my prose writing as well. It's a glorious process. It's why I write poetry.

(The photos represent a first draft poem and a poem further toward completion.)

Pancake Day

2009-02-02T12:57:00.000-08:00

It's Candlemas, St. Bigid's Day, Imbolc, Groundhog Day. A day to eat
pancakes, see your shadow, light candles, take down your Christmas
tree.

I made crepes:

1/4 c milk, i egg, 1/4 c flour for each crepe, more or less, whisk up.
I used whole wheat flour and some seeds and rice milk for mine--yum.
\

I wrote a poem about it, brand new today, for my class tonight.

Candlemas
How Geraldine becomes a Saint, Feb 2, 1961

One by one, with needles pricking and dropping
with lisping sounds like falling rain through
the drooping branches, Geraldine picks lengths of tinsel
from the browning tree. She turns the dull and shining
strands in the colored lights to see them sparkle,
watches small streams of color wash and wriggle
across the ceiling like eels in Uncle Jake's creel.
She blows at the tinsel, puffs gently on the filaments
draped over her fingers, watches the light ones rise
and flutter while the heavy ones barely move.
New sun filters though the lace curtains, adding
another layer of pattern to the patches of color
and the ghosts of branches on the walls and ceiling.
Mama calls her to come out and see her shadow.
"The woodchucks," she says, "the groundhogs,
are sleeping in the woods, under the snow,
they won't be seeing any shadows, but you
can see yours instead." Geraldine waves
at her shadow and laughs when the shadow
waves back. Laughs and laughs and waves again.
Watches the blue hand move against the pink snow.
"Bye, bye winter," Mama says. "Well, anyway,
it's half gone, and that's worth celebrating."
Geraldine celebrates by leaping up and down
and shouting, laughing again as her shadow leaps
along with her, silent as the watching sparrows.
They give the sparrows yellow millet and golden
corn. "Yellow and gold for the sun," Mama says.
"Yellow for the sun," Geraldine repeats.
"Pancakes for breakfast," Mama says. In the center
of each pancake, she makes the shape of a sun
with a smile and many rays. "For St. Brigid,"
she says, "for the happy, growing sun."
Geraldine eats her suns with maple syrup
and asks for a pancake with her shadow in it.
"Here you are," Mama says, sliding the pancake
onto Geraldine's plate, "St. Geraldine, goddess
of shadows." Geraldine waves goodbye
to the pancake and to her pancake shadow,
as she forks it into her mouth, bite by bite.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For Geraldine and the High Priestess

Three new poems with drafts in journal

2009-01-31T14:31:00.000-08:00

I wrote three "prose poems" or flash fictions pieces (I intended them
as prose poems) in the car today on the way to and from skiing. I
left them here in the journal I was typing in the car so my process is
evident. Maybe.

Saturday, January 31, 2009,11:18 AM we are riding in the car toward
Shane's to drop off Graham and then we are going skiing at Stoney
Creek. I hope we have fun. Sometimes it is fun and sometimes it is
essentially an ordeal. Depends in part on how well I slept (not at
all well) and in part on weather and conditions (16 degrees here and
colder I am sure out there, windy and gusty, snow crusty with some
fresher snow on top.).
Mozart's 10th piano sonata is on, my favorite composer and my
favorite form, cheery and pleasant. Graham is gone now (at Shane's)
and we're headed the back way toward the highway, but it is anything
but sunny and cheery outside--the sky is a dull blank grey.
I was thinking that some of my dream material would be good in novels
(the business, for example, of crawling along the outer edge of an ice
covered ship with hungry black waters below, very treacherous, to
perform some necessary task or retrieve something.
I need to add Keryl and her sister into Frog Haven for the sake of
the Slovenia sequel, but dunno if I'll live long enough to write all
the sequels and novels I've planned when I can't even get this one
done--too many things I want to do!!
I brought water paints to try painting in the car. But then I
dropped the Psion accidentally, picking up all the paraphernalia I'd
piled up to take on our expedition. So I wanted to make sure it still
works, seems to. I also wanted to send off a packet to The Bitter
Oleander because of the new poem I wrote for Paul Roth (might as well
send more than one, but most of my poems are not Paul Rothish.) so I
thought I'd try to construct something, but feel utterly uninspired.
Keith asks, are you still my sweetie? and I answer yes. Are you
still mine? Yes. Yay! We're on the highway now, "We're off," I say,
"Like a Turd of hurtles."
I brought painting stuff, I was going to paint in the car but I think
I will try for a poem.

