Yesterday was an afternoon of glazing for a firing (which is now cooling as I type).  In the evening, knowing I needed something besides the bright numbers on the side of the kiln to share for Art Every Day Month, I finished the ceramic heart focal you see here, and cut the copper for these earrings from a recycled sheet.  It cuts like butter.  The holes punch as easy as pie.  I LOVE the freedom for creativity that gives me!

Here are today’s poems.  I love Margaret Atwood’s writing (well, her latest prose, starting with Oryx and Crake has left me kinda cold – but her earlier stuff?  Awesome!), and I think this is my favorite poem of hers because it shows, doesn’t tell, and reminds me of the underpinning of all great writing:  trust your reader to understand or work it out.

Untitled (by Tammy Vitale)

I have been sucking ice chips
from the bottom of my glass
since we began this dance.
The hair on my arm
and at the nape of my neck
has risen away from the skin
          a portent I’ve heard
of coming lightning.
Around us smoke and conversations
swirl over and under the rumble
of a mad guitar
below rapid light pulse and
quicker still heart beats
as your gaze brushes my face
like wind bringing spring rain,
and I notice the sweet smell
of some drink you have been sipping
all night waiting to see whether
I will flee before the breaking storm.

Siren Song
      by Margaret Atwood

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn:  the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer.  This song

is a cry for help:  Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last.  Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

Wylde Women’s Wisdom

The world needs us to be who we came to be, not the drugged, sleep-walking, quietly desperate people we have squished ourselves into.  None of us can afford this.  Start spending your heart and soul and spirit on things that matter.  The world is depending on it!  Tammy Vitale