In Shakespeare's Steps

Will anyone find it?

I have this sneaking suspicion that no one is coming to this site but me. Here it is, at last, however. This is the beginning of “In Shakespeare’s Steps”. If anyone gets here and reads it, let me know what you think.

IN SHAKESPEARE'S STEPS

Introduction

The first time Emily saw Roxanne Dane she was three years old and engaged in the first
illegal act of her life. There was a tasteful, but very specific sign under the ivy arch
detailing, tastefully, but very specifically, a list of illegal actions. No cameras or
recording devices. No Smoking. No Children Under the Age of Six. The fact that Emily,
at three, could read the sign, and anything else for that matter, was of no interest
whatsoever to the powers that be. The sign said very clearly, in lovely curley black and
white letters: No Children Under the Age of Six.

In the free floating time warp of the very young, it had seemed to Emily that they
stood in the line outside the ivy arch for a very long time. Long enough for her to read the
sign, and especially that one pertinent line, over and over until she figured it was tattooed
backwards in her forehead. Emily had not quite assimilated the fact that her mind went a
lot faster than the mundane running of the rest of the world. That was something she
would come to understand gradually. She would come slowly to accept how different she
was and to savor and cherish those others she found who were different as well; those
whose divergence and acceptance allowed her to be same.

Em hadn’t really been scared, during that long, long wait, she knew that the butterfly
wings that were beating blue rainbows in her throat were excitement, not fright. She had
been wearing her Juliet Dress, a strange satin concoction of her mother’s that was more
empire than Elizabethan, with a weight in the hem which made it drag splendidly along
the ground. Emily had very carefully stood all the way up on her toes underneath the
trailing skirt, making herself a good two inches taller. She was already tall for her age and
also completely confident that the tasteful sign underneath the ivy arch did not apply to
her. At three, there were various things that Emily was not confident about, but she was
confident about this. The rule had been made to keep out children who would fuss and
wiggle and make noise, distracting from the magic. None of those things applied to her,
she neither fussed nor wiggled and she understood magic to the clear, singing center of
her bones. And so she had broken the written rules gracefully, with a fair amount of
natural balance and complete self-possession, handing the tall man with the red vest her
ticket and smiling slightly, she had walked on her toes underneath the arching ivy and
into another world.

The last time that Emily saw Roxanne Dane she was wandering deep in that other world,
but rather than being enchanted and entranced, she was immersed in the prosaic and
pedestrian up to her ears. She was going through script notes meticulously and
scrupulously checking the copy on her computer against both the Folio and the Arden
editions of Romeo and Juliet. With a sharp scalpel of ink, she dissected and carved
Shakespeare’s beautiful words, period by comma by dash by semicolon. Painstakingly
polished and perfected. Dull. Drab. Dry. The pen clamped between her teeth
occasionally fell with a dead thud on the keyboard when she yawned, feeling like her jaw
was going to crack or come unhinged. ‘Why does anyone care if there are four dots in an
ellipse rather than three?’ she thought wearily. And if it is such a big deal, why did
someone type four dots all the way through the entire script? If all of her education and
training had taught her anything, it had taught her that ‘somebody’ did care how many
dots there were in a ellipse. Seymore’s ‘Fat Lady,’ Emily thought distractedly,
remembering Salinger’s “Franny and Zoey,” I’m correcting the punctuation for the Fat
Lady. It was warm and airless and the hours from four to six p.m. seemed like a life
sentence.