A woman paints in the car while her husband drives. She paints
peonies, large and white; lays little paint where the petals grow,
paint green and brown leaves soft around the faint lemon and light of
petals. Outside the window, snow falls, lazy in the meadows. It
pelts into the windshield and she paints around the snowdrops, leaving
the paper white for every flake. She paints snow into her husband's
beard and onto the collar of his jacket, paints her knees and the
dashboard, each flake piling on the next until the car is so full of
peonies and snowdrifts that it disappears in the fields and muffles
the rings of searching cell phones.
1st draft, 090131 11:40 AM for Paul Roth.

Her Husband's Aging Beard
A woman paints in the car while her husband drives. She paints
peonies, large and white; lays pale paint for petals, green and brown
in soft spreading splashes, leaves to define the faint lemon and light
of blooms. Outside the window, snow falls, lazy in the meadows, lazy
in the bare branches. It pelts the windshield. The woman paints
around the snowdrops, leaving the paper white for every flake. She
paints snow into her husband's beard and onto the collar of his
jacket, paints her knees and belly and the dashboard of the car, each
flake piling on the next until the car is so full of peonies and
snowdrifts that it disappears in the fields and muffles the rings of
searching cell phones.
090131-1155-1c; 1st draft, 090131 11:40 AM for Paul Roth.
A woman stares through the viewfinder of her camera. There is so much
dust on the lens that she thinks she is in the midst of a flock of
birds. The birds are large and heavy, and their wings are so small
they do not look capable of flight. But they pick the woman up and
fly over the blank sky with her. The sky is the color of nothing, the
color of stupidity, but above the clouds, everything flares into gold.
When the birds drop her, she bounces several times on the mattress of
cloud and then sinks into a fog so thick she can swim in it. But so
can the sharks. So many they look like dust spots on a lens. And
hungry.
1st draft, 1-31-09, 12:07 PM 26 mile road, approching Stoney Creek backwoods.

Midas Quilting
A woman stares through the viewfinder of her camera. So much dust
covers her lens that she thinks she is in the midst of a flock of
birds. Though the birds are large and heavy, their wings are so small
they appear incapable of flight. But they pick the woman up and carry
her through the blank sky. The sky is the color of nothing, the color
of stupidity, but above the clouds, everything flares into gold. When
the birds drop her, she bounces several times on the mattress of cloud
and then sinks into a fog so thick she can swim in it. But so can the
sharks. So many sharks approach that they look like dust spots on a
lens. But hungrier.
090131-1215-1b (On Inwood Road almost at the parkinglot!); 1st draft,
1-31-09, 12:07 PM 26 mile road, approching Stoney Creek backwoods.
* * *
A woman skis across a shooting range. Because in the flat light, she
cannot tell where the hills and valleys are, she suddenly slips away
from herself, lunging sometimes forward and sometimes back. The
marksmen fire white guns. Some are dressed as invisible polar bears,
some as snow-covered pines and spruces. White balloons pop here and
there, white champagne corks fly into a white sky. The reports echo
thunderously off the invible hills and snowy trees. The richochets
turn her to Swiss cheese with ketchup. She remembers a classmate
telling her Swiss cheese with ketchup tasted like chicken. Also
rattle snakes and polar bears. The woman who might taste like chicken
leaves a red trail in the snow. Behind her, the world is a little
less flat but crashing like armagheddon.
1st draft upon leaving Stoney creek from cross country skiing--I had
forgotten how horrible the shooting is, all the gunfire from the
shooting range. UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH I HATE IT! ;-(
1st draft 1-31-09 3:21 PM
* £ * £
Midas Mattress
A woman peers through the viewfinder of her camera. Because a
plethora of dust covers her lens, she thinks she is in the midst of a
flock of birds. Though the birds are large and heavy, their tiny
wings appear incapable of flight. But they pick the woman up by the
elbows and carry her through the blank sky. The sky is the color of
nothing, the color of stupidity. Until suddenly ends and begins anew.
Above the mist, everything flares into gold. When the birds drop
her, she bounces several times on the shining mattress of cloud and
then sinks into fog. She swims, one long stroke after another, swims
among the thickness and fog sharks. So many sharks approach that
they look like dust spots on a lens. But hungrier.
090131-1530-1c (On Inwood Road almost at the parking lot!); 1st draft,
1-31-09, 12:07 PM 26 mile road, approching Stoney Creek backwoods.
On Van Dyke and Chicago, headed home from skiing.
$ $ $
A woman skis across a shooting range. Because in the flat light, she
cannot tell where the hills and valleys are, slips she suddenly away
from herself, lunging sometimes forward and sometimes back. The
marksmen fire white guns and disguise themselves as invisible polar
bears and snow-covered pines and spruces. Thousands of white balloons
pop around her and white champagne corks fly into a white sky. The
reports echo thunderously off the invible hills and snowy trees. The
richochets turn her to Swiss cheese with ketchup. She remembers a
classmate 52 years ago telling her Swiss cheese with ketchup tastes
like chicken. He also said rattlesnakes, frog legs and polar bears
taste like chicken. The woman who wonders if she too tastes like
chicken leaves a red trail in the snow. Behind her, the world is a
little less flat but exploding and collapsing in on itself like
Armagheddon.
1st draft upon leaving Stoney creek from cross country skiing--I had
forgotten how horrible the shooting is, all the gunfire from the
shooting range. UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH I HATE IT! ;-(
Draft 1b written on I 94 coming home from skiing
090131-1547-1b; 1st draft 1-31-09 3:21 PM
* £ * £

