Hope washes up from the sea As you walk along the tide: A clamshell nudging against your foot Interrupting your stride. Its shape and form ambiguous Presenting a mystery to your eyes: Which the front and which the back? Two-sided as it lies. Its surface feels uncertain When you take it from the sand, To touch both smooth and rough And able to cut your hand. It might freely open in your palm Inviting you in like a friend But might hold fast and shut you out Unyielding to the end. Although it could give nourishment— A meal from the meat that lined it— Still such a shell might be a loss, Already empty when you find it.
Authorship
A novel is Falling off a cliff And throwing up a line Hoping it catches On the edge To grapple you back to safety Or at least to arrest your fall.
A Little Bit of Process: Sower
For a panel in my work-in-progress, I first sketched out the image I had in my head (3 Jl 2021):
Afterwards I wrote a brief description in the word-processing document that includes the text for the entire story:
<ZAJ: walking along barren, bare yellow-brown land, casting handful of five tiny dark-brown seeds to ground, has NO bag with more seeds; wears simple jeans loose and baggy, thin button-up long-sleeved shirt open at top with undershirt beneath, sleeves rolled at elbows, boots under pants legs; show land going on and on around her, all bare>
A year and a half later (7 Fb 2023) I finally got around to doing a regular drawing, which I did without more than a glance at the original sketch. I ended up with this:
Two months later I happened to look at the sketch version again and couldn’t help thinking it was much superior in feeling to the “finished” drawing (which I had examined recently when posting it in “Teaser Fragments 8”).
So I made a new drawing (12 Ap 2023):
And I’ll be using this one for the final work.
Consolation
(15 April 2023)
In my isolation The only comfort: You never ceased to love me. To know, And see, Day to day In your heart (Our heart) I was Not forgotten Not unloved Not despised But only Misbelieved.
Teaser Fragments 8
Still more unpolished snippets from my work in progress.
•
•
•
