Kamiko Ume

Flight, the Cardinal Delight

Heart of Purple Tulip

redbud blossoms

redbud blossoms' small

pink ballet slippers with wings

dance on a bare branch

Folder Art

colorful folders
all those patient files leaning
against each other

Checking in at the dentist's office, I'm struck by the shelves full of folders on the back wall. Patient files in shades of red, green, yellow, leaning this way and that, patiently supporting each other. The receptionists just think of them as work. I see them as still life--silent yet speaking volumes.

The Saint Says

The Saint Says

See, see, see —

so this seer

sees with eyes

open or behind

closed lids

This attending

cries out for action

to turn the seeing

into something seen

by other seers

Sounds and squiggles,

symbols and signs —

threads that bind

inner and outer
pieces of wholeness

"Threads that Bind," oil on paper, Care Connet 2017

"The Saint Says," Care Connet 2018

another way trees make leaves

another way trees make leaves --

pulp into paper printed on pages --

pages into compost --

roots into leaves

Ten pumpkins on the sun porch froze solid during the last spell of -17 F (-27 C). Then came the usual January thaw and they started to soften. I've been slicing, dicing and steaming, packing the pulp into plastic containers for the freezer. Five down, five to go. Now we've had another below zero dip, so I will hold off on the pumpkins for a spell. 

Yesterday, after the freezing rain that looked like ice BBs followed by a frosting of snow, I walked gingerly out to the compost bin with the bucket of pumpkin skins. When I lifted the ice covered lid, a mouse disappeared down into the bowels. Better here than in the house! On the way back I took the bowl full of slick pumpkin seeds and dumped them in the tray under the bird feeder. The blue jays like them, and the squirrels. 

That's another part of nature's magnificent recycling center, from seeds to plants to food for animals, to excrement to compost to nourish roots. Throughout the cycle runs the sap, unless it's momentarily frozen!