19 May 2016
When everything finally has been wrecked and further shipwrecked,
When their most ardent dream has been made hollow and unrecognizable,
They will feel inside their limbs the missing shade of blue that lingers….
–from “Half Omen Half Hope” by Joanna Klink
Make art about your hopes for the human race.
18 May 2016
I spend most of my time with 18-25 year olds 🙂 I call them Angel Babies, Angel Chirren. 🙂 I call them My Teachers. Yep. They always teach me more than I could ever teach them.
Make art about something learned from a young person.
Woke up hearing this 🙂 It’s a song I sing to my students. Yep. The future’s in good hands ❤
Rainbow Warrior – Martin Jondo
well dis one rainbow warrior
down ina babylon we´re chanting songs of freedom
and it go like dis brothers and sisters
said I am a rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow warrior
warrior of love now
we seh
war war dem fuss and dem fight
silly hypocrites well dem won´t unite
and I see dem fight a competion
well don´t dem know dis an impossible mission
but Jah love come to quench we thirst
we´ve enough of those dirty works
love a love a love a love a come quench we thirst
we´ve enough of those dirty words and
rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow a warrior
warrior of love now
so wah seh
so when I´m trodin´down in babylon
I just keep my heart so clean
so when I´m trodin´through the deadmans town
I just keep my love within
war war who fuss and who fight
is a murderer got blood in him eye
he´s down in a total illusion
feeling so smart ina devilious confusion
but a who concludes all the murders and crimes
is bringing peace and love and changing this times
well me and you well me and you
shall chant out more rhymes
toiling and spreading Jah wonders and signs and
rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow a warrior
warrior of love now
yeah once again we seh
said I am a
rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow a warrior
a warrior of love now
so weh weh so once again we seh so so
so when I´m trodin´down in babylon
I just keep my heart so clean
so when I´m trodin´ in the deadmans town
I just keep a rainbow within
said I am rainbow
said I am rainbow
said I am rainbow warrior in babylon
said I am the wickest said I am the strongest one
well I am a rainbow warrior in babylon
avoiding all wickedness in my heart on my tongue
oh love heh
we´re spreading love
yeah
we´re spreading love
yeah
13 May 2016
Headed off to teach a weekend Promptathon workshop at The Porches Writing Retreat 🙂
Make art about porches.
14 May 2016
Saturday morning at The Porches Writing Retreat, and we’re working on Voices.
Make art about the voice you hear down in the hall.
15 May 2016
I have a habit of collecting discarded photographs in thrift stores, those precious memories sold in estate sales, so many beautiful faces, so many voices, so many stories.
Make art about other people’s pictures.
16 May 2016
Had some sweet winged company.
A luna moth emerges from its cocoon with not long for this earth. The average lifespan is a week, during which time they have no means to eat (no mouths). Their week (and life) goal is simple: to reproduce. To make love, the strongest of human emotions.
Many observers believe this to be a reminder of the importance of love in our short time on this earth. Live and love to the fullest and enjoy every experience that gets thrown your way.
Make art about Loving fully in the moment.
17 May 2016
Okay, so the garden’s cleaned up and turned over, but it’s pouring cold hard rain outside. So I guess I’m sewing, instead of planting today.
Make art about having your plans thwarted.
12 May 2016
11 May 2016
I have a Creativity Promptathon Workshop Weekend coming up, and I always make small gifts for my participants. Nothing fancy, just something I made with my own hands. Small thank you for their trust and time.
Make art about a gift someone has given you. Or about giving a gift.
8 May 2016
Under the weather and missing my mama this Mother’s Day, thinking about her hands–her mother’s hands, her gardening hands, her nurse’s hands. She never had a manicure. I can’t recall her ever having her nails painted at all, but man, it seemed the whole world rose from those hands. And now, I watch my daughter, a first-time mama, her hands so gentle and loving as she cares for my grandson. Yep, the whole world ❤ That’s what it is.
Make art about a mother’s hand.
9 May 2016
So many graduation activities this weekend, last grades going in, so many of these angel babies heading off to next adventure.
Make art about setting off into the unknown.
7 May 2016
Thrilled and humbled and honored and NERVOUS 😀 Headed back to my alma mater as the invited commencement speaker for the English Department graduation today. Ohhhh back in Pirate country! To the place–the school–the faculty–who made me believe!
Make art about what you would teach the next generation.
Happy May Day! So in love with life today 🙂 Love is Liberation.
Make art about one of the ways you Love the world.
Happy Last Day of National Poetry Month 2016! Although, of course, I think every month is Poetry Month, and every day is Poetry Day 🙂
The prompts will continue 🙂 But since I started with one of my top three favorite poems (Power by Adrienne Rich), I have to close out this month long celebration with the other two poems that fill out my top What-Poems-Would-You-Take-To-A-Deserted-Island three.
Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
And….what may be my favorite (if I have to pick) poem ❤
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
Make art about kindness, blessings, peace.
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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