Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 51
January 8, 2021
Poem 8: On The Benefits of Hand-Writing A Letter
On The Benefits of Hand-Writing A Letter
The smooth torso of an inked or leaded utensil
Pressed in a bouquet of eager fingertips
Paper choice – the texture the smell
The rustle of communication
Electric pulses of language from brain
Through heart through soul – physical
Extensions of emotions in cursive flow
The gathering of thoughts in pauses
Looking out a window
Breath held in contemplation
To the confident tick of a second hand
Pulling Time around like a wagon
The art of reminiscing
The catharsis of explanation
The necessity of anger management
The heat of low-belly lust
The jazz of true love
The ocean of farewell
The final recipe of letting go:
Dated
Signed
Folded
Inserted
Sealed
Stamped
Sent
Virtual Class – A Few Spots Left!
There are a few spots left in the virtual class being offered through The Allie Sunshine Project. Here’s the info!
The Allie Sunshine Project
Winter Wellness Series Creative Living, Nurturing the Spirit Within
4 – week virtual class – Wednesdays, January 20, 27, Feb. 3, 10, 2021
Cost: $120
Series Description
As Covid is teaching us, change is a constant in life. In moving through new challenges, transition, and loss, creative self-care is essential to enhance our quality of life and wellness. This will be a series of four on-line workshops that promises to be engaging, fun and meditative while invigorating your unique creative spirit. Heartfelt teaching and guidance will be offered by local artists who are creative forces in our community. Sessions will be held virtually via Zoom on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30. No previous art or writing experience is necessary. Just bring your beautiful self and light!
Session Breakdown
Week 1
Wednesday, January 20: Intuitive Paint Play
Guest artist: Katherine Roth
Painter
6:30pm – 8:30pm
Week 2
Wednesday, January 27: Words in a Journal -The Art of Creative Expression
Guest artist: Vanessa Shields
Owner of Gertrude’s Writing Room
6:30pm – 8:30pm
Week 3
Wednesday, February 3: Heart of My Heart
Guest Artist: Deborah Dunlop
Owner of Fusion Fibre Arts
6:30pm – 8:30pm
Week 4
Wednesday, Feb. 10: Crystal Energy
Guest artist: Tracey Rogers
Owner of White Feather Holistic
6:30pm – 8:30pm
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
To reserve your spot, email Lynn Hayes at: lhayes@thealliesunshineproject.com
Lynn will send you details including a registration form and the link to the Zoom meeting. *Limited to 10 participants. Participants will receive info/packages for each class. Participants cannot take only one session in an effort to create an intimate community connection over the full four weeks.
January 7, 2021
Poem 7 – Green Beans
Green beans
Yesterday I washed the green beans
Cut off the stem-heavy ends
Heated the oil
Sautéed the garlic
Dropped in the parsley
Loaded the beans in the pot
Threw in a chunk of butter
(for my thighs)
Put the lid on the pot
Yesterday I burned the green beans
The smoke detector started singing
At quarter past three alarming me
Away from the forest of poetry
In which I’d been playing
The smoke-filled kitchen
Shook its walls at my error
I coughed as my throat
Caught the char in the air
A thick layer of tar-black
Beans sizzled in sadness
Later I checked Twitter
On a tired curiosity
Saw CNN’s live updates
At quarter past three –
Chanting mace-streams gun shots
Another pot heated to burning
This morning the house
Reeks of loss
January 6, 2021
Poem 6 – The Pause
The Pause
she must remember
to stop forgetting
what day it is
in the grand scheme
that is when the
blood will flow
there is a wreath of
forget-me-lots circling
her womb – a halo of
pure blues seeping scents
drug-like dulling the
light that lives in the
hearts of her last few eggs
no, she is not as ripe
nor as nimble as her
younger golden garden
just reaping a different
kind of radiance
the Pause is scraping
its shard-knuckled fingers
inside her holding place
undoing what is not quite
ready to be undone
one of the trials is timing
36, 42, 51 sleeps between
the reckonings of release
so she forgets that on day
28,35, 46 that her body
becomes possessed by
said Pause – her mind
a teeter-totter her heart
