Red Lawn Winter of my Heart

From the Off The Porch series:
A barren white tree in a red lawn wrapped in blue.  A sign that a lonely winter is coming.  Loneliness like ice.  Loneliness like blood.  I wish, at times, it was my blood spilled on the lawn, my loneliness and pain resonate so deep within me.  My barren world, taking photos from my back or front porch - too tired and in pain to leave the house.  Barren.  Lonely.  Blood red against the bone white and the stark blue - that is my world.  It is a small world.  There is room in it for others, but who wants to live in, or even visit, this world for too long?  I am left alone and lonely, for i am a stone, a still body, in a world of motion, a world of busyness; other people meet in their circles of their busyness, meeting at the points on the arcs of their pathways as they cross. But I am a stone, in a box, alone, and in pain, and the world busily moves by me, leaving me to my blood red lawn, my bone white tree against blue.  My indigo mood.  I feel so lonesome i could die - but i don't.  I live on.  My blood continues to circulate thru the tree of blue veins in my body, my bones creak but they move.  And i putter back and forth across the house, from computer to television to my book nook.  Avoiding the pain however i can.  Hoping to get my energy back.  Hoping my legs will shrink down to their normal size, so i can move again, and be a part of life again.  

Either that, or let my blood flow onto the lawn, let my bones melt into the ground, altho it may make those who love me blue, they will go on in their busyness, and very little will change.  Other than a relief of the burden of helping me.  Other than missing me at holidays, or in those moments of memory.  But the busyness, the busyness will take over.  I remember well the busyness, before the world beat me in the head with poles, and took away so much i barely know what i am any more.  I remember the busyness, i remember seeing the dull and injured, the lonely and disabled, as i busyied on by, too rushed to do more that notice, too much work to do just to survive.  To barely survive.  All that work, all that busyness, and what is there left for me now but the tree in the yard.  A tree and yard that don't even really belong to me.  All that's left to me is this moment of creation, alone, in a box, shielded from the winter's rain.  At least, i have that, a shield against the winter rain, even if the shield doesn't really belong to me.  Nothing in this world, nothing really belongs to me, i guess.  But that's okay, because really, i don't feel like i belong in the world either - so we're even.  Altho, my creativity, that belongs to me.  

This ability, to make art, it belongs to me, it keeps me sane.  This interconnected electronic web that allows me to post my art and have others see it, it keeps me sane.  We are pack animals, and we need to be seen, but we have built these little boxes as shields against the rain, and we have built this busyness that keeps us both isolated and overwrought - and so for some of us, the only connection we have to others, the only means we have to be seen, is thru this interconnected electronic web.  At least here we can shout out our loneliness to strangers, who, in their stolen moments of stillness from all the busyness of survival, will see us.  Altho our bodies may be still, our creativity, our art, our virtual presence will touch the arc of another person's virtual presence.  And we won't feel so lonely and unseen any more.

HAVING THE SCREAMING REDS:               MORE  SELF-MUTILATION:                       THE PAIN
                                                           


THE INSIDE OF THE BOX                      THE WITCH TREE                                  THE VIEW OFF THE BACK PORCH