Surfacing Visions

"Creation"  -  Watercolor

 Watercolor and Mixed Media          Copyright 2016.  All Rights Reserved.

The Moths

by Mary Oliver

There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink mocassin flowers
are rising.

If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.

And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.

If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.

If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world
can’t be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.

Finally, I noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.

How long do they live, fluttering
in and out of the shadows?

You aren’t much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.

The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.

At night, sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless
in those dark halls of honey.

Reshapes

"Reshapes" - Mixed Media Watercolors and Ink       Copyright 2016.  All Rights Reserved.

A Shape with Forty Wings

by Luke Hankins

Love is strange and calls me to stranger things.
When I was young I thought that I'd know why.
I've drawn my life—a shape with forty wings.

The woods at night are full of awesome beings.
Listen carefully and you can hear them cry:
Love is strange and calls us to stranger things.

I want to follow everything that sings,
but I cannot tell you how afraid I am to fly.
I've drawn my life—a shape with forty wings.

The unseen Being deep inside me brings
ideas to mind I hope I'll never try—
Love is strange and calls me to stranger things.

Possibilities surround me in concentric rings.
A light shines down that I cannot see by,
yet I've drawn my life—a shape with forty wings.

I walk about as if I understood my wanderings.
If You are near, show me how to die.
Love is strange and calls me to stranger things.
I've drawn my life—a shape with forty wings.