a broken clock her soul
well it hides and don’t
get her started on the heat
it is monsoonish
she must remember to
stop forgetting who she is
when the blood is preparing
to flow – she is moonbeam
harvesting a miracle
https://earthsky.org/human-world/what-is-a-blood-moon-lunar-eclipses-2014-2015
January 5, 2021
Poem 5 – Paris, at dawn
PARIS, AT DAWN
Another me slipped under my skin
last night as I was reading
she grabbed onto my spine
like it was a light lamp in Paris
my blood – a red-tinged fog
She was in Paris swinging
around the post one arm out
hugging the belly of the infant morning
she’d been up all night dancing
only the sequence on her silver dress
Remembered the names of the men
the sweet drinks the swanky bars
there was such abandon in her
scoops around the lamp post
then she stopped
Because she felt me staring
she let go of my spine
righted her dress
took a step toward
my heart (our heart) and
Looked through my eyes
at the wall of photos –
some thirty of them
hanging on the bedroom wall
a black and white collage
Storytelling my version of love
I heard her intake a quick breath
exhale a deep awe
she stepped closer
put her hand on the back
Of my heart (our heart)
her hand was warm
it was Paris at dawn
January 4, 2021
Virtual Class Announcement!
I’m grateful to be a part of the Allie Sunshine Project’s Winter Wellness Series – Creative Living, Nurturing the Spirit Within. The series is a four-week class that will ignite your spirit and nurture it to goodness! I will be leading the second session – Words in a Journal – The Art of Creative Expression. Here are the details for the whole series. Registration information is at the end.
The Allie Sunshine Project
Winter Wellness Series Creative Living, Nurturing the Spirit Within
4 – week virtual class – Wednesdays, January 20, 27, Feb. 3, 10, 2021
Cost: $120
Series Description
As Covid is teaching us, change is a constant in life. In moving through new challenges, transition, and loss, creative self-care is essential to enhance our quality of life and wellness. This will be a series of four on-line workshops that promises to be engaging, fun and meditative while invigorating your unique creative spirit. Heartfelt teaching and guidance will be offered by local artists who are creative forces in our community. Sessions will be held virtually via Zoom on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30. No previous art or writing experience is necessary. Just bring your beautiful self and light!
Session Breakdown
Week 1
Wednesday, January 20: Intuitive Paint Play
Guest artist: Katherine Roth
Painter
6:30pm – 8:30pm
Week 2
Wednesday, January 27: Words in a Journal -The Art of Creative Expression
Guest artist: Vanessa Shields
Owner of Gertrude’s Writing Room
6:30pm – 8:30pm
Week 3
Wednesday, February 3: Heart of My Heart
Guest Artist: Deborah Dunlop
Owner of Fusion Fibre Arts
6:30pm – 8:30pm
Week 4
Wednesday, Feb. 10: Crystal Energy
Guest artist: Tracey Rogers
Owner of White Feather Holistic
6:30pm – 8:30pm
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
To reserve your spot, email Lynn Hayes at: lhayes@thealliesunshineproject.com
Lynn will send you details including a registration form and the link to the Zoom meeting. *Limited to 10 participants. Participants will receive info/packages for each class. Participants cannot take only one session in an effort to create an intimate community connection over the full four weeks.
What is the Allie Sunshine Project?
This project was born to ignite learning and wellness in the name of educator and wellness pioneer Allison Hayes; a beautiful, generous, loving, caring, giving, woman who was taken too soon by leukemia. She loved to help others and our objective with the Allie Sunshine Project is to carry on her legacy.
To learn more, volunteer or donate, please click the link HERE.
Found Heart Poem, Amazon Poem
While I was labelling all my journals over the holiday, I found something I’d written on the back of a page of stickers.
It looks like it might have been the beginning of a song as ‘bridge’ and ‘chorus’ are included…And so, today we get a two-for…a two-fer? Two poems for one because I wanted to revisit this one, but also, I want to keep writing something new each day.
