I recently finished illustrating a new storybook published by WECAN (Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America), now available from their bookshop. The stories, rhythmically told, with opportunities for movement and gesture, by longtime teacher and therapist Wendalyn von Meyenfeldt, are suitable for anyone working with young children.
I think I’ve waited too long
One of my resolutions for 2022. And beyond, I hope! May you have a Happy and Healthy New Year, everyone. May it surpass the last two, a pretty low bar.
…Trying to find something to appreciate in the midst of dreadful heat.
What if you knew you’d be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line’s crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn’t signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember
they’re going to die.
A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
They’d just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked a half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon’s spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
—Ellen Bass
May sketchbook page.
Wishing you warmth and a bouquet of late winter flowers, wherever you are.
Polly
Perusing the 21st century greeting card.
