Topic #42--"Poetry" Entry

Welcome to Carla! Her entries!:

"She Walks in Beauty"
10" x 10 " x 1" mixed media on wood panel
This painting was giving me so much trouble that I came close to gessoing it over. But I really liked the background, so I put it on my dresser against the mirror (that's where I put unfinished work that I want to think about), and looked at for a couple of days until the solution revealed itself. I'm glad I gave her a second chance!

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

- George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)



Witness - 10" x 10" x 1" mixed media on cradled wood panel
Sometimes gravity settles into my spirit and becomes an ever-strengthening pull of self-doubt that can keep me from soaring beyond my fears. I find then, that instead of feeling grounded in something real and solid, secure enough in myself to venture outward and onward, I am held back by those inner voices that, for some strange reason, want me to stay put. I always come out of these little episodes of the cosmic blues, usually by reconnecting with Nature, looking at beautiful art, reading some poetry, and then messing around in my studio.

How do you defy gravity?

Witness

I saw that a star had broken its rope
in the stables of heaven--

This homeless one will find her home
in the foothills of a green century.

Who sleeps beside still waters, wakes.
The terrestrial hands of the heaven clock

comb out the comet's tangled mane
and twelve strands float free.

In the absence of light and gravity,
slowly as dust, or the continents' drift,

sinuous, they twine a text,
one letter to an eon:

I am the dawn horse.
Ride me.

- Liz Waldner