Roxanne had appeared in the doorway of Emily’s small office, bringing a metaphorical
and literal breath of fresh air with her. Emily looked up, actually smelling the bright,
fresh, winter sunshine that was quickly disappearing somewhere out there, outside the
confines of her small, book lined cell. Roxanne smiled at Emily sitting hunched over her
script, her mobile, eloquent face full of expression.
“Hey, Toots,” she sang out as she sailed into the room, “any chance of springing you for
fifteen minutes for a quick cup of coffee?”
“Boythscottingkawfee,” said Emily around the pen in her mouth.
“Oh, that’s right,” Roxanne said with an tolerant smile. “You gave it up for . . . something
that wasn’t Lent.”
“We are sending the money we normally spend on coffee to an organization that supports
Fair Trade,” said Emily with a note of chagrin in her voice. “I know, I know, how
terrifically Ashland.” She shrugged, one eyebrow lifting sightly. “It seemed like a good
idea at the time. Too bad all the money we usually spend on coffee isn’t enough to buy
anybody anything but a cup of coffee.”
“It is a typically generous, and very good idea,” said Roxanne firmly. “Who is ‘we?’ Is
everyone in on this one?”
Emily’s forehead folded. “I think so . . . at one point. Maybe. Basically, it’s just Ivy and I
not going to Starbucks. Not really a revolutionary movement, Ivy doesn’t drink coffee
anyway.”
“I went looking for Ivkins,” said Roxanne. “She is on break, but she is sitting on The
Bricks in the sunshine with a notebook on her lap and her mouth slightly open, staring
across Pioneer street at the roof of The New Theater like she has seen god. I figured she
was writing and decided not to rouse her.”
Emily smiled. “You’re probably right. She gets intoxicated by the Muse, or possibly the
afternoon sunshine. I hope she remembers to go back to work.”
“Well, if not, we can always roll her down to Martino’s at Happy Hour.”
“What a good idea,” said Emily with sudden expression. She stared at the neutral wall for
a moment. “Beer,” she said reverently.
Roxanne gazed at Emily’s blank face and her smile softened. “You miss England,” she
said. Roxanne . . . so perceptive, as always, so perceptive that it was almost spooky.
Emily’s eyes snapped back to the present, focusing on Roxanne’s intriguing, always
changing face. “You are a bloody psychic, Roxy,” she said pensively. “How do you
always manage to read our minds so exactly?” She managed a tired smile. “Shrewd,” she
said, “Incisive. Probing. Roxannish.”
“Hunh,” Roxanne snorted, “it’s my Gypsy blood. And, of course, the fact that you are all
so simple minded.”
Emily laughed out loud. “That’s the truth! At least I am. At four p.m. when the oxygen in
here totally runs out.”
“Come and get some tea. Mocha. Yerba Mate. Ice Water. All work and no play . . .”
“Get’s the script notes out on time,” said Emily woefully.
“You are right,” said Roxanne, smiling. She stood up and stretched her back like a cat,
rolling her shoulders. “And it saves you from dealing with bitchy actors like me who want
their script notes the week before last yesterday.”
“Uh hu. You are always so bitchy.” said Emily sarcastically. “And I know just how
simple minded you think we all are.”
There was a long, unaccustomed silence. “I’m very proud of you Toots,” said Roxanne
softly. “ . . . all of you.” Her smile was suddenly gone, leaving her face unnaturally
motionless. For the first time in her life, the thought strayed through Emily’s mind that
Roxanne was getting old. Her hands hung strangely still and heavy at her sides. She
seemed to be looking past the Renaissance print on the wall, past the wall, past the past.

She looked back at Emily and swallowed visibly. The lost, haunted look had been
replaced by one of purpose. It was the look that Roxanne got when she was about to say,
“Alright! Enough fooling around. Let’s DO this!” This particular look didn’t happen very
often and it had been a long time since Emily had seen it. She blinked, a little startled.
“Emily,” said Roxanne forcefully, “come here.” Emily put down her pen, stood up
and crossed the small office slowly. Roxanne reached out and took both of her hands.
“You do know, don’t you how important what you are doing is?”
Emily smiled. “Yes, Roxanne, I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it. I only bitch in the
late afternoon when I’m tired.”
“I’m not worrying about you bitching. Bitch all you want. I want to be sure you
understand, very deeply, the importance of your work. All of the actors in the whole
world could go down the drain, and take all of the directors and light Tech’s and scene
designers and . . . every one else with them and there would still be Shakespeare. Without
you guarding the integrity of the work, being sure that what is being said is true, is
constant, is authentic to the man’s vision; in twenty years they would have pulled him to
pieces like a lion on a gazelle. ‘It wouldn’t matter if one comma was wrong’, ‘so what if
we change this word or the whole line, it will fit with out concept better.’ ‘Lets just cut
that character, who cares if the plot hangs on him, we’ll just adjust the plot.’ Without a
Dramatrug sitting they saying, “Sorry folks you can’t do that,” or going through a script
carefully taking out all the ellipses that are wrong, pretty soon somebody would say, lets
just take them out and . . .”

