Blue Footed Booby (Draw a Bird Day)
Blue feet dance
quixotic love songs
sky pointing
The blue footed booby lives on the western coasts of Central and South America. Its name comes from the Spanish word for foolish or clown-like, bobo, and its vivid turquoise blue feet.
Boobies are curious and tame around people, and many of the photos I found showed them seemingly posing somewhat goofily for the camera. They are often photographed doing their mating dance, in which they flaunt their blue feet, and raise wings, tail, and beak to the sky–“sky pointing”.
Boobies are monogamous and mated birds can recognize each other by their calls. They lay their eggs on bare ground, nesting in large colonies. Half of the breeding pairs nest on the Galapagos Islands.
The female turns constantly to face the sun while sitting on the eggs, forming a circle of guano around them. This helps disguise the eggs from predators such as hawks. Boobies are quite passive when confronted by potential threats.
Outside of breeding season, boobies spend almost all their time in the water. Agile flyers, they plunge-dive from heights up to 100 feet to capture and eat their prey underwater. Because of this behavior, they breathe through the corners of their mouth–their nostrils are permanently closed. Their diet consists almost entirely of fish.
Their yellow eyes are oriented to the front, giving them excellent binocular vision.
The present booby population is around 6,000 and declining, mainly because of the decline in fish populations, especially sardines.
Stayin’ Alive (Thursday Doors on Friday)
Sometimes nowhere is the only place
you have to go. Your feet, lacking wings,
keep you earthbound. But then music
appears from nowhere and occupies all the space
in your mind–music that moves your feet to sing,
tracing patterns that confirm you’re alive–
consumed completely by the melody, the rhythm of music
that needs nowhere and nothing but your feet to arrive.
I was looking for the Brigid door I featured last week in order to get a photo with the entire face on the left. So I was just walking around my neighborhood–the sun was out!–best to take advantage of it. I did find the door (see photo at end of post), but down the block there were more interesting buildings, and these birds caught my eye immediately.
The house itself seemed to be under construction, so the doorway was boarded over. But the beautiful details of the facade were readily observable.
Lots of guardians–I always like that.
A little research showed that there was an attempt about 10 years ago to both sell and rent the house, and that it last sold for 9,5 million in 2018. If you want to see what the lavish interiors looked like in 2015, when the asking rent was $30,000/month, you can see them here. At the moment it’s being “modernized” by a developer called Holliswood–as you can’t landmark interiors, I shudder to think what that means. But at least they evidently intend to market it as a single residence instead of breaking it up into tiny apartments.
Here’s the Brigid door with all its guardians.
And the poem? It’s a san san for my W3 prompt, which asked the participants to pick either a song about dancing, or a song they like to dance to for inspiration. Its only relation to the doors is the fact that often when I walk around looking for doors there’s a song stuck in my head, and I find my feet taking on the rhythm of the music. The song I picked was one I recently heard and it’s been earwormed in my head ever since.
If you have time, do watch the video for a time capsule of both clothing and dance moves. And of course, it’s still a great song. And perfect for dancing.
And there are always more doors to find at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
unknowings (draw a bird day)
a motion so finely tuned
it vanishes
in a shiver of light,
appearing as a hush,
an exchange of intersections–
a motion so finely tuned
it enters your breath,
singing your weary bones,
infusing your tired blood
with heartbeats, dancing–
a motion so finely tuned
and completely useless
that it fills you with hope,
measureless and heartbreaking–
whirling you alive inside
a motion–so finely tuned
For the Kick-About #54, “Whirligig”, I made a bird mobile by adding sky and bird collage to three different sizes of wooden rings and hanging them together. It was hard to get good photos, but Phil cleaned up the ones I sent him to give a clearer idea of the mobile in motion.
Here it is flat. I have it hanging in my living room where the ceiling fan keeps it moving.
My poem is in the quatern form, except it doesn’t rhyme, using words from Merril’s random word list that she posted on Sunday. I was inspired by Rumi’s poem “Whirling”, and, of course, birds.
