Come Fly with Me

Come Fly with Me

Take my hand and fly with me,

the wind will whisk us o'er the sea

We'll float above the clouds so high,

and soar across the evening sky

Like meteors and shooting stars,

we'll zoom past Jupiter and Mars,

We'll sail forever and a day,

until we touch the Milky Way

 So....

I have one more post in the "What I did during the Pandemic" category...something a little different from what you've come to expect from me!

I've published a rhyming picture book for the little ones, called Come Fly with Me. It's the poem above, for which I created illustrations.

How did this come about, you ask? I'll tell you! During the pandemic, I led an online summer yoga for creativity workshop series for The Yoga Sanctuary. 

One of the challenges we used to stimulate creativity was doing something other than our main creative activity. So, a painter might decide to try writing poems, a musician might try calligraphy, a sculptor might try painting...or gardening...or cooking...you get the idea!

My challenge was to see if I could create illustrations to go with my poem, so I sat down at the dining room table and started sketching...badly! But I played with it a little every day, and after a while, things started to take shape. The characters started flying around, and from there, I just had fun with it! 

Dick suggested using watercolor pencils, which was a great idea because it gave me the chance to color like a little kid. Then you use water and a paint brush to blend the colors and it comes out looking like a watercolor painting. Very cool!

Once we were settled back home here in Massachusetts, I decided to take the leap and put my work out in the world again. I started with my poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House, which was the topic of my last post. That worked well, so I kept leaping and tried making the picture book - and this is the result! 

A little sample from inside:

So this book is for the little ones. If you have kids, or grandkids, or nieces or nephews, or friends with kids, grandkids, or nieces and nephews in the picture book age, I hope you'll consider my little book for them. It's available in paperback on Amazon, 6" by 9".

I have a beautiful and sweet great-niece named Goldie Elizabeth Goodwin, whom I have yