Thursday November 13th

I am another step closer to my end goal. Each show I exhibit at and each class I teach gets me one-step closer to a very lofty goal that I very much desire to achieve. It is a noble goal and it seems that it is an achievable goal. And as soon as this bar is reached it will be the happiest day I have had in the last 12 years. That is a definite guarantee.

I did get just a bit distracted today… so I did not get as much accomplished as I had desired. Well Friday is another day and I am sure that I will be able to get more items crossed off of my list.

I am getting my class supplies ready for my December class and I am getting ready to get into assembly and creative mode for The Tucson Gem Show! I am getting very excited about this show. I am kind of excited about sharing the room with so many excellent artists and friends. Marilyn Berg was super stoked to know that I am in the room as well as Gail and Andrea & Steff…I guess my only bummer is that I had really hope to share the gig with Michele Goldstein. But she has a gig that is really close to Tucson and she did not want to short change that one. Can’t blame her for that at all.

What defines the things that we hold dear? How do we choose the things that mean the most to each of us? What makes one thing important and makes the other thing transient? I look at how a moment in history, a choice or a turning point can lead each of us to place one beautiful thing in a higher place of honor than something equally as beautiful. I have actually seen a choice to tear down the beautiful and eloquent because this thing is a reminder of point in time that might not want to be remembered even if it is so very important that it is remembered and honored. What is it that can make us cherish one thing and dismiss another? I think about this often lately. I gives me great pause when I see it in practice!

I am still reading a lot of the Poetry of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. I keep re-reading so many of them, they are so intense and so raw. It’s like I can hear his voice in my head as I read his words on the page that is open before me.
This one is SO INTENSE!!!! So Personal, so Raw, so Intimate…
Read on and be prepared to hear the voice as well.

TONIGHT I CAN WRITE

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.