Here’s the found poem with some minor edits.
Found Heartsong
If you say you’ll pin
My heart on your sleeve,
I’ll say, no thanks, smile and leave.
If you say you’ll hold
My heart in your hand,
I’ll say, my friend, you don’t understand.
My heart belongs here in my chest.
To fight the fears and all the rest.
And if I don’t love me,
I can’t love you,
So what’s a lover supposed to do?
The thing with the heart is
It’s meant to break,
To hold the pain
For self love’s sake.
Answering Allen on Amazon
Amazon sent me an email.
Allen is asking about the foldable
camping table I purchased:
Would this be sturdy for a Blackstone griddle, and
does it have an aluminum top?
Who is Allen?
Where will he camp?
What is a Blackstone griddle?
Would he make me pancakes?
Does he have the patience to wait
for sap to unsnuggle from trees?
And a final thought…from Robertson Davies (Thank you, Charis and Graham for this mind-blower!)
A book is renewed every time it finds a perceptive reader, and no book is the same to every reader…Indeed, it is a reflection of the spirit of the reader, and I am truly convinced that we who are committed readers may appear to choose our books, but in an equally true sense our books choose us. By an agency that is not coincidence, but something much more powerful that Jungians call synchronicity, we find, and are found by, the books we need to enlarge and complete us. Reading is not an escape, something done at random; it is directed unerringly toward the inner target. It is truly a turning inward.It is exploration, extension, and reflection of one’s innermost self.
Robertson Davies, from The Merry Heart, pg. 26.
January 3, 2021
Poem 3 – Maple
Maple
It seems to me that the
Nine-arm double-trunk
Maple outside my window
Loves the snow
Appreciates the sting
Of its honest cold
Respects the refreshing
Hand-holding flakes spread
Over its bark like a cardigan
The tree is a display
Of humility – the night sky’s
Gifts received
January 2, 2021
Do You Know How Many Socks?
Do you know how many socks I walk by?
There’s one in the hallway
half-full of someone’s ghost foot
curled in an awkward twist against
the air return grate.
Another, thinned from being
gripped and stretched between
the dog’s teeth, lays like a jazz
singer over a piano, except the
piano in this case is a dog bone
purple and orange, seconded
constantly by the cotton stocking
A third, bright green, attempts to
blend with all its sock might into
the families of dog hair and dust
gathered over the New Year non-
celebrations, and hides under
the belly of the black amp.
I see them bravely waiting on the open
floors or scrambled then stuck beneath
a table, couch or tired black amp.
Leave them. Right where they are.
I open the curtains in the living room.
See the hail-puckered ice on the
grass, sidewalk. Touch with the
gentle gaze of my sleep-heavy eyes
the low white cloud large enough
to fill the entire sky. Sigh.
There’s a hint of deep grey like
a drop shadow somewhere
far behind the white. Between
the blue and night. Beside the sun.
Maybe it’s a sock.
A gray sock, thick knitted wool
a cherub dropped on heaven’s
floor on the way to the laundry
chute. Maybe it’s been blissfully
shredded by dogs. All dogs
go to heaven.
Surely, Mary Mother of Us,
leaves it on the floor.
Opens the curtains.
I am the first up in the house this morning. I like the house first thing in the morning. I can hear the sound of the heated air blowing out of the vent at my feet in my little office. I can hear the second hand shimmy around the clock. My body is tired but my brain is awake. Last night I dreamed dreams of crime and porn getting stuck on the television while the kids were in the room. Please don’t ask me why. *she shakes her head.*
Today I will write, reorganize the bathroom, fold laundry, do yoga…have a writing dreams 2021 session. Yesterday I spent hours deep in oracle cards and ink in my journal. Bliss.
I finished reading Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell. It was incredible. A deep dive into a fictionalized world of Shakespeare, his wife, Agnes (she is also Anne), their love and family life. It’s an inspired story I was sad ended. And what a last line. Phew.
