Too hot and humid to do anything else

Thought a painting of water could cool us off.

(Watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels)

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted 2019

I am ready for a vacation….

Watercolor, “Maine”, by me, and I can’t remember when I painted it.  I think around 2000.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2019

 

“Winter Into Spring”

 

(Watercolor, “Salisbury Downs”  Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2005)

(A detour from “Tin Hinan” because today feels like the poem)

 

WINTER INTO SPRING

Mysterious, unfathomable, muted season,
where life and reason are suspended
upon a cold metal wire.
The wind a razor of clipper glass
sailing through glassine air
slicing the pallid sun’s rays–
an attempt to warm a frigid earth
to a remembered fertility.

Solemn seasonal palette,
white, gray, black,
cut with a flash of blood-red–
Kamikaze cardinal!
like the demon wind bearing its name,
dares the thin and paling air
to brighten for a flashing moment–
A witness to recurring life.

Season of bountiful snow,
brings a thirst to the land
where hoar-frost leaches
moisture with a crystallized withering-
hands to crack, bark to shatter,
and all dries and curls about
in a perverse furnace of freeze.

One day, a pale day
a southern breeze
breaks through the bonds of Winter
brushes up, slides up
upon the ice
and a crack like a thump is felt in the gut
a slow drip-drip of water
signals the end of this harsh season,
as icicles emit a hesitant stream,
and then the ice dam down in the brook
cracks with a louder sound
and the rush to Spring
is heralded with these natural sounds.

A blind movement
felt deep in the soil-
a careful stirring,
barely a rumble in the gut of Earth
as birth beneath replaces death above
pushing through the Great Womb
to a pallid sun above.

The tyranny of Winter is broken.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2018

 

“Night Poem”

“Salisbury”, watercolor, janekohut-bartels, 2005

It seems we are entering the seasonal pattern of storms, tornadoes and the general fury of a tender season: Spring. 

We need the rain, the drought again threatens,  the winds are fierce, as I watch them toss and twirl the great Pin Oaks,  Live Oaks, Pecans.  Even watching this display brings on  vertigo, as you marvel at the flexibility of these monsterous sentinels filling the the landscape.

The power of what is there, the marvel of it all! They stand between heaven and earth and overwhelm the eyes and senses.

Lady Nyo

 

NIGHT POEM

–

The wind howled hard last night,

A chorus of disgruntled banshees

Out to fracture nerves and peace,

Disrupt any possible sleep,

Make dogs whine in fear-

A sickly moon  above.

–

 

The wind chimes on the eaves

Jangled, clanged

Hollow metal hambones

Danced at the command

Of transforming elements–

Discord added to a fearsome harmony.

–

 

This is an alarming season,

Nothing soft-edged about it.

The tattered- leaved branches

Silhouetted against a plastered wall,

Illuminated by harsh street lights–

Whip  about in a feeding frenzy

And I dare not close my eyes,

But creep down to quiet the hounds

Who share my anxious sentiments–

A rude and boisterous night.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2012