Tag: inner portraits

TAKE OFF from February

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

Can we wait for February and it’s weather’s ups and downs to
be done with? I realize how weary we are for the change of
Spring and a sense of lift-off!

The armchair traveler in me will have to do with this poem:

“TAKEOFF

Our jet storms down the runway, tilts up, lifts.
We’re airborne, and each second we see more —
Outlying hangars, wetland with a pond
That flashes like sheened silver and, beyond,
An estuary and the frozen drifts
Of breakers wide and white along a shore.

One watches, cheek in palm.  How little weight
the world has as it swiftly drops away!
How quietly the mind climbs to this height
As now, the seat-belt sign turned off, a flight
Attendant rises to negotiate
The steep aisle to a curtained service bay.”

……………………….TIMOTHY STEELE, from the book,
180  more Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, compiled
by Billy Collins.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

Art by Lucy Campbell
Art by Lucy Campbell

Not Missed

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

I may never send this on, yet the subject persists:
If I were to copy here only the high-lighted parts of a poem,
would the result be an edited, slimmer version?
Would the last line count as the explanation point?

Could the poet have written that last line so edited?

Let’s try it and see:

“I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.

I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other.

If only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.”

………………….LISEL MUELLER,
excerpts from the poem, “Monet Refuses the Operation”

The poem is 46 lines long, and I have copied 11 lines.
Would I have known it was about the artist Monet? I don’t believe so.

Would I have missed this line:
” that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it ” ?

Yes, my dears, I would have missed so much. My monthly calendar
this year has been made up of prints of paintings by Claude Monet.
So, when I found the whole of this poem in the “PANHALA” email
from Joe Riley, on Sept. 5th, last month, I was enchanted.

Whole poem can be found in “Sixty Years of American Poetry”,
the Academy of American Poetry.

Always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette
(Painting by Katie Kindilien)

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SPLENDOR

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

Back at the stand!

What happens when I find myself again with you in the middle of the night, suddenly sharing,
suddenly finding you are here,
just as I thought.

I do have a thoughtful poem sitting here by my computer.

I’m glancing at the power of just WORDS. In this poem my
friend has used the word “fall” to summon the time of year.

Let me share the poem right now:…………………..

” The world of fans and curtains drawn,

Indoor retreats, recede in the face of enticements

We called fall.

No paucity of pigment here, only audacity.

Silent shadows stalk my back

Temporarily restrained by solar infusion.

There is intimacy now, as mother earth begins to disrobe,

An intimacy born of maturity.

If seasons had an astrological sign,

Autumn would be mutable.”

…………..CAROL CURRIER, artist, astrologer, poet and world citizen. September, 2013

The poet has drawn upon so many ways of the turn of a word to bare-bones the splendor of this season
we are in.

I can leave it at that and hope that each line pops out differently each time you glance at this poem again.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Antoinette/Toni

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MIDSUMMER

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

The rising sun hit the door of my pantry where I post pictures I want to
remember, enjoy, take in and hold.

The sun is golden, hot, so present in its greeting of this day. So, after a dry spell, I headed for the shelves
holding poetry books.

Because I wanted to stay in the golden hue of a born-ing day, I picked one book at random, simply opened it to a page, 192.

Here’s what I found:
” I can feel my ship about to come in.
A white ship in a snowstorm
moving in.

The ship is made of gulls
huddled together
in the shape of a ship,

When it arrives, they will fly out into the storm,
leaving a space inside it
clear as reason.

I can tell there’s going to be a blizzard
of being somewhere else
any minute

because of time’s noise eating itself up
that is the noise of listening
that looks like a seething, florid whiteout of wings.”
– JACK MYERS….and the poem was entitled Writing or not Writing. (thanks, Deborah, yougave me this anthology on my 90th birthday)

It’s already a good day.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

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GRATITUDE

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

It’s a bit after midnight, and I went looking for a poem that would express my astonished delight that my appeal, albeit commercial as a means of earning money for giving presents
for Christmas, was met in a matter of hours.

I know you, you who tune in to my Dailies which are not very daily (!).

I share the early hours of some mornings with you as I search for just the right words that poets have given us.

I want to hear the heart beat of daily life. Only then can I sleep.

So, I found this poem; I’ve shared it before and it is so simple and true:

“Excepting the diner
On the outskirts
The town of Ladora
At 3 a.m.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second-story room
A single light
Where someone
Was sick or
Perhaps reading
As I drove past
At seventy
Not thinking
This poem
Is for whoever
Had the light on.”
…………………………DONALD JUSTICE, from Garrison Keillor’s book, Good Poems.

Simply extraordinary gratitude.
Just to know we are all connected in unbelievable ways.

The “balcony is closed” on that appeal of Wednesday, Dec. 5th. The Portraits that will be done are given the space to show up.
All’s well.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

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BELLS ALREADY RINGING

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

I thought I was just putting my busy book shelves
in order yesterday. I came upon a card, slipped
in between two books, and I stopped and read it.
That was not in my plan. I was out for order!