“Whoa!” said Emily suddenly. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did I say something
about ellipses?”
Roxanne smiled her normal Roxanne smile and Emily felt herself begin to breath
normally again. She wondered what had gotten into both of them. Why did Roxanne
suddenly want her to know how important her job was? And why had she almost stopped
breathing?”
“No,” said Roxanne laughing. She shook both Emily’s hands and then let go. “I picked up
an early script because I wanted to see something about my entrances. I noticed the
ellipses. They went right past the last person who checked this script, but I knew you’d
catch them.”
Emily looked at the ceiling, her eyes rolling. “Yeah, I caught them and there are six
thousand of them!”
Roxanne smiled back. “Six thousand correct ellipses. Besides what else you’ve caught,
which is plenty I’d guess.”
Emily looked around at her desk and sighed again. “I have. I don’t know who checked
this script last, but they were either half asleep or on something.”
“Both entirely possible. The next time they do R&J someone will say, “Why did I have to
check this bloody script, it’ perfect!’ and someone else will reply, ‘well, yeees, Emily St.
Claire did the work.”
Emily laughed. “And I think no one will ever notice anything. But, I’ll keep doing it. For
the Fat Lady.”
Roxanne smiled. “Salisnger. Yes, for the Fat Lady.” Her voice got very quiet, “it’s why
all of us here do what we do.” The empty look was back and she reached for Emily’s
hands again. When she spoke her voice had an odd ritualistic note. Emily had heard it
before, however and she knew what it was.
“And who is Emily,” she said, “And what does she hold?”
Emily bit her lip, and looked at her feet, feeling a little bit frightened. Where was this
coming from? Roxanne shook her hands again very slightly, bringing their eyes back
together.
“I am the Anna,Earth Mother,” said Emily softly, solemnly, looking right into Roxanne’s eyes.
“I hold survival, health, stability. I ground. I evoke gravity, Saturn, Ganesha. I wear red, I
wear the garnet and the bloodstone.” They both looked down at Emily’s right hand
where she wore the double stoned ring Roxanne had given her when she turned twenty-
one. Her hand was held in Roxanne’s left hand, where she wore the diamond and
amethyst ring that the girls had given her just a year ago.” Roxanne smiled and gave
Emily’s hands a small squeeze. “Muladhara,” said Emily softly, “I am the root, the earth,
I guard the right to have.”

Roxanne dropped Emily’s hands and nodded sharply. “Yes,” Her voice softer than her
nod. “Indeed you are. Don’t forget it. Promise me.”
“I will never forget it,” said Emily. “What on earth on you on about Roxanne?”
“Nothing,” said Roxanne waving a hand. “Just trying to wake you up before you fell
asleep on your keyboard.”
Emily just looked at with her head on one side. “What’s wrong? Is this about Ivy?”
Roxanne looked even more troubled. “Partly.” She was silent a second, her lips pressed. “She will need you . . . don’t let her get lost in her head. Keep her feet on the ground.”
Emily smiled. “I’ve been doing that for years.”

“Indeed you have. Carry on. You know what you are doing.” Roxanne looked at Emily hard and repeated, “You know what you are doing.”
Then suddenly the moment was over, as quickly as it began, and Roxanne was once again a compact package of flowing movement. “Ok for you Toots,” she said. I’m going to go roll Ivy down to Bloomsbury for tea.”
Emily stretched and yawned. “I’ll come next time, Roxy, I promise.”
“Next time sweetheart,” She stood up on her toes and kissed Emily’s cheek, then her lips twisted and she blinked as if she were trying not to cry. “Next time," Roxanne whispered. She touched
Emily’s arm briefly and disappeared through the doorway into a shimmering patch of
winter sun.

Bawdy Bard Buttons - Win Some Today!

Introducing: The Bawdy Bard Button!


I am still writing like a manic. I figure I must keep the Bard rolling, as it were. In a comment below Clair said something about Ivy and Buddy being born on Christmas. I decided to offer some of those intensely coveted Bawdy Bard Buttons to see if anyone can figure out some of my little twists. Bawdy Bard Button Points will be calculated when the book is finished and magnificent prizes will be awarded!! Be the first on your block to solve the mystery’s in the Bawdy Bard Button Questions!


