Elephant Dung Paper

This is an ink drawing on elephant dung paper of Libbs and her three chickens and me making rosewater. I love drawing with ink and old bendy nibs on elephant dung paper. It is impossible to assume control and each hand made sheet is so individual and subtly beautiful it feels almost superfluous to draw on even though it asks to be touched.  Most of all - it makes me laugh at the silliness of taking one's small self oh so seriously whilst next to the noble elephant and its dung. Far too much seriousness lately. As quick as can do and without thinking...

crazy legs

wispy arms

caverns are always dark

turtle eggs

frost that harms

icicles stick up and bark

soups hot

butter's cold

lettuce wilted 

now I'm old

surprise surprise

it's a party day

tomorrow will also go away

creatures get comfort

the sky is bold

i am blue when i am cold

resurgence is dignified

lying sucks

i am broke without any bucks

lottie is fat

jack is mean

percy's a poet

a bean can be green

this is silly

no it's not

what is silly

is to sit and rot

the world is crazy

maybe it's alway been

when the way of the world

is the way of men

if you go to the store

with an unkept look

the clerks will follow you

like you are a crook

if you have no money

and struggle to pay

you will forget to look

at the sky each day

if you don't laugh

and forget to play

a miserable life

will come your way

when will you laugh

at the people who snoop

in other's business

because theirs is poop

if you obsess over

liars and cheats

you'll end up bitter

they'll get all the sweets

meditate on the divine

burn incense and precious oils

say this is mine

leave the trashy to their spoils

stay free of the critic

and wary of the leach

be they idiot or psychic

they do well in speech

tell the universe

you are stuck, uninspired

you've lost your purse 

in the sludge you are mired

know this is temporary

there's no ghost to give

talk to a fairy

wake up and live

it is better to try

and end with a mess

than to sit and to cry

over somebody else's mess. basically.

it is now late in the day

and early in the evening

what's better than a play

to set the bells ringing

ring ring ring ring

take a trolley to the park

ding dang dung ding

sing a song in the dark

the end

and now to click on the 'publish' button and don't look at this till tomorrow. But wait, here's a link (which must be copied and pasted) to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. Click on the 'Process'  tab at the top to see how elephant paper is made:

http://www.elephantdungpaper.com/fact.html

....

Blooming Colors

Oops. Lost the text. The photo of the flowers from my garden 
remained. Almost lost the blog. Technical difficulties. 
Timely though for I have but one or two more poems and drawings 
that belong in this picture book and then Judy Sevens
will be concluded. After that, I will either continue here 
or provide a link to my new URL.

......................................................................................................................................

Today, June 1st, I found the lost text that belongs with the photo of flowers:

Today's news from Space Weather - there is a new sunspot 'hurling plumes of plasma off the stellar surface'

The past few months have seen a succession of rainy days. Then the sun comes out and like everyone else I drop everything and go outside because each sunny day might be the last for weeks. Pictures, I'd rather take them than draw them. Writing, I'd rather be outside barefoot and barehanded. 

The climbing rose has gone crazy with blooming.  As soon as the sun warms the garden, we are outside gathering roses. I dug out my old stovetop hyddro-still. The baffles and gaskets are still intact and Libbs and I made rosewater. The first gurgle of hydrosol out the copper spigot spills the scent of roses throughout the kitchen and we make plans to distill the lemon verbena and rose geranium. They too are lush this year. But for now, it's all roses. I've ground up dried petals in the spice mill. Luckily the spices last ground they were those used in perfumery as well as for cooking. The resultant scented powder smells like exotic incense. I'm making Gulkand, a rose preserve by layering fresh rose petals and sugar in a glass jar then sealing it tightly. The climbing rose continues to bloom.

...............

That was last week. For three days now we've been back to the skies of gloom. The syrupy coating on the rose petals has re-crystalized into a cold, hardened lump. To make Gulkand, one must set the jar in the sun every day for weeks, so much for that. I saw not a single bee today. When bees are deprived of ultraviolet light, they remain in their hive, are no longer attracted to flowers, stop gathering pollen - much as people behave who are deprived of the sun. Lethargy. Depressed. Sulking? Still, the ever present greyness Marley and I walked out into this morning gave up to color amidst the varying greens of ferns, sorrel, and grass. Roygbiv is well represented out in the garden, sun or no sun. It didn't take long to gather up a bouquet.

Inside the house and without the dominant green surrounding each, the colors are overwhelming and their brightness suggests artificial pigment, impossibly unnatural or supernatural? The intensity produces something akin to visceral anxiety and the subdued lighting of the above photo provides relief by making the blooms appear more real, or I should say - natural. What or why this should be, I've no idea. And this is just by viewing the spectrum the human eye can see, generally speaking of course.  Somewhere amongst the flowers are the Forbidden Colors - the green that is red, the yellow that is blue - and the bee's ultraviolet and probable other spectrums. If we could see into the spectrums not visible, would the colors be even more overwhelming, nearly blinding, or would they merge with those which were heretofore  visible and present us with an altogether different hue?

In light of the colors blooming and the generally unseen, this is how this morning's world media news reads to me - gloom plus doom. I think I'll stick to the news of the sky to begin my day until the sun comes out again. 

The indigo eye opens to the spectacle before it. 

The true voice which is blue hides

in the shadows of many trees,

a small blue lily 

that shrinks from the sun.

The verdant field with its creatures of song 

pines for song's return

from its last fearless course

into the face of wonder.

Below the field a river like all rivers

empties into the sea,

upon its back the reflection

of eagle's yellow eye as it circles

high above this hollow earth.

and the bright orange poppy

that colors the field with its silken petals

has pulled into a knot

unopened by the sun.

At the beginning is the red dragon. 

When the wondrous poppy was called upon 

to heal the increasing pain

dragon fell sleeping 

within its orange petals.

The indigo eye sighs 

gazes upward

and waits

deep into the purple night.