Next Year in Cannon Beach

Cassandra Barney and I will not be appearing at the Spring Unveiling in Cannon Beach, Oregon this year. Ernst & Ernst Collectors Gallery, our host from last year, has closed its doors. However, Cass has parlayed her relationship with nearby Bronze Coast Gallery into plans for next year.

So! Next year, in Cannon Beach! And with all this time to collaborate, you had better believe we're going to put together something fierce.

Interlude: Happy Birthday, Cassandra Barney

Today is the anniversary of the birth of one miss Cassandra Barney, my inspiration, collaborator and friend. Take a minute today, if you will, to cruise over to her blog and send her birthday wishes, or just think glittery thoughts in her general direction. She works hard, plays hard, dreams hard, and loves hard, and I only hope today is all that it can be for her, that she is inundated with affection and children's drawings and good wishes.



Thistle
Hard work, love that endures hardship, defiance, protection

I never saw my mama’s feet sleeping.
Mornings they trod a triangular path:
garden, fire, table.
Mid-day she walked in circles sewing,
mending our dresses as we read our lessons.
As the sun set she strode stripes through the fields,
barefoot among the thistles to bring the cows in.
When the stars pricked holes
in the black paper above, her heels creaked
a half-moon of floorboards around the big bed.
I dreamt every night of fragrant weeds and grasses,
and knew that when I woke
the footsteps below would always be hers.

More from Cannon Beach: My Wing Sailing

My Wing Sailing

You can read more about the project here.

Anima del Paradiso

I.
As the thick clouds slid
A cold blanket on the sun
You came, dear ones, with
Little feet that tickled like
Sunshine on my skin.

II.
You ate the small green evils
That fed on my sick heart, and
Spread your love across
Its damp cage.

III.
I will make this place
Heaven’s garden for you,
My angels, and fill
It with the sweetest flowers
I can find.

Offerings: Poppy

Darkness and light, imagination, consolation, oblivion

It was dark when I woke
this morning, and I lay for a time
at the foot of the bed, the fingers
of one hand on my best dress,
laid out too. Now in the garden
beyond the window giant poppies stir,
cold red fingers on their own
black dresses.

The dew creeps in. Down the road
the others are waking, startled
from epic dreams. Their gardens
are sweetly scented, their eyes bright.
They offer innocence, beauty,
awareness.
We do not know where we are going.
I suck the light in
like a new moon
and rise to greet the yellow day.



painting by Cassandra Barney

The Incumbent

The night before the coronation
We walked the palace gardens at dusk,
Small servants rustling like shadows in her wake.

We passed beneath a magnolia tree. Birds scattered,
leaving a pile of perfect pink-stained petals.
I bent at the waist, a low and careful bow. My left arm curved
To collect the fallen bounty. “Don’t,”
She said. From knee level my blue eyes flicked
To the steel sparks of hers. “Don’t pick it up,”
and don’t put it down.”

And today suitors, lovers, insincere supplicants,
Know they will find no open hands here. Nor enemies,
No bare breast. At night the grounds are littered
With magnolia blossoms,
And the darkness brings only sleep.

painting by Cassandra Barney