When you dance the whole universe dances.
All the realms spun around you in endless celebration.
Your soul loses its grip.
Your body sheds its fatigue.
Hearing my hands clap and my drum beat,
You begin to whirl.
(nowhere) to be found
it’s the alone in
the dance that makes the never
knowing so complete
Amaya at dVerse asked us to consider music that brings us to tears. There are many candidates these days, but I chose Jackson Browne’s “For a Dancer” for it’s longevity and continued relevance in that department. People, places, things…they are always “dancing in and out of view”.
And a ghazal for the song as well.
In the quiet of a summer’s afternoon I think of you
in the absence that is always in this room I think of you
My mind plays tricks and mixes up the present and the past
in memories recalled and then exhumed I think of you
Bananas peaches lemons oranges strawberries and limes
in fruit that ripens and releases its perfume I think of you
I search for guidance in the symbols of mythologies and stars
in portents that appear like ghostly runes I think of you
The fiber spun and dyed the needle waiting in my hand
in threads that cross like patterns on a loom I think of you
Sometimes I seem to recognize a voice calling and turn
in the abbreviation of my nom de plume I think of you
Pay attention to the open skies.
Dancers
A couple of dancers. The second one is my daughter who would only hold the pose for two seconds.
May Day
Breath held, returning
we rise, dance the beginning
open to the sun.
Spiraling blessings hum wind,
blood lines quickening, bowing.
For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, with synonyms for sing and celebrate. This painting/embroidery is one of the Joan Mitchell inspired pieces I was working on for NaPoWriMo and didn’t finish. So it’s still in progress. I will definitely complete this one, but the rest may be put on hold (along with a pile of others…)
I’m feeling at loose ends, and I need to put my work space in order so I can find what I’m looking for. Still many boxes unopened as well. Time to regroup…but May is starting out with plenty of sunshine! That feels good.
Is That a Human Voice? (after Toshikazu Yasumizu)
Mountains circle a city
of women dancing like feathers.
Mountains circle a city
of women dancing like feathers.
Silence embraces the flowing.
Silence embraces the flowing
patterns, bending with the wind.
Turning, repeating, transforming, rising–
silence follows.
Bending with the wind, turning.
Where are the birds?
Repeat and follow.
Bending with the wind, questing.
Opening, questing–
repeat and follow.
Embrace these wings, bending with the wind.
Turning, repeating, transforming, rising–
silence follows.
The NaPoWriMo prompt for day 5 was to take an untranslated poem, pair it with a photo, and make a poem referring to both. I chose to use one of the artworks I did for this month instead of a photo, and I used a Japanese poem by Toshikazu Yasumizu, “Is That a Human Voice?”, partly because I love the title. You can see the poem and the translation (which works well with my embroidery also) here.
The embroidery is once again based on a painting by Joan Mitchell. The calligraphic nature of Japanese writing reminds me a lot of the marks of stitching.
I’m also linking to dVerse open link night.
Dancer
Let’s just call her a random dancer because it looks nothing like my sister.
Kind of a tough angle with her face tilted up and sideways. I recognize the earrings: they were made by Marcia Tucker (deceased) who was head of the New Museum.
A couple of little studies on black paper. More dancers to come.
Kill the Buddha 1 and 2
I went to the storage room the other day to look for and photo some old collages and finally decided to look in the portfolio I knew had some very old work in it. 99% of the contents consists of collages, but there were a few drawings and paintings, and this was one of them. 1983, yikes. That was about the end of my art work (except for the knit designing I did) for many years as my oldest daughter was born in 1985.
On the Road has published a provocative prompt (and unfortunately the last one) this week, based on the Zen Koan “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Of course I had to consult the Magnetic Oracle.
remember to dance
like ghosts laughing in rhythm
with vast foolishness
I also wrote my own interpretation of the prompt, based on my painting, which is titled “Web 1”. Although I did not find a “Web 2”.
the net is fragile–
disintegrating, holding
what was never there
method two madness 
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