Be brave

Inside, your voice speaks: You know you can do it. You know you have something to say. You’ve dedicated years of time, talent, and treasure to this, and seen the ripple effects as others receive the gifts. Yes, there is that fine line that you walk between true humility and feeling…joyful and proud to share your poetry…that it is even yours to give. You know the excitement you feel when you get out there, that freaky, wonderful, guerrilla prickling under your skin feeling as you imagine someone finding something you left behind. You know it’s a good thing. Be brave.

So I do it. I am brave. I install my “Pop-up” poems in a lavish sprinkling all over the woods. I watch from a distance. I wonder is it good enough, will it touch someone, will someone find it and like it, will someone say something, or will it all remain a mystery to me of what happens next?

Last day at the retreat, one of my new circle of creative sisters says to the gathered group: “so what I want to remember most of all is this…how magical it felt to find this little poem bit in the woods, and so I’m writing it here on my expressive art piece, so I never forget that feeling, and my prayer captured in those beautiful words.”

“Fill me with God scent, Spirit favour, something good.”

Yes, God, yes, yes.

Be of good courage. Be brave.

LAE

I want to know.

As much as I spend time alone, create alone, work and think and pour out alone, there’s part of me that wants to know… others, their thoughts, their responses to my words. I create to express, work to sharpen myself as an artist, but also to share. And when I share there’s absolutely nothing more catch-my-breath-in-my-throat, than to really really know I am become a small part in someones life, a link in a chain strung from here to eternity.

Pop-up-poetry may just be a small miracle. I remember reading Stephen Kings book “On Writing” years ago, and resonating with Kings thoughts (I must look at it again!) that writing somehow transcends time and space. He says, “Books are a uniquely portable magic.” To be a writer, to commit words to paper/internet, and then moments, days, years from now, someone reads those words, in a connection across time and space… is miraculous! And so I press on and pop up.

Thursday of last week I pinned poems on Cawston Ave. in Kelowna. I imagined how the words might impact… how God might take what I wrote and begin something or heal something or continue a thought process… with someone I didn’t yet know.

That my poem pinned to a gateway would be welcome home. That my poem pinned to a bench would be rest. That my poem pinned to a community garden would be food.

And I went home believing.

I received a comment here at the bottom of my “About” page that quickened my heart upon reading it. The joy… in knowing… just a glimpse.

Here are some photos of my pop-up-poems, scattered to the wind, looking to land.

All SDG,

Lesley-Anne

Collaboration

I’m learning about the synergy that happens when two come together and create more than the sum of the parts. Husband and wife, wine and cheese, family and friends, darkness and stars, poetry and visual images, music and art, ideas and application… and we could go on from there.

“Two are better than one” are words I struggle to live by. I am naturally introverted, like my time and space alone, but too much of a good thing is just too much. So I meet with a friend or a colleague face-to-face, share ideas, nod my head, offer a few thoughts, and go away feeling more able to take on the world. I fight myself on this every time, but getting out is getting easier with practice.

Being alone is something every artist/writer/poet experiences. It’s knowing when to leave the studio that requires a fine tuned antennae. Wait too long and darkness can settle, upsetting the creative process. Leave too soon and no art is created. I’m figuring out the balance that works for me.

Early last evening, I knew I had to get out. With poems in hand I headed to the heart of Kelowna, and walked along the boardwalk at Waterfront Park, alone but in a crowd, everyone gathering for the musical offerings of Parks Alive. A quintessential Okanagan evening, sailboats running a course, tourists taking photos, lovers prone on the grassy hill, seniors clustering in groups to listen to the music, dogs and kids and happy happenings all around me.

I collaborated in kind, sowed poems all over Waterfront Park. I shared two poems, “Burn ~ Okanagan Mountain Firestorm”, and “Everyday grace”. Here are some photos of the experience.

poem 2

Gutter weed (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Tomorrow morning

I will rise before the dog,
dig in the yard, celebrate
what is now and earthy.
I will plate the colour green in increments,
lemon lime, the shock of chartreuse, enough
to turn blood grass green with envy.
I will consider weeds, their uninvited flourish
without my tending, while
the hybrids, the proven winners,
need their hands held. Seems the weeds
are often stronger. Their tap roots deep
and thick, harder to dislodge. They find water
in drought, soil in cracked concrete.
You must admit
each dandelion gone to seed is lovely,
fertile head veiled and translucent,
entrusting all scattering
to an insistent breeze.

Lesley-Anne Evans, SDG 2013

pop-up-poetry

…in the thick of things

nature

I want to know.

Collaboration

poem 2

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