Barbara Froman's Blog, page 2

A Perfect Pairing…

…this 1898 silent short by George Albert Smith, and Bill Evans’ sweet and melancholy rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

May your celebrations be merry and bright, and your new year filled with hope.

Blessings, friends.

The Bigger they are….

So, if you happened to be shopping, or viewing, or listening on Amazon today, you may have hit a snag with your cart or streaming, or just trying to sign in.

I suppose it’s typical for some of us, but I thought it was me. I mean, that is my default setting if something goes wrong. It MUST be me (or, in this case, my old equipment). But, after hours of troubleshooting, resetting devices, reinstalling software, updating, cursing, and nearly pitching my phone AND computer out a window when n...

Fragments

Chèvre Cookies

Stop-and-go traffic. You inch forward. Maybe you see cars up ahead moving, and hope, and hope…but then realize you’ve been fooled. All of you creep and stop, creep and stop, creep and stop.

I’ve been chain reading. We’ve had several losses of dear friends in the past month, amid worrisome news about loved ones, and most of the books have provided a relief from grief and stress. I won’t bother you with the handful that did not, except to say that 80% of the prose in two of th...

Limits

Lake Scene by Philip Froman

I will try not to be angry. Not to vent. Not to litter this post with expletives. But, well, there is this….

If you have followed me on Twitter, under the handle, KeyboardMaven, you may have noticed that my account is suspended. I don’t know how, but I broke their “Rules.”

What is particularly infuriating about their action is that they now want a phone number in order to let me back into my account. My response to this? NO (biting tongue) WAY.

Consi...

Portrait

“Mademoiselle Boissiere Knitting” by Gustave Caillebotte

Old woman, bent with needle,
spinster, maiden, Mademoiselle,
intent on plaiting fictions.

Each stroke demands restraint.
She is compliant,
bound in proper bonnets, sturdy bows,
and stems an urge for wild unraveling.

Yet blushing cheeks,
nacreous rainbows in her purls,
their molten, platinum shimmer,
betray a piqued suppression.

Too late for one revolution,
too early for another,
she can’t escape the irony—
that immortality’s fabled t...

Moving On….

Painting by Philip Froman

The painting above has no title. My father completed this when he was in his eighties, after taking up a brush for the first time in his seventies. If you look closely, and listen, you can almost hear the water crash against the cliffs, feel its force. Standing in direct contrast to this painting, is a lake scene he painted around the same time which conveys only silence and peace. Both represent the man he was, his reflections about his life, and acceptance of the ...

Blossom Whine

What grand intelligence is this
that sends its tiny armies to undo, unfold,
’til every head bursts open?

What shameful mockery
leaves us thus, to hold our faces high
on so slim a stalk?

We, who would preen on every breeze?
But left unblessed, we droop
and sigh instead.

There must have been some lesson in it—
crafting beauty which
must be staked or caged.

Or was it just a drunken afterthought?
Or wager, perhaps, to see who would
overlook so glaring a flaw?

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Remember

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

Almost lost amidst dead leaves
and severed limbs,
a nest felled by the storm,
barely more than twigs.

On other walks, it would have been
a mass to be avoided,
side-stepped in the rain.
But reason,
shamed by distant fluttering,
let sentiment compel
a search for life
within that sodden lump,
so plainly delicate and still.

How to quell despair,
when prodding leaves no doubt,
spills a hash of shattered shells,
a mother’s beak still full?

I laid small stones by the...

Courtship

I caught you grooming earlier,
nose fixed to your fur,
engrossed in washing cheeks
and nether regions,
intent on looking clean,
and sharp, and able
for another
behind a rose bush,
shyly peering out.

When both of you had gone,
I spread a lovers’ feast
of leafy greens and ripened berries
through the clover,
knowing you’d return
when no one would be there to see
your dusk-tinged tryst,
or lament its fertile course.

Nature? Or enchantment?
But aren’t they the same?

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Miracles

I looked for you again
in the garden, as I have
each year when the light grows long
upon the grass,
remembering that moment
when you lit upon my knuckle,
your tatted wings the hue of
ripened limes,
and eyes like orchid beads,
and wondered what you were,
as I watched you breathe,
what passing phase—youth or age or in between—
delivered you to me,
and felt your flutters kiss my skin
before you floated out of sight,
and left me wanting more,
as miracles often do.

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