Easter Gift From a Dead Mother, Take 2

2009-01-30T07:54:00.001-08:00

Easter Gift From a Dead Mother

I lift them from the floor, two crisp dollar bills
folded in half as they came from the card
twenty years ago. Cadbury Creme Eggs
from my mother because that year, like so many,
I was dieting. I had not yet learned I was allergic
to chocolate. The dollars were meant, like candy,
to be as fleeting as the words, "Hello, I love you!
Delightful to see you. Here's a little Easter treat." Yum
yum, gobble, gobble. But somehow, the paper eggs
never got eaten. I, who pride myself on imagination,
could think of no small treat both safe for a dieting palette
(or mind) and sufficient to honor my mother's boundless
love. She meant only to include me and would laugh or cry
at such agonizing deliberations over twenty years.
This morning, I knocked the precious dollars
from their perch beside my bed—perhaps to remind me
that when I pass on, no one will know the value
of this money. Maybe someone will stick them
in a wallet and spend them with ordinary money
for gas, dry cleaning or a soda for my son.
May that soda explode in rainbow flavors
and free the burden and glory of two
generations of love (hallelujah!) onto
that cherished and unsuspecting tongue.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090130-0942-1e; 090130, 1st
(hated the illo, had to do it over!)

Easter Gift from a Dead Mother (and a bit of silliness)

2009-01-30T07:33:00.001-08:00

Easter Gift From a Dead Mother

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090130-0942-1e; 090130, 1st

With a silly collage illo! :-D Brand new poem this morning! I may
make a new illo for this, as this illo is kind of foolish for the
poem!

Self portrait start

2009-01-22T17:24:00.001-08:00

A new Self portrait start. The latest version is on Imagik.

Slow Reader

2009-01-21T08:49:00.001-08:00

Slow Reader

I gnaw the flesh of a poem, tearing it
from the bone. My teeth rip
into the juicy meat. I chew slowly, savoring
each bite, rolling the sweet umami on my tongue,
sucking the juice from every morsel. One bite,
a pause to consider the flavor, and then another.
Slowly, I devour, tidbit by tidbit, the whole poem,
then suck the long curved bone until it is as white
as if it had lain on the desert for years.
Though may take months to consume
the entire carcass of the book, my mouth waters
at the prospect of such prolonged delight.

The next book may be a pear tree.
I could pluck a single pear, hold
its smooth curved, ripe body and examine
the pattern of its speckled skin. The shape
pleases me. I caress it and admire its taper.
When I bite into it, it squirts; juice runs
down my chin. And the stone cells—such strange
and inviting texture. Leisurely, with careful attention,
I sample mouthfuls of pear poem, eating it
down to the stem and seeds. The rest of the tree
remains, full of pears. They blush in summer light
and whisper my name.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090121-1107-1b

This is a brand new poem. Click the "broadside image" to view it larger. For Creative Every Day art and words.

starting a new painting

2009-01-20T18:44:00.001-08:00

This is the beginning of a new painting that was supposed to be a self
portrait. You can see the finished painting at Imagik.