I started Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. It’s scooted me ahead in time to New York City in the late 1930s. It’s a ‘capital’ read so far.
I’m watching The West Wing with my husband. It’s stellar. I cry nearly every episode; tears of both joy and heartbreak. If only ran the White House. Do watch his Masterclass on screenwriting.
I’m working my way through all the Masterclasses on writing. So far I’ve watched David Sedaris and Billy Collins. Continuing to learn about the craft of writing is also a priority.
The title is a welcome mat…be simple and create access to the first few lines…
Billy Collins, Masterclass
What are you reading? Watching? Writing?
January 1, 2021
An Order of Things
January 1, 2021
This new year doesn’t feel new. Doesn’t feel different than yesterday or the day before. Doesn’t feel like a cooper’s hawk has taken flight and is pulling away in its strong talons the virus-lined shroud that has clouded the planet for months. There will be more of this.
I cried for all the fear still stumbling in my veins like a younger ‘me’, drunk on heartbreak and tequila, puking on someone’s lawn at 2am on a Sunday morning. The truth is that I’m wavering. So unsure. About everything…except love. And so, as this beginning begins I’m not lifting my hips to the sound of the race-gun thundering. Nope. I’m standing tall and walking to the centre field where the grass is blotchy with weeds, dirt, cold and a littered Tim Horton’s cup. I want to be one with a thing that knows itself like grass knows its green.
I don’t know what to do next, except to keep doing what I’ve been doing. Stammering in the ‘I Don’t Know’. Pausing to listen to the poems. Forcing myself to write them down. To share. To stop fuc*ing worrying. To stop being so damn afraid. I’m hoping yoga will help me with this.
Last night, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t watch the light-studded ball drop in Times Square. Our antenna was facing the wrong way (or something), so we had no live television. I slept from 11pm until 11:50pm on the sofa, wrapped in fleece blankets with Santa on them. The kids woke me and we all looked at our devices to watch as 11:59pm clicked into 12:00am. The whole year ended in quiet. Then we hugged. Hugged so tightly. Said Happy New Year, but not yelled or banged on pots, just said it softly. Someone in the neighbourhood lit off fireworks. We watched, listened. I felt the smoke of the after-fire more than the bright greens and oranges of the sky-flower-explosions.
And so I’ve whittled it down to a list. A simple and complicated list. A list of tangible and intangible choices. Seven things in an order. Seven goals. Seven opportunities. Seven ways to be. Seven ways to do. This is not a time for a one-word year. This is not a time for best-of or worst-dressed. If we’re making lists, let them be written from the pens in our souls. Let them come from within and reach out in goodness, kindness, hope, and truth. Start at 1 or 5. There is no order in the order of things. Just the things to give energy to with dignity and compassion.
POEM DAY 1 – Amaryllis
I bought an amaryllis because it had
a nice vase. The fat ball of its bulb
made me think of a plump bum.
I put it in the shopping cart on
top of the on-sale candles –
buttered rum, cedar wreath
then followed the voice of the
frontline worker to go to aisle 4.
Red. I thought the petals would
bloom red but in fact this amaryllis
is white. The colour of new. The
shape of resilience. The trumpet-shape
mouth of faith with a stem made for
hope. The despair of waiting for its
openings was short. Within days –
four massive flowers unfolded.
Someone said it’s good luck when
an amaryllis blooms in four. I kissed
each silky petal in gratitude. Named
her Amour. Made her a poet’s mascot.
Her second arm is pushing up in haste.
Nudging the belly of its foremother.
Thank you Mariette for the words: amaryllis, amour, faith, despair, hope, resilience, new.
December 23, 2020
Solstice Poem
the constant dazzle of stars reminds us how to honour –
the black sky
the patient moon
the gathering of light so it can rest
the day with the shortest light
is the day with the thickest hope
as we fold into the knowing of the night
christmas can be found in every evening’s arch toward morning’s neck –
the promise of love as it passes from the lips of yesterday to now
Thank you poet Mariette for the writing prompt to write a poem using the following words: solstice, light, honour, Christmas, star.
