Muzzle of bees

Sun gets passed, sea to sea
Silently, and back to me
With the breeze blown through
Pushed up above the leaves
~Wilco

For Music Monday, Wilco with "Muzzle of Bees":

Flitting shadows

Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked.
~Ray Bradbury

Hi y'all! Having a Halloween-y Poetry Friday. On Monday, I was diagnosed with ear infections (both ears). Glad to finally be hearing well enough to catch a squeak on the stair...

I’M THE SQUEAK UPON THE STAIR...
by Greg Pincus

I’m the squeak upon the stair...
Yet when you look, there’s no one there.
I’m howling winds, groaning floors,
Extinguished lights, slamming doors.
I’m flitting shadows, darkening skies,
Piercing screams, distant cries.
I’m all your fears – heard, felt, or seen.
I’m in your head. I’m Halloween.

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You have until 6 p.m.! Halloween Project Call for Submissions

Haikuniverse is "seeking submissions of Halloween themed haiku (or micro-poems, or anything 5-7-5 you don’t feel comfortable calling a “haiku”)."

They say:

We’ll publish 1 every hour, for 24 hours, starting at Midnight (pacific) the evening of October 30. Deadline this Friday, October 28 at 6:00pm (pacific). Use the form below to submit your Halloween themed haiku or micro poems.

Only one poem submission per form please (but feel free to submit multiple times.)

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Addendum! Last chance to sign up for the Holiday Poem Swap! If you are interested in sending one poem and gift to a poetry friend, email me at tabathayeatts(at)gmail(dot)com.

Also, I've been making wee books! The persimmon is for scale.

Jone Rush MacCulloch has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jone!

like uncapturable smoke

..upon the frightening gray sky one can see a black mountain, completely black even with black houses, and all of a sudden a fire-red house appears, a violet path with snowflakes and on the path a black chain of people like crows.
~Marianne von Werefkin

Happy Art Thursday! I felt like sharing Marianne von Werefkin's works today so I picked some with a spooky vibe:

The Ragpicker
by Marianne von Werefkin

The Victor
by Marianne von Werefkin

by Marianne von Werefkin

Police station in Vilnius
by Marianne von Werefkin

Memory
by Marianne von Werefkin

The title is from a quote by MvW: I love what doesn't exist. I love love that doesn't exist, which extends above you like an invisible city, like uncapturable smoke, a love that evokes a longing for enchanted lands, which fills the head with magical scenes, which confers strength and grandeur, which leads all beings to perfection, which adorns you in marvelous clothes, which increases painting abilities, which crowns you king of all goals, which makes you a god of creation.

Obsolete

Language is the archives of history...Language is fossil poetry.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

For Poetry Friday, poems from Katie Haegele's Obsolete, a series of poems inspired by her favorite obsolete words:

Ingordigious
by Katie Haegele

I think it's weird the way we all have favorite animals.
Not pets, but wild things we like the way we like each
other, for the shape of a snout or a rippling limb, a

sweetness we think we sense in the ones that eat grass
instead of each other. I think it's because we wish we
could borrow what they are and be that too, have their

ultrasonic hearing or empty-eyed patience. Well, maybe we can.

-greedy, avaricious

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Launchant
by Katie Haegele

Did you know that Buster Keaton made his own hat(s)?
The singular hat was iconic of course but he actually
had thousands of them. He invented his hat when he

wanted a porkpie one but those were made of straw and
he knew they'd be too fragile to stand up to his stunts. So
he took a fedora and shortened it. (But how? The article

didn't say how.) Then he stiffened it flat with sugar water,
which is how my mother froze her crocheted snowflakes.
The article I read called it a recipe. A recipe for hats.

-darting, leaping

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Thank you, Katie, for giving me permission to share your poems! (Check out her poignant, poetic post about Obsolete.)

For more cool words, check out Susie Dent.

Wee Words for Wee Ones has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Bridget, and happy birthday!

Baba Yaga

Baba means grandmother or old woman. Yaga or Iaga has no definitive scholarly consensus. The word means horror and shudder in Serbian and Croatian, anger in Slovenian, witch in old Czech, wicked wood nymph in Modern Czech, witch and fury in Polish, and serpent or snake in Sanskrit.
~Historic Mysteries

For Art Thursday we have Baba Yaga, the Slavic witch who might grant your wishes or eat you.

Baba Yaga "has the power to help or hurt anyone who crosses her path. Those who seek her wisdom, truth, and knowledge must first complete several tasks. Only upon completion of the tasks will she provide help. If the tasks are not fulfilled and the seekers have not found a way to escape, she will cook and eat them." (Historic Mysteries)

"In fairy tales Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs." (Wikipedia) In some tales, she is three sisters, all bearing the same name.

