Connie's Page connie carlson or maybe your own. I'll start with words away from the heart of it. I will say 'sea of grain' instead of fields and you will think you understand better. I will not say 'brown,' but 'sable,' or maybe 'mink' and try to make you feel the way I do. Or not. Maybe you will come to better know your own thoughts through my metaphors and similes. As if you didn't have your own beat, your own drum. |
||
 Original photo: courtesy of connie carlson |
||
|
FUTURE PASTS connie carlson What were we then? Related by blood? Women always? Or brothers? Bonds created surely in another time. Our days, perhaps, spent at looms weaving plain, coarse cloth. Or exploring new worlds, fighting natives, retrieving grails - some part of our minds storing bits and pieces of the scene. Small pieces, through ages scattered as river rock. Strewn, serene, awaiting another flow. Memories splattered across eons, and gathered in flashes. Invisible filaments that connect and hold through life and death and life clashes. Some other far off epoch, all will be told when the pieces fit and memory is clear. Will we remember we were always here? MUSE-UAL SUSPECT connie carlson She shakes a pretty finger at me, as I set aside my paper, pen. I avoid her eyes. Again. She disappears repeatedly, popping up to suggest, she said, another way to see things. My head is full of other ways to see. It's writing it down that's causing stress. She clicks off, without pausing four or five ideas. Smug. Free. Turns off the light. Stands in shadows. Fades rather quickly. Wonder where she goes?  Photo courtesy connie carlson BEGINDINGS connie carlson The endings in life block the sun, surround us, hover, loom. Appear so quickly, surprise, stun, leaving little hope. No room to see the small bright light, just there, the candle newly lit, fresh flame. The new beginning, if we dare. No two moments are the same. No two loves, two lives, two plans. As one thing ends another starts Our breath the new fire gently fans. Beginnings, endings, just separate parts.  Photo courtesy of Desktop Themes; The Nature Conservancy, June-July 2001 DEATH FROM THE START connie carlson When this orb called earth was dark and cold and the sun had not caught fire. When history was unmade, untold, no life to live or expire. What was there, then, before the heat, before life imagined, known? Before decay, mold, mildew, peat, how were the first seeds sown?? And what walked, first, upon the land? What form first roamed and wandered? When the solar flames were finally fanned who was the first who pondered?? What was the first beast to be killed? Which being the cause of his end? And what prayers, when his heart was stilled, and to whom, did the slayer send??  Photo courtesy connie carlson BUEN AIRE connie carlson The sky, still bruised from the early storm. Threatening. Brooding. Around purple-black centers white clouds take form. The anger muting. Cool, damp air rustles tall grass and leaves. Supple limbs bending. A fresh clean world the good wind weaves. The tempest is ending.  Photo courtesy connie carlson WINDDRIFTS connie carlson There are so many winds. Each with a feel its own. High mountain wind that forces itself with a groan through tall pines and fir. Dry desert wind blistering camel-colored sand, leaving life stronger, able to defend against more powerful gusts. Sea breezes. Ahhh. Not just the press of air upon skin, but the magic that the ocean air brings. Guess at where it's been. Uninterrupted for hundreds of miles. Carrying foreign weather, secrets scrambled from opposite shores. Ever ferrying dreams fragmented, to be, perhaps restructured again in ways not yet imagined. On the wind all and nothing stays.  Photo courtesy connie carlson PICTURESQUE connie carlson Oh how I wish that I could draw the wondrous things I've seen! Just to be able to capture the awe of a landscape so serene. Holding a paint brush in my hand I'm afraid that I'm all thumbs, but when I look at the beautiful land phrases to my mind quickly come. So, while I'm unable to paint for you on canvass the world that I see. I'll capture with words the beautiful view so you can share it with me. I'll use all the brilliant colors' names, pastels and earth tones as well. With words I'll paint the land untamed and forest pictures I'll tell. Perhaps you'll see with the words I'll use the natural world I love. I'll use the rainbow's very hues for the sea and the sky above.  Photo courtesy connie carlson FRUITFUL connie carlson The fruit is heavy on the tree this year. Gold, pink, orange blended to what we know as apricot. A bit of green on sides near the tree limb. No sun there. That spot slow to ripen, a bit firmer than the rest. The ready ones come away at the least touch, falling, almost, into your hand. One bite. The best of course, have been bitten already. Birds have such particular tastes. Nibbling a bit here, a bit there. Never eating the whole of one, leaving, instead, many ruined. Soft, fragrant flesh exposed where the skin has been punctured, torn. Some small creature fed happily, then darted to another perfect fruit. They leave the over-ripe specimens where they lay rotting on the ground. Their beaks becoming flutes full of nectar. Beating me to the best. Flying away.  Photo courtesy connie carlson CLOUD WEAVER connie carlson The chaos swirls in clouds above my head. Beneath it, I am wrapped securely, warm in my alcove. Awaiting calm, energy sapped. Darker grow the clouds, the gloom. Safe, still, am I, though I am drained. Storm woven on an unseen loom. Secure but by my fear am chained. The blankets which have kept me warm, too heavy now upon my chest. I fling them back, and face the storm fearful, yet prepared to wrest the wizard of the darkened sky. To call him out into the clear. To ask of him, just once, why? To face, to conquer, wretched fear.  connie too Connie is published! Click here to order Connie's "Connecting Lines" Read about her publisher, "PublishAmerica", here.
|