Loosening up...seeing into the face of the Earth

Doing more sketches and studies from sketches...for upcoming show... am wondering where caricature and sketches cross the line and hurt or help the final work... Not all the poets and writers are going to like what I did, I can hear them mutter "too cartoony" or "my nose is not that big!" Maybe I didn't capture them well or my view of them doesn't match their preferred view. And there is always a sneaking in flavor of the artist's self portrait in any attempt to look into another human face.

I continue to write poems in "my" pocket park near where I work. The season is changing, the stone seats are getting cold, a chill creeps along spine as I sip hot soup... and again, as I send myself out into the trees, the reflecting pool, the sparrows and fellow passengers in this immobile platform of a lunch hour, I am sometimes all that I see and it is time to push deeper to become aware of what is beyond my immediate concerns. My mind is a scrim always muddying up the view. What the hell does it mean to write poems about trees anyway? I am not a tree, I was never a tree. Look up, look out.

My brother-in-law recently called me wanting some advice about posting poetry online and unspoken, a bit of encouragement. I told him he absolutely should share his poems, no matter what anyone says. That I enjoy his work and so will others. And that said, make sure the comments are moderated to delete the crazies.

Don Pettit is interested in looking at the natural world and finding a way to express how deeply he feels, loves, and appreciates his good fortune...all from a most unusual seat. While I sit in a small urban park and see a few yards around me...Don will soon be in the space station and looking down on an earth at once close to his heart and 250 miles away. I suggested he bring a good thesaurus and rhyming dictionary, and maybe some Robert Frost this time (he likes Robert Service too). I said he could get inspiration from how Frost would write about nature and it also was about something else. Don being a science guy, he will always bring that view, but he is also a guy with a huge heart... Weight being an issue, he will need to have electronic versions uploaded to him. Just think, I may be responsible for the first rhyming dictionary being beamed up to the space station.

So here's to trees and that great cloud trailing marble of earth. And portraits. The face of humanity is everywhere and my own eternal fascination. I hope I can see the you in you oh subjects of my scrutiny.

Study of Phillip Lopate

Study of Adrienne Rich