“The world is black and white, no nuances, no shades, only stark contours, hard choices” - my hat collection says as I dress up to spin my words into poetry, woven from music, from life.
My black cowboy hat brings me home to the Far West where, an alien, I long to belong.
With diamonds on the rim, I pretend to be a British officer on a mission in India,
visiting miniatures of empty courtyards and flying deities that landed on Pacific Asia Museum’s teal walls.
The fancy one, worn with Parisian chic – black ribbon, black jacket, black pearls - speaks of the sad elegance of Polish exiles who lost their country for generations of grief.
With poetry and music as their saving grace, they found a new light in the black and white stripes of the keyboard,
singing their sadness away under Chopin’s gentle fingers that carried them through dance after dance into dream.
A strand of blue flowers, silver threads of a scarf tie down a displaced life that wants to fly away, into blue expanse.
White rose floats on a tulle cloud of the whitest hat blossoming with a song in the voice of Patsy Cline above saccharine sweet fields of a painting where it is always love, here, with you always…
Whiteness remains – solid, beyond shadows of the cove where Japanese prisoners made their own Paradise Park.
Hatless, I wait for my laurels, my crown - sage-green for hope, olive for serenity.
I'm ready for magic - white unicorn laughs. I won laurels of old wisdom and the poets’ plastic heart.
The fortuneteller said: "Stars, stripes and pearls." I found a new beginning in fulfilled prophesy of a pure heart.
Stars in my eyes, I float on a cloud of red, white and blue the joy of roses forever.
Cinquain healing potions, motions, pharmacy and council, through decades of dedication Lloyd helps Haiku years of service community’s heart Lloyd is our man Tanka Sunland-Tujunga sings praises of its leader in fires, earthquakes he is always there to help with kindness and calm Limerick No. 1 There was once a man of yore who abandoned his own store to lead Little Landers through sunshine and thunders. Nobody dared do this before. (from Six Poems for Lloyd, his retirement ceremony, with Lloyd Hitt and Paul Krekorian, July 2010, Bolton Hall).
The Golden Hour The mockingbird leads a chorus of orioles, black phoebes, bluebirds, finches, juncos, and ruby crowned kinglets. The buzzing you hear is not dangerous, these are Anna’s hummingbird’s wings. Birds crowd around the fountain, water droplets scatter on sandy path. The afternoon sighs with relief. All is well and all shall be well in our garden at four o’clock. (Mira Mataric's Reading, Flintridge Bookstore, July 18, 2010. Photo by Emil Schultz, Jr.
The secret of creation, Taoli explains, is golden - colors grow from pure gold of new thought in the deepest garden, undersea.
Kathabela knows better, with a smile of a Sphinx Egyptian, she helps me hold my cup, too empty, too full, I'm learning her lesson of balance. Taoli sees peace growing richly in blue, among stars.
I'm learning to live like Queen Sheba carrying my gifts of gold to the Temple of Wisdom where all answers are found at rest.
Come! This music will change you, speak to you alone, while lost in a crowd, it will quicken the heartbeat, refresh the stale air, come, Chopin waits for our tears, please, come!
Distant scent of mazurkas floated above the harvesters dressed in white, long-sleeved shirts to honor the bread in the making The dance of homecoming and sorrow – that’s what Chopin was in the golden air above the fields of Bielewicze where children had to earn their right to rest in the daily dose of the piano – too pretty, too prickly, too bright (from Harvesting Chopin)
The Polish Festival with classic Slavic beauties - Mira and Maja in fancy hats - brings the flavor of Europe to the Southland of sun and sombreros under that one, striped flag.
We do not hunt foxes in jackets redder than their fur. We do not wait for the sailboats and steamships to take us where we do not belong. We measure the lay of our land in cypress, sycamore and live oak, with the scent of sage shimmering in summer heat above dried chaparral, with star jasmine and orange blossoms sweetening our winter gardens. We are not going anywhere – (from "Dreaming of Elsewhere" for Art Auction at McGroarty Arts Center, Tujunga, August 19, 2010)
Is it possible to wear black pearls, a cowboy hat and still belong in a Polish salon?
