Sunday, October 14, 2012

Oxbow Inspiration

If you've never been to Oxbow, a summer camp for artists located in Saugatuck, you certainly must go sometime.  It's a magical place.  Just now, in my search for a chapter of my book that I wanted to work on, I stumbled across some notes for poems that I had jotted down one afternoon at Oxbow a few years back.  I think I need a second visit to actually craft these into more concise poems.


Sweeping the Porch

Artists pleasantly ignore the gentle sweep of her broom
slide, lift, sweep
slide, lift, sweep.
She dances their furniture over this ancient wooden floor.

Their giggles do not stir her from her task,
the song is in her head,
the rhythm is in her broom.
It knows the dance that moves her across the floor.
Her fingers rest in these lightened grooves—
microscopic fingerprints of paint left on generations of hands.
Her memories retire and join others
already dancing in every fiber
of this worn wooden broom.

The same broom,
the same dance,
a similar story,
almost the same rhythm,
swish, sweep, and clunk.

_____________ ________________________________________________________________________

Artists do not wear tennis shoes.
Ballet slippers,
flip flops,
barefeet,
converse high tops, rolled over, maybe.

Paint is better cold between the toes.
She wears it black and trailing down her leg
watery icing snakes around her calf
a sophisticated temporary tattoo.
It’s not her art,
only an infant of her creation.

She tips toes to the lunch hall, leather sandals in hand.
The paint dries under her arches
miniscule cracks spread with each movement.


NOT DONE….NOT SURE WHAT TO DO WITH IT

_____________________________________________________________________________________


A detour from the trail to the crow’s nest will lead to the chicken coop.
More roosters than chickens
They warble and coo almost like a cat’s meow.
One egg rests outside the window of the coop.
The window is covered in chicken wire.
How did the egg get there?
How long has it been there?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

These goggles here hanging on the wooden bench
are for looking at white painted tree branches.

See nature and industry collide.

One would think, from first glance, these relics are simple paper birch branches.

Don’t be fooled.
Feel the texture.
Look beyond the surface.
The bark reveals their disguise.

This pile rests
decorated and discarded
with only the black locust tree
alive and standing guard.

Even so, the rain will trickle
and drip through these compound leaves.
Occasionally showers will pour through branches and run along the bark.
The bright white paint will fade and yellow.

A tiny mushroom will find a home.
Then another,
and another,
will set up camp at this forgotten oasis.

Ants and worms will crawl in the cracks of each branch’s virginal costume.
Soon only flecks of paint will dot this grassy soil.

But until the circus of events begins—
The black ant will wander confused
over the vast network of these white highways.

(Do you see him?                                                                            Use the goggles and look.)

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