This is the sheet where I roll my brayer between prints. I learned some things from my print session today, but in the end, the brayer sheet is more interesting.
Look up Stanley Kunitz’s poem, “Layers.”
I’m getting ready for New Year’s Eve, making all sorts of little magics. . .
At the indoor track meet
The 13th Moon
The thirteenth moon will wane
and then what? Do I just begin
to walk the wild hills as a crone?
Will that silken purse which carried
four small treasures
with varying degrees of success
become suddenly a sow’s ear,
the luscious fatsome maternal garb
shrivel and shrink and dry up?
Perhaps there ought to be a certificate:
Menopause Achieved, a fanfare,
cheering, and a teary speech.
I an grateful that my body
has been a river, bearing the eggs
that were already in me when I hung
head-down in my own mother’s body,
for the four which found their match,
stopping the river for their seasons,
for the two who breathed the air
with the intervening aid of the scalpel.
When the red tides receded for the final time,
I was left here on the open strand,
with new names shimmering around me:
Beachcomber, Bone-picker, Shell-seeker,
I search in the starlight
for the rich detritus that remains–
shadowed, luminescent, holy.
Advent is over. I’m branching out on my own today and for the coming weeks, using my own words and ideas. Today’s phrase is from the Alligator Card in the Goddess on Earth Oracle.
Mockingbird Chronicles 