“Niagara Falls” and “Birth Angel” Up

Niagara Falls—written for my late stepfather Jon—is up at Tiny Lights: http://www.tiny-lights.com/flash.php?id=265
…When I couldn’t sleep at dawn, you brought me for a walk along the rim. Then took your own photo of the silver shelf at the top, so still who’d guess at the crystal thunder below, how delicate the thresholds, and our balance, dreaming, taking turns, half the planet flooding the astral at a time…

Excerpt paired here with Jon’s photo—taken that early morning. Bless you, Jon, and brother Jaye.

Also I’m sweetly honored/pleased to announce I’ve accepted an invitation from editor Jessica Powers to try the wearing of a new hat: as poetry editor at The Fertile Source (view Jessica’s welcome and one of my blockprints, “Birth Angel:” http://fertilesource.com/?p=578 ). Birth Angel dates back to the “one-child” year (before the next two children came along), when I entertained the possibility of earning a living making handmade greeting cards. The 50 cent industry profit, along with motherhood, swiftly whittled my list of loves down to two essentials: family and poetry.

Though I still am tempted (now that I’m able to consider the world above the diaper line again) to rummage loose the tubes of color and the little black Speedball roller. Washing the printboard off, watching the blues and golds and greens swirl down into the sink drain still trumps the finished artwork, I have to admit. Even tried photographing it--but like rainbows in oil slicks or Tibetan sand paintings you just have to Be Present all alone with your joy and the morphing colors vanishing before your eyes, sappy as it sounds.