September 11, 2025
Happy Birthday, Jordan Tilton.   We miss you.
Happy Birthday, Leo Hwang.

Very busy day.  This was my one photo and I will post my Tuesday's poem and tomorrow I will do better.  I actually read through a lot of this today and I am kind of amazed at how much I wrote in the beginning of the year.
I wanted to write about how violence begets violence this evening, but it's too late.  I does though, I think it was one of the first lessons I learned.  Violence doesn't work.

 

Museums Taught Me 

Under the willow

Sun bright

My internal soul sparked by color and shapes

from before I had knowledge of art

A pre-linguistic knowing of

canvases, paintings from a century ago.

I believe I've seen one or two before

Know I've been through their previous collections.

They have shaped my elder eye

Post education

Post language

My internal lens molded for years

And you'd think left behind

Instead finely etched

In fine porcelain,

embroidered

In satin jewel color thread

 

Museums taught me how to act

Began my training to see

Canvases stretched tall

Women whose stomachs were just round

enough

 

Once I thought I could be a model

Once I wanted to dance

Never did I think I could

Stomach too round from the start,

 

Taught me how to softly talk.

Spy on strangers so unlike me.

See life in frozen moments,

Glued together telling a story.

Glimpses into my pretending world

Taught me about light and depth

Space between people

Characteristics of an eye

 

Did I  really want to be an artist's model?

Did I already know too much about things I should not have known?

A wine cherry velvet  cloth?

The stroke of the back of a hand

The simple touch of strong lips?

 

The color and light of a park in Paris

How we got from here to there

From Belgium to Hudson

Renoir to Wyeth

And how that affects the framing of my photographs

Museums in my first 20 years

Were thick strong chord in

The braid of me


 

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