The first one is easy, so whoever figures it out gets 10 BB B’s. The second is harder, it will glean you 50 Bawdy Bard Buttons! The points will be accumulated and magnificent prizes awarded! You’ve got to post your answers in the comments section to this entry.

BBB Quiz #1. (10 BBB)

Here are my main characters Birthdays. Find what the link is for 10 Bawdy Bard Buttons


December 21, 1980 - Ivy Delaria Anthony & Holen Ilex Anthony are born in Ashland, Oregon
February 2, 1980 - Emily Anne St. Claire is born in Los Angeles, California
March 21, 1980 - A. Ray Andreason is born in Amherst, Massachusetts
April 31, 1979 - Ivan Alexander Collingwood V is born in Boston, Massachusetts
May 1, 1980 - Channa Rachel Rebecca Rossenstein is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
July 10, 1980 - Mark Garnet is born in Medford, OR
June 21, 1980 Arianna Llewellen is born in Beaumaris, Anglesey, North Wales, UK
September 21, 1980 - Brandy Byington is born in Ashland, OR
October 31, 1980 - Wayne Williams Ivory is born in Ashland, Oregon
August 1, 1979 - Colton Douglas Ivory is born in Ashland, Oregon


BBB Quiz #2. (50 BBB)

2. Using just the girls names figure out what they have in common. 50 Bawdy Bard Buttons!

Ivy Delaria Anthony
Emily Anne St. Claire
A. Ray Andreason
Channa Rachel Rebecca Rosenstein
Arianna Llewellen
Brandy Byington
Roxanne Dane

Over the Top!

What follows is a detailed report on a Very Good Day for Pooh Bears . . .


which was yesterday.

I began Thanksgiving Day alone at my computer where I finished the chapter I was writing, added it to the Master File and uploaded the whole thing to the Official Word Counter of NaNoWriMo.

The count rolled in at 52,585.
{{{So.}}} I have done it. I made it. I’m over the top with seven days to go. As we used to say in my Rodeo Days: YeEH-HAW!

I lit a candle and had some orange juice to celebrate.

My calculations were quite correct, I have over 50,000 words, but I do not have a novel. Like that empty/full glass that we perpetually wonder about, there are several ways to look at this.



I don’t have a novel, but I have 52,585 more words than I did on November 1. I also have a pretty good idea where to go from here. In other words, the work has just begun. I have learned quite a lot in the last three weeks. One thing is just that: the work has just begun. Another is that I am capable of doing the work. I have also learned that I really love the work. Even if I never finish the book, going through the process was worth it, if only for those three insights.

I didn’t try to end on Thanksgiving, it just happened. It did make it possible for this to be the first thing on my Thankful list. I have a new gratitude journal that is covered with red velvet. It is beautiful and feels lovely in my hands. I saved it to give to myself as a prize when I finished 50,000 words. The first thing I wrote it was that I was grateful to have the beautiful journal and indeed the materials to write. My Great-grandmother faithfully kept a journal using the margins of old letters, the few books she owned and every scrap of paper she ever found. I appreciate this electric-light-paper where my words come up as fast as my fingers can go, and I am thankful for the beautiful, blank, creamy paper in my new journal. There are few things more beautiful to a writer than a blank page, especially when you have the confidence to know you can fill that empty, hollow space with words. I do love words!

So I’ve made the goal at NaNoWriMo, but “In Shakespeare’s Steps” will still be here.

I will still be documenting the process until I’ve finished it. Please keep coming to visit. I’m expecting to get Post Show Depression any time now and will need to be cheered up, just as I have been cheered on!

Seriously folks, thank you so much for being here with me. Your comments here and knowing that you were reading and sending me good energy made an enormous difference in my being able to do this.

This is in the last chapter that I finished.

Ivy’s Prayer

Blessed Be the song of seasons
Blessed Be the firelight
Blessed Be the dawn awakened
Blessed Be the sacred night
Blessed Be the earth beneath me
Blessed Be the sky above
Blessed Be the Goddess giving
Blessed Be the grace of love


Blessings to you all ~
~ Winnie

Story of a Turkey Not Eaten

Do you remember this guy? Wow, I do!