On the small 4″x 5-1/2″ card there was a photo,
a drawing and in small print a poem. Well, not
exactly a poem, rather a song. Here’s what it
said:

“May God bless and keep you always …
May your wishes all come true …
May you always do for others …
And let others do for you …

May you build a ladder to the stars …
and climb on every rung …
May you stay forever young …

May you grow up to be righteous …
May you grow up to be true …
May you always know the truth
and see the light surrounding you …

May you always be courageous,
stand upright and be strong …
and May you stay forever young …

May your hands be joyful …
May your song always be sung …
and May you stay forever young.”

……………..lyrics by Bob Dylan

And the photo?
Stan & Sally Perham, Megan, Dave and Jaimey.
Every year they have sent us music from Maine, to
celebrate the season we are now just beginning,
the Christmas time.

Thank you, guys, I love you and miss you.

IMG_4752always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

UNCERTAINTY

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

ADVENTURE?
NIC ASKEW does video biographies that are short
and unexpected and thought-tapping. Here’s his
second in the SHORT WORD SERIES:

“THE ADVENTURE OF UNCERTAINTY

There was a time when I
looked for certainty.

Certainty in the outcome
of the events of
my own life.

And then I realized that
there was only one certainty.

And that was that it’s all OK.

That there’s something
that could never die.

And now I realize that
the total uncertainty
of the events of life
is the adventure.

And that’s the wonder.”
……………………………………………

Another line from Nic Askew that has lingered
in my mind:

“There is more to me than the series of
events I went through.”

There is a story with that one, but I feel that
any of us could have said that at least once.
Our story is like that.

Not rising above, not moving beyond, but
simply knowing the reality of: I am more than
the series of events of my life.

Using the word “I” so casually, I awaken to
the curious fact that the “I” that is me is also
the numeral one, the symbol of my connection
to all that is.

I could carry that further, but you’re there already.
and that’s the wonder.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

Art by Antoinette. Creation Series.

SIDETRACKED

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

As I sat down, setting aside the book and its poem in preparation, I got distracted by an email message to
which I immediately responded, and now I’ve misplaced the neat intro I imagined I was going to start this Daily with.

Is this something happening lately?

Maybe it’s a sign of how so much is being tossed up in the air and finding
a new way of being as it falls haphazardly.

Back to my intention, here is the poem:

” B R E A D

Not eucharist
or daily bread
not expectation, need,
or probability, the bread
I’m thinking of is the loaf
already on the table
in Breughel’s Wedding Feast.

Before the pudding gruel is brought in
by the faceless waiters,
this bread will stave off hunger
and sharpen it.”

………………. ANNETTE BASALYGA, from her book
of poems, LIFER, issued in 2011

During my years as an art student, I found my way often to the galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to stand
and stare at the prolific life of Breughels birds-eye views of his world.

With that in mind, I am aware of the wealth of these spare lines above; a mural, for sure, for the sense of unlimited delight and satisfaction that exists right now, around us, anticipating it surely. It’s there for the taking.

And, yes, we honor this ‘tradition’ at places to dine, the bread available without asking. Hopefully there is also
a small plate for the olive oil.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Antoinette/Toni

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ALWAYS & ALWAYS

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

What are the words we want to hear? How does
the sweet bird of hope call to us and lead us on?

I was quite surprised to encounter a word I had not
expected in a poem that was otherwise possibly an
ending. Who else, but the poet of my youth, would
leave such a light touch of promise!

LIsten:

” now all the fingers of this tree(darling) have
hands, and all the hands have people; and
more each particular person is(my love)
alive than every world can understand

and now you are and i am now and we’re
a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before–
and shining this our now must come to then

our then shall be some darkness during which
fingers are without hands;and i have no
you:and all trees are(any more than each
leafless)its silent in forevering snow

–but never fear(my own,my beautiful
my blossoming)for also then’s until”

…………. e.e.Cummings
poem #99 in a Book of 100 Selected Poems.

I have put the book back on the shelf but I wonder,
now, what that hundreth poem could have been.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

How does the sweet bird of hope call to us and lead us on?
ART by: LUCY CAMPBELL

LEISURE

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

OMG, a poem that rhymes, that lives its life in
matching lines! Timeless, retrograde, familiar and
all on a page with space left over.

No meaning deep that keeps me from sleep that
just moments before had eluded me. I offer this on
a day, on a Sunday as the year finds itself in post-
election relief. Truly timeless.

“L E I S U R E

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stop and stare.”

………….W.H.DAVIES, p216 in the book,
Good Poems, compiled by Garrison Keillor.

Some day, at lunch perhaps, do not be upset
if deep in a conversation, I suddenly seem to
have left you. It’s only that I have been captured
by the passing parade. I cannot resist noticing
and I end up staring.

Do know that in that matter of seconds, I’ve
written the whole story of their lives, and am
now back with you, one-hundred percent.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

YES…time to pause and….
“turn at Beauty’s glance.”