Winter Garden Penitents 
in the hard-pour of January rain
hollow reeds of black-eyed susans
stiffen and crack under the ice-weight
as it wraps itself around each slender stem.
Spiny heads covered by crystal caps,
they bow with every crack, and each cry
is a prayer of contrition, a hymn they sing
to the white-haired goddesses of winter,
watching, remote, inside their crystal-cold cathedrals.
Carol A. Stephen
January 12, 2012
Day 11
Yesterday, I wrote about going to a pottery workshop as something outside my comfort zone, and that’s this week’s No-Comfort-Zone “self-assignment”. AND I thought that might be something neat to write about for my 11th stone. The piece is not fired yet, the instructor will do that, but she did let me make a second one (a funky-looking cat with a ball on plate) and I took home more clay to attempt a third piece. I have never been much good at working with my hands (other than cooking, which is not the same!) so I am very pleased that this was a lot of fun. Here is my stone:
Claywork
finicky fingers hate
to be sticky.
cautious, they hesitate
to work the clay.
but the brick is cool
and moist, waiting
to be poked and prodded,
pounded and flattened.
hands, suddenly eager, begin
to mold pieces into a plate
to hold penguins as they cuddle
and cluster in one corner
do they fear the kiln’s fire
or are they just a little
too far from home?
Carol A. Stephen
January 11, 2012
Carol A. Stephen
I started this challenge on the 4th of January. During this first week, I worked on and submitted two poems (ok, it was to a contest, but a new one, not the safe usual ones!)
I’ve also kept up with the challenge to complete the river of small stones, ten done so far, and this is Day 10.
I’ve been finding the last few days that the winter blahs are trying to move in, so I am pushing back in new directions to send them packing again. Tomorrow I am going to a group pottery lesson, which is something else totally new. This will help to break up my usual intense-focus-on-one-thing-to-the-exclusion-of-all-others, which tends to add a lot of guilt to my days. I guess my overall goal for this week is going to be to lighten up!
—Carol
Day 10
the ordinary
morning cat pokes his nose
into my eyelid, wanting fed.
my other eye waters and
focuses on blue clock face
an hour past his usual time.
we race downstairs, cat always
winning, though I start down first.
he handicaps me, I suppose,
ungainly human— slow, he thinks.
he sniffs kibble, waits
till his tongue touches tuna
in the other bowl, laps a little,
then wrinkles his whiskers,
ready now for winter weather
but only for a moment, this creature
comfortable in his own routine,
prefers the inside warmth, the ordinary.
Carol A. Stephen
January 10, 2012
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