“Fences Aren’t Security” – For Sale

For the past six  months or so, I’ve had a hard time reading poetry.  I just haven’t been able to slow down enough to do it.  Then,  before our vacation I heard an interview with poet Marie Howe.  I liked what I heard so I bought one of her books and, to my surprise, I read it cover to cover in Provincetown.  I’ve never read a poetry book cover to cover.  Then we picked up a Mary Oliver book and Jon and I  read it to each other all over the Cape.  Suddenly, poetry was back in my life.  Since we got home I’ve been pulling out poetry books from our shelves and am reading at least a poem a day.

And now, for the past few days,  poems have been popping into my head.  I’m not trying to write poems, they’re just there.  So I write them down.  This morning, as I slipped in and out of waking and sleep, another poem came to me.  Some of it in words and some in pictures.  I wrote down the words I heard and described in words the pictures I saw.

In my studio I found the perfect piece of pale green fabric on my floor and started stitching the words.  Then I stitched the pictures, a window, a moon sitting in a cloud (which I actually saw out my window this morning, an orange sliver of moon on its back resting on a cloud), the horse (the words wondering…wandering around them).  I didn’t plan it, just started adding fabric that worked one piece at a time.  I liked the Zebra fabric, as wild horse and the dragon flies, as sky and doorways that keep opening.

The poem goes like this:

The morning moon sat in a cloud outside my window

What did you expect said my friend from behind a six wire fence
The tide comes in and the tide goes out.

Behind her the horse cleared the fence and landed on the morning star
twinkling orange and red

Fences aren’t security my friend said
they just keep you from wandering

“Fences Aren’t Security”  is Sold  for sale. It’s 17″ x 29″ and is $95 + $10 shipping.  If you’re interested you can email me at [email protected].  I take checks and paypal.