Hotelo Berjozka. Ĉelabinsko.
RG72

Contes de L'isba
Ivan Bilibin

Баба-Яга
Artemiy Ober

Contes de L'isba
Ivan Bilibin

I don't know who drew this one:

Baba Yaga's hut by The Gorgonist
Baba Yaga's house by Jamie Sapp
Baba Yaga's hut on Erin Ye's Tumblr
A sculpture of Baba Yaga's Hut by Michael Locascio

Nothing is wasted in nature or love

Tell me more, Help me understand more about that.
~Planetree International talking about "empathetic curiosity" in health care

Milkweed in autumn

Hi folks! Happy Poetry Friday! Today we have two poems. The first is from The Hocus-Pocus of the Universe by Laura Gilpin (love that title!). Not only was Laura a poet, she was a nurse and one of the early staff members of Planetree, an organization dedicated to developing and implementing a patient-centered model of care in hospitals. Reading about Planetree's mission is touching. It probably shouldn't be, because all medicine should be person-centered, but it is.

Can we be flawed and be loved, be happy? Yes, say I and Laura Gilpin.

The Two-Headed Calf
by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect...

read the rest here

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Maybe reading all those definitos recently drew me to this poem about the meaning of "snow."

What We Agreed to Call “Snow” in Yorùbá
by I.S. Jones

Night falls & snow joins in ceremony.
I search the clearing for danger
only to be met with ache.

Snow is now; there are things that can’t be translated.
Don’t give up on me, says the snow.
Again, I try. Snow is a landscape of loneliness.

It returns to Earth if only to be touched a little longer...

read the rest here

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Don't forget to sign up for the Holiday Poem Swap if that's your thing! Email me at tabathayeatts(at)gmail(dot)com.

The title of this post is from Life after Death by Laura Gilpin.

Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Matt!

A. A. Newton

Part of why I like watercolor is that mistakes are visible, and you can't really repair much. It has to look easy. When it comes out, it looks easy, but to get to that point takes a lot of doing.
~Chris Raschka

For Art Thursday, pomological watercolors by Amanda Almira Newton.

Wikipedia's information about Newton's career is very interesting:

Newton worked for the [U.S. Department of Agriculture] from 1896 to 1928. This was a time when the major fruit-producing regions in the United States were just beginning to emerge, as farmers worked with the USDA to establish orchards for expanding markets. Photography was not yet in widespread use as a documentary medium, so the government relied on artists like Newton to produce technically accurate drawings for its publications. Newton was one of more than 50 skilled botanical illustrators hired in this early period...and she was one of the most productive, turning out more than 1200 finished watercolors for the USDA...

In addition, beginning in 1896, Newton made wax models of some 300 specimens of fruits being grown or tested in the United States. She inaugurated production of these wax models for the USDA and later showed some of them at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition and the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. For the latter exposition, she created some models showing how environmental conditions, cultivation practices, and storage conditions affect the fruit's condition and keeping qualities.

Early Belle variety of peaches (scientific name: Prunus persica), with this specimen originating in Rosslyn, Arlington County, Virginia
U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection

Image of the Scheradzouli Blanc variety of grapes (scientific name: Vitis), with this specimen originating in Oakville, Napa County, California

Image of the Howard Early variety of strawberries (scientific name: Fragaria), with this specimen originating in College Park, Prince Georges County, Maryland

Image of the Acida variety of oranges (scientific name: Citrus sinensis)

Image of oranges (scientific name: Citrus sinensis), with this specimen originating in Indian River Shores, Indian River County, Florida

Image of the Satsuma variety of oranges (scientific name: Citrus sinensis), with this specimen originating in Alabama, United States.

Exceptional

First coming to prominence in the early 1990s, Hunter plays custom-made seven- and eight-string guitars on which he simultaneously plays bass lines, chords, and melodies.
~Wikipedia on Charlie Hunter

It's Music Monday!

Charlie Hunter:

Snarky Puppy:

Julian Lage:

Cool draughts of peace

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
~Rabindranath Tagore

Lotus by Carmine.shot

For Poetry Friday, we have Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 and was the first non-European to do so. I saw this interesting quote in Brittanica.com (by W. Andrew Robinson): "Tagore’s poems are virtually untranslatable, as are his more than 2,000 songs, which achieved considerable popularity among all classes of Bengali society." Virtually unstranslatable! I'm sure he has a good reason for saying that and I wish I knew what he meant. Hard to understand? Culturally-specific? Anyway, Rabindranath Tagore:

III

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.

IV

Thou art the sky and thou art the nest as well. Oh, thou beautiful, there in the nest it is thy love that encloses the soul with colours and sounds and odours. There comes the morning with the golden basket in her right hand bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown the earth. And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows deserted by herds, through trackless paths, carrying cool draughts of peace in her golden pitcher from the western ocean of rest.

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Sarah Grace Tuttle has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Sarah!

Weird Medieval Guys

Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.
~Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)

For Art Thursday, tweets by Weird Medieval Guys:

The Medicine of Sound

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
~Matsuo Basho

For Music Monday, The Medicine of Sound: