A poem, and a sketch, for the new month.
The sun is nervous
As a kite
That can’t quite keep
Its own string tight.
Some days are fair,
And some are raw.
The timid earth
Decides to thaw.
Shy budlets peep
From twigs on trees,
And robins join
The chickadees.
Pale crocuses
Poke through the ground
Like noses come
To sniff around.
The mud smells happy
On our shoes.
We still wear mittens,
Which we lose.
—John Updike
Polly
When part of our back yard tree fell during Hurricane Sandy, while cutting it up my husband called me to look at the abandoned nest within, which I saved to sketch. It seems appropriate to post it, along with his verse, on the birthday of Victor Hugo (1802-1885).
Soyez comme l’oiseau
Posé pour un instant
Sur des rameaux trop frêles
Qui sent plier la branche
Et qui chante pourtant
Sachant qu’il a des ailes.
—Victor Hugo
Be like the bird, who
Halting in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him
Yet sings
Knowing he hath wings.
Julia
Shota
My son with two of his life-long (though not exclusive) interests.
Devin
Sara
Before Christmas my daughter had a group of girls over to decorate gingerbread houses, and using the same materials (candy, frosting, marshmallows, nuts, cereal, and pretzels) they created an amazing variety of architectural ornamentation. The guests took their houses home, and my son and daughter nibbled periodically on theirs, but mine finally made its way, uneaten, to the garden on a sunny day for a winter squirrel/bird fest. Unless a tiny Norman elf moves into it first.
(the other sketches are doodles from the Christmas Revels)
Jan & Al
The first three days of February bring Candlemas, Groundhog Day, and Setsubun: you will be kept busy making candles for 2013, following groundhog activities, and expelling your household demons with a handful of beans.
On the birthday of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), I post this sketch made in the National Gallery of Art. It presents a theory about his work that I hadn’t previously encountered (and which might have surprised him).
Jean-Claude
Here’s a New Year’s resolution in anticipation of Valentines Day next month.
Jurate
David
Today is, besides being the Feast of the Epiphany, the birthday of poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967). For a picture and a poem, please see Poetic Journey of the Magi.
Nathan
The old year now away is fled,
The new year it is entered;
Then let us all our sins downtread,
And joyfully all appear.
Let’s be merry be this holiday
And let us run with sport and play
Hang sorrow, let’s cast care away—
God send us a merry new year!
—English, 13th century