Frogs for Dawn D

2009-01-17T08:22:00.001-08:00

This is a collage + art that I did for Dawn D. Then I added texture
to it. That image is on Imagik.

Water Media Class

2009-01-15T17:41:00.001-08:00

I am taking my second-ever water media class at the war memorial. The first class was today. I had fun. You can see the unfinished piece that I was working on. My good friend Mick would probably tell me it was a "tired" subject, by which he means a cliche. But I like it and was enjoying working on it---nice shapes and opportunity to practice techniques I am learning.
And many nonartist friends are happy to receive such "cliches" as gifts. (Charlie Myers, the teacher, took the picture of me after almost everyone else had left.)

The Dream of a Common Language

2009-01-13T14:12:00.001-08:00

The Dream of a Common Language, by Mary Stebbins Taitt.

This was going to be the beginning of a collage piece, but I dont have
time for it!

I may or may not start over later.

The title is from a book of Poetry by Adrienne Rich.

The exciting thing about this is that I am sending this from my Mac,
Leo (Leopard). I just got Picasa, the new Beta for Macs. YAY!

2009-01-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

Thin as Our Fingers
(Turning Flowers to Garbage)

A lake appears along the trail, above the cliffs
and pounding surf beneath. Bounded by cliff-side rocks,
it stretches nearly as far as we can see. Huge,
like the ocean below, but calmer. More welcoming
than the crashing waves of the sea. The trail
enters the lake and continues out of sight under the water,
as yellow as the yellow brick road in the Land of Oz.
I plunge in, eager, excited. Warm as air, the water
caresses me. Soft. Buoyant, delightful. I exhale, sink into it,
and rise again. “We can swim to the left, we can swim
to the right!” I tell you. And demonstrate. A smile
blossoms on my face and fills me with light
like the first sunny day of spring. You hesitate, then follow,
slowly. Wade, then swim. Then smile, too. We drift together,
above the yellow path under the water. You laugh,
bob, sway, almost seem to dance, until you see
the snakes. Green snakes, hundreds of them.
Some are as thin as our fingers, some as thick and long
as our arms and legs. The snakes float on the water like lily pads,
hold only their nostrils above water, heads suspended, tails dangling
like the long stems of water lilies. I swim and glide among them,
easy, relaxed, smiling. No clouds crowd the horizon; the sky
wears the clearest, deepest blue robes imaginable. Reflects
the endless blue water. But you stiffen. Hang back.
“Look,” I say, “they are harmless.” Snakes surround me,
and pay me no mind. Still frightened, you refuse
to swim forward. Suddenly, you yell and splash at the snakes.
In an instant, they all rear up, draw scaly lips back
to expose their fangs and hiss. They charge us both.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For Keith and Janine
090113-1229-1eb

Snakes in the Water

Read more about the dream that caused this poem at my dream blog, Hidden Rooms.

Catching Rainbows in a Butterfly Net

2009-01-06T13:12:00.001-08:00

I chased thousands in a field of spray, thought they'd slip
through the net like air, like fog, like the spray itself,
but it held them, shining fish, softer than fish roe,
slipperier than eels. I swallowed them whole
in a whirl of cherry, strawberry, orange,
lemon, lime, blueberries and concord grapes
They wriggled and slid into the cage of my ribs
and swam there, lighting the cold cinder of heart
with color. The sun when I caught it didn't burn
the fibers of net. It tasted like fireballs, cinnamon
and cayenne and roosted in the cinder of heart
like a banty taking to the trees at dusk. Whoever told
you chickens don't fly never had banties! Even
most of the white leghorns fluttered to the rafters
when the fox came in. (Which wasn't the point
you were making, of course.) Meanwhile, the sun
flapped its yellow wings, fluffed its white belly
and puffed out the cinder of heart into a great balloon
that thrummed in my chest glowing and shimmering
with rainbows, throbbing and singing: an electrical
tinnitus that seemed to be chanting: Oh Joy, Oh Love,
oh Glory. Halleluiah. Say what? Hello? Did I mention
the word dream? None of it could be my fault.

Mary Taitt
For Kay Ryan, Rhonda Walsh, Lottie Spadie, Dawn McDuffie and Jim Doran
090106-1603-1d from a dream
brand new poem today

niche, Grad Predjama

2008-12-31T07:38:00.001-08:00

This is the absolutely unadulterated original photo from which I created the piece on Imagik for Nadine at in Blue Ink.