I don’t know, can you assume there is an extra turkey or a turkey was saved just because you didn’t eat one? By the same logic there are dinosaurs and Humid Hibberty Hoppers, because I didn’t eat them either.

We decided not to have a “big” Thanksgiving this year. We finally figured out that we are adults and we can do what we want.:-O (What a concept!) And so ~ we transferred my children’s favorite holiday from Friday to Thursday and begin our season of Fauxolidays. Stick with me, it gets complicated, but it’s fun. Fauxolidays were invented by my eldest daughter who has come up with the excellent idea of Faux-mas. This is the thing: One of my daughter’s has a very significant other now, which gives us a new son, we like that part a lot. However, it also gives my daughter a new family. Last year my son -in-love spent Christmas with us in Utah, so his family expects them this year. It’s only fair.

Fair isn’t good enough, though. Both my daughters thought they would probably die from it. They have never spent a Christmas season apart. Then the eldest (who is very crafty) came up with the magnificent conclusion that we don’t have any little children in the mix, we don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, it isn’t on the date of anyone’s birth anyway (we all know that story), what is important to us is being together, so there is no reason on earth that “Christmas” can’t happen on December 27th instead of the 25th . And thus, Faux-mas was conceived. All four children have said that they intend to “ask Santa” for $$ for airplane tickets to bring the wandering children home. We will have all our traditions, and our family together, who cares what day it is?

And you see how well Thanksgiving Revisioned fits into the general Faux’ness of the holiday season.

We realized that no one particularly liked Thanksgiving, nor the way it has culturally emerged. Preparing a huge dinner is a big hassle, something always goes wrong, people get hungry and cranky, the cooks get exhausted and cranky and by the time we actually sit down everyone is tense and no one feels very thankful for anything. Then everyone eats too much rich food that we are all unused to and ends up feeling kind of icky. And no one wants the left overs since they ate too much in the first place, so the left overs end up spoiling. None of this seems a real good way to be 'thankful.'

They are telling us now that the Pilgrims (read: Puritans) didn’t really invite the Native’s to the First Thanksgiving dinner in the first place. I read that on the net so it must be true. :-) Either way, we all know what ended up happening in general between the Europeans and the Native Americans, and it wasn't all a happy feast. “Thanks-Giving” is a fantastic idea, but like much else it seems to have gotten lost, or drowned in the turkey grease.

The mad “Day After Thanksgiving” commercial crash out is really slightly nauseating all the way around, but to have it attached to “Thanksgiving” is a real nasty irony, I think. Last year I read about a shopper who ended up in the hospital because of being so severely beaten and trampled. This was because someone thought that she had tried to “cut” in front of them while the frenzied shoppers were all trying to grab CD players that were on sale. After she fell, they all trampled right over her so they could get to the ‘bargins.’ Ugh. Sounds like one of my nightmares.

{{So}} we decided to keep just a few things from Thanksgiving, combined Tree Day and the new Thanksgiving Revisioned and headed for the mountains.


It's true! It's true! With similarities they’re fraught,
Ashland, Oregon

and Cam -e-lot!

A law was made a distant moon ago here:
That all the Ashland Women are so hot.

And there's a legal limit to the snow here
Like in Camelot.

The snow falls on the mountains in December
But down here in the valley it does not.
By order, summer lingers through September
Like in Camelot.
Ashland!

Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Ashland

and Camelot
That's how conditions are.
We often have extraordinary sundown.

In November the pearled fog will appear .
In short, there's simply nots
Two more congenial spots
For happily-ever-aftering than
Ashland

And Camelot.



Now you see? I’ve been so good for almost a month and written “Real” stuff. I haven’t ripped off with a really disgusting song or a bad poem for a long time! The upshot is we don’t have to live in the snow or drive on the snow or scrape snow off our cars, but if you want snow, it is almost always just up there waiting. Yesterday was one of the most beautiful mountain snow days I have ever seen. Alot of snow had fallen the night before and all the trees were heavy with it, the air was cold, but the sky was blue streaked with long wisps of clouds like the softest baby yarn, and the sun on the snow was ~ well, sorry about the cliché, but the sun on the snow was like diamonds. There is just no way around it.

