Saturday, December 28, 2013

Ice and Snow

So: 
we've had snow and ice
and ice and snow
and rain and sleet
and sleet and rain
and snow and ice
and so it goes

You can hardly breathe
it is so beautiful:






(*Click to enlarge. Stick your face right in there. xx)




Saturday, December 7, 2013

Stones


Stones on my desk

When I am thinking
I'll pick one up
and roll it around
in my hand

they're cool and smooth
and reassuring

they're simple
and astonishing

and I love them

xx

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The Boy on the Porch: Fiction Enters 'Real Life'


When I wrote The Boy on the Porch, I was still living in western New York, with no plans to move, but by the time the book was finished, my husband and I were moving to Maine, following other family members, including two beloved grandchildren.

In The Boy on the Porch, a boy rides a cow. I do not know where that came from. However, several months after moving to Maine, my granddaughter joined 4-H and fell in love with cows.  She liked to sit or lie on their backs after feeding and grooming them:


Mind you, I don't think she had ever mentioned cows before this, nor had I ever heard of a child riding a cow before I wrote The Boy on the Porch.
*
In The Boy on the Porch, a boy is found asleep on a porch.  A week after we moved to Maine, I went out onto our porch and discovered a young boy curled up in a chair:


Okay, this one is not so strange, as I knew the boy, my grandson, but I had a moment's flash of that phrase "the boy on the porch" that initiated the whole book.
*

This is the story of the mystery of a child ('mystery' in several senses), and it is the story of the ways in which children and adults shape each other. 

My own children and grandchildren and all my students were mysteries (in many senses) to me, and I'm fairly certain we have shaped each other along the way.

Mm?

xx





Saturday, November 30, 2013

Through the Window Glass


If you scroll back one day in this blog
you'll see this same view
in
different weather

and if you were to lean in closer
on this snowy day
you'd pass through
the window glass


and be right here
right now

. . .

xx

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Inside Out, Outside In


Shadows on an upstairs railing
mimic the slim trees outside
stretching upward

and
the cold clear waters of the pond
mirror the pure perfect blue 
of the sky on this cold windy wintry day
in Maine

and the sun
that floating white light orb
(can you see it?)
is a reflection


entering the window behind me
and flinging itself into
the sky opposite
and bouncing back inside
onto my small head

I don't know if I am
outside or inside
sometimes

xx

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Maiden's Cliff


Maiden's Cliff
Camden, Maine

a beautiful hike


with beloved people



and dogs, too

Most of us wearing neon orange
to alert hunters
to our presence

Such a day!

xx

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Red Wheelbarrow


so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

laden with brown
leaves

beside the white
birches

xx


Monday, November 4, 2013

Wicked Restroom


Check out the 'wicked' restroom
at the Farnsworth Museum
in Rockland, Maine. . .

This ties in with their current
Wizard of Oz 
display. . .

Makes you smile, mm?

xx

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Writers Gather

Some of the writers and illustrators
and other noted book people
at the recent Rhode Island Festival
of Children's Books & Authors:


Kate Messner with Professor Susannah Richards


Chris Van Allsburg with Jarrett Krosoczka


Gregory Mone with Avi


Editor Susan Rich with Dan Santat


and the illusive Lemony Snickett

**

Much love for enthusiastic readers
and much love for fellow writers 
and illustrators
and book lovers.

We did laugh an awful LOT.

xx

Thursday, October 24, 2013

The Harbor


Down in the harbor
boatmen and women
are making repairs


steadily preparing
to wrap up for winter


cocooning



as the sun 
slides lower and lower
in the sky


and the dinghies
lie in wait


for their final shuttles
of the season
. . .



xx


Saturday, October 12, 2013

Refilling the Well: or Why I'm Not Getting Any Writing Done


I give up.

The next/new story
is just not going to get written

until

it turns ugly
outside.

xx

Monday, October 7, 2013

Sudden Beauty

You're carrying a load of laundry
down the hall
you round the corner 
and there!
whoah!
on the windowsill:


You stop
you freeze
you are struck dumb


It's too much
this sudden beauty
on laundry day

*

Sometimes I think 
I should never write another word
because words pale
in comparison
to 
so much else.

xx

Sunday, September 29, 2013

About those tomatoes . . .


Oops.

In the last blog post
a photo of tomatoes on the vine
prompted the recall of
a long-ago poem.

I thought the first two lines were:

clothes on the line
tomatoes on the vine

BUT!
Today I remembered the correct version:

flowers on the vine
bermudas on the line

summer came and 
summer went and 

no one fed the swine.

++

Ho! 



Flowers!
Bermudas!

No tomatoes!

Brains are amazing storehouses . . .

xx








Thursday, September 26, 2013

Tomatoes on the vine . . .


Yesterday I brought in these
unripened tomatoes
to save them from frost

but seeing them today
jolted me back to a poem
I wrote and published
(in a small journal)
over thirty years ago

I'm still looking for a copy of the poem
but here are the lines
I can remember so far:

clothes on the line
tomatoes on the vine
summer came and summer went
and no one fed the swine . . .

Well!
I didn't say it was a good poem.

xx

Monday, September 23, 2013

The Boy on the Porch: Beginning


Usually I begin writing a story when a clear and insistent image appears in my mind of a character and a place. That initial image often becomes the opening image of the book, as it does here:


I'm curious about that boy and the people who find him, and so I write the story to learn more.

I hope that readers will be curious, too, and will read the story to learn more. . . and will like what they read.

xx

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Water and Rock


The only noise
is 
water against rock


water against rock

water against rock

xx

(Acadia National Park, Mt. Desert Island, Maine)


Friday, September 13, 2013

The Original Cubism

Wicked storms blew through
trees down
power out for twelve hours

One result, from the fridge: 


My husband calls it

'the original Cubism'

xx

Friday, September 6, 2013

Communing with Ocean, part two


You are lured in by
the tree-framed view




to stand on the rocks
and breathe


to kneel by water's edge
and admire.

It is good to disappear
into such grandeur

xx

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Communing with Ocean


The pull of the ocean is so strong

sun  sand  water


rocks  seaweed  shells


bliss

xx

Monday, September 2, 2013

Sheep Talk

There was some
sheep talk
going on
at the fair
in 
Union, Maine:



I was eavesdropping.

xx

Monday, August 19, 2013


There's an awful lot
of local pressure
for
my next book
to be about
a
cow.

Mm.

xx

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Boy on the Porch


(Coming September 3, 2013)

This is the newest book, out in a few weeks.  

The title floated in my head as I woke one day two years ago, although I did not recognize it as a title. It was merely a phrase, insistent enough that it stuck with me through the morning.  The following day, it appeared again as I awoke, and later that day after a nap, again: "the boy on the porch."  A few days later, again.  And again.  And again.

Okay, okay, okay.  I will write to find out about the boy on the porch!


Saturday, August 3, 2013

Student Art: Decorated Envelopes


Fan mail with illustrated envelopes
makes me smile.


Why don't more of us
indulge in this art?


Maybe you will send a letter
to someone today
and decorate its envelope

Mm?

xx