The huge firs were holding all this heavy, wet snow making them look alternatively like Monster Marshmallows, a Christmas card , a set waiting for Wendy Froud’s puppets, a land scape painting that doesn’t look quite real because everything is too perfect and a new book by Dr. Seuss. We went very high, there were lots of house-size trees, lots of babies, and lots of the most magnificent old growth firs 100s of feet high - full of Spanish moss and snow, so tall that you almost couldn’t see the top. Literally, I couldn’t get my head back far enough. I had to lean backwards against Verlin to watch the hypnotic, lacy clouds weave among the tops of the giant trees. I had to bless them all, and incidently Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski who has fought to save our forests. (And just been reelected - thankyouthankyouthankyou.)

While Verlin and the children searched out trees, I stood for about a half hour on a ridge, all alone in the most delicious, crystal silence - looking out over a huge valley to the mountains beyond, and there was nothing to see but trees. Trees and snow and sweet, singing silence. Even all the other people who might have been out in the diamond sunshine were at home eating turkey. There were no other humans for miles and miles, you could just tell. And then I had to pray ~ please don’t let this kind of thing ever cease to exist. Please let there always be somewhere that you can stand and see nothing but trees for miles and miles. When we got home I asked Verlin exactly where we had been. He had to look it up on the map, but there were not even any names for all the peaks, he said we were on peak #36. Beautiful peak #36, Jackson County, Oregon, USA. I will name that peak sometime in the next few days.

We found the perfect tree (I don’t know how, but we always do.) We thanked it for coming to us and holding our priceless ornaments which map out our memories and create a portrait of our lives. Bringing the tree and boughs into the house is a way of connecting our existence, our daily lives with the earth and all creation. While they chopped and carried, I cut holly that will go with the ivy that I will bring in from around my house.

Now you know my protagonist is named Ivy. You see, her parents were hippies - it’s a common condition of young people in this city. So Ivy and her twin brother were born on the night of the Winter Solstice and their parents named them . . . you got it: Holen and Ivy. It gets worse. Their middle names are the Latin names of their respective plants. The character of Ivy actually began because I thought the Latin word for Ivy was so pretty. It’s Delairea. I’ve always loved the name Ivy, and the ivy is my plant. Some of you may have read a Short Story/Novelette that I wrote which also has an Ivy as the protagonist. When I saw the name I thought I would name the character Delairea, but somehow she got stuck with both of them. She is not amused at being actually named Ivy Ivy. Her brother’s name is worse, as it is Holen Ilex. Really bad. Luckily someone early on latched on to the “Holly” and started calling him Buddy. And Buddy he is. Characters. I don’t know folks, they become real and kind of take over your head.

The end of the story is that we decorated the tree, “remembering” all the ornaments. We also got out the fabric wrapping. We have a goal of wrapping all our gifts in fabric so it can be reused again and again. We’ve been getting a little every year. We got some fun Christmas fabrics last year and I’ll probably get a little more this year and that should be all we need and it should last ten or fifteen years. The fabric will probably out last me.

Following, or I guess previous (?) Are a couple of poems about Tree Day. You can also read my article about it at the Soul Food 2003 Advent Calender here:

http://www.outbackonline.net/Advent%20Calendar/Cross_Festive2.htm

Tree Day Poems

Daughter’s on Tree Day

Once their hair hung down to their waists
In swinging twin cascades of gold and chestnut
Sister Light, Sister Dark
Dancing spirits in bright, constant, bubbling motion
Now that hair is short and chicly shaped
Their eyes are shadowed, their lips shined
Their long legs encased in leather
Those spirits move fluid now, eloquent
Cursive, cosmopolitan, smooth, sophisticated
They go out into the night
Like twin stars
Burning sculpted double patterns of light
In a black velvet sky

But, today
They have come up the mountain
To choose a Christmas tree
Eyes bare of makeup glisten in the bright cold air
Stocking caps are pulled down
Over the short tufts of their unwashed hair
The icy white wind paints their cheeks
Bright little girl pink
Smoothing out an urbane curve from eyebrows and lips,
It wipes ten years away from their faces
And they are twelve again

I watch them skip away,
arms linked Sister dark, sister light
Twined shadows dancing on the snow
The tall pines echo with their bubbling laughter
And the sun on the snow sparkles, shimmers and shines
Caught in the streaming swirl and sway
Of these strong singing spirits
That time will never
Really Still

© Edwina Peterson Cross





Tree Day 2004
A Tale Told in Haiku


tall Oregon pine
heavy silence fills it’s boughs
soft snow filters down

this crepe-white Tree Day
a magical Christmas mist
haunts the mystic wood

my brilliant daughters
their studies all forgotten
run like little girls

into the forest
toward the pillowed dreamy trees
seeking Tradition

tall son dressed in black
sugared by the sifting show
vanishes in mist

small dog bounds woodward
so fast he becomes a blur
swimming Milky Snow

whipping waves of wind
close around silence once more
white mist swallows all

winter coldly smiles
soft, the Hunter speaks to wood
evergreen is found

harvested with joy
The Holly King in triumph
is gathered by all

cycle comes again
dance from Solstice to Solstice
life is woven here

and the children sing
and climb amid the branches
one more year of joy

and in the warm truck
poet’s fingers drop her pen
dreams of Christmas mist …


© Edwina Peterson Cross

On the Downhill Side of 50,000

I’ve passed the 35,000 mark where the NaNoWriMo people tell you that things will start clicking. I haven’t heard any clicking except for my fingernails on the keys. I have however come to a place where instead of feeling like I’ve got my hands tangled in forty eight different skeins of snarled, fouled up yarn, I feel like I have it straightened out and separated and I can see that it is just possible that it might come to together. Maybe. Someday.

So here I am sitting with six strands between each finger getting read to try and figure out how to weave them into something coherent. Do I need a loom or do I just braid? If I need a loom, what kind? What will be weft and what will be warp? I believe I will write about braiding today as well. And I will leave as today’s entry here one of my favorite poems and paintings, which tells about a poet who wanted to weave with the dawn. Most of you have seen both painting and poem before, but they do fit beautifully.



Spinning a New Thread


I.
The poet goes out in the darkness
in the last lifeless black bone of night
She walks barefoot up the mountain
to a dwelling where eagles take flight
She waits there on the Edge of Forever
where the hard winds of Almost blow cold
She seeks an alchemical turning
the metallic night turning to gold.

Sunrise spills over the mountains
eternal surprise fills the sky
The first blazing beams ignite riches
white clouds burst to gold as they fly
The alchemy lasts only seconds
but the poet knows alchemy’s charms
She leans precariously into the void,
bundles gold dust in both of her arms.

She comes down from the Edge of Forever
her arms full of something that shines
Barefoot in the mist of the mountains
as morning lightdances the pines.



II.
Long has she woven with words,
she has learned to twill image with light,
Today with an armful of dawn
she seeks an additional rite
She quests to spin wishes material
To use them to string up her loom
To weave justice and blessings to being
to gift grace where grace so ought to bloom.

As she cards the sky stuff to fiber
And winds it around on the whorl
She finds it distilled down to fire
the color of a heartbeating pearl
She finds when she took nature's birthing
and brought it down from above
When she pulled it through hands seeking blessing
What her spindle was wound with, was love.

So she sits to learn how to spin blessings
fire constantly flows through her hands
Until tears fall in sparks on the spinning
as the poet at last understands . . .
She smiles through the sizzling prisms
that blur the fast spinning thread
“I meant to spin something ingenious and new,
but I’m spinning plain ‘hope’ here instead”
And then the poet laughs out loud
at her strange spun state of affairs
“I brought down the dawn and held fire to find:
I’ve always known how to spin prayers.”

So she spins all day and into the night
and the fiery golden threads grow
Soon she will string and warp the loom
weft her shuttle with fibers that glow
Then she’ll weave again, as she’s done before
with quiet knowledge that needs nothing proved
The weaver knows quite simply
prayer and hope are what get mountains moved
No matter the raw material
It has always come from above
The poet has known forever
it all flows directly from love.

But she smiles at her thread, regardless,
“‘twill make a weaving that is vivid and bright
Like glitter the dawn of the mountain will shine
through my blessings, my worddancing light
‘twill be woven and rolled and sent
to the one who needs it soon . . .”
The poets eyes go unfocused and wide . . .
“I wonder . . . could I pull down the moon?!?”


©Edwina Peterson Cross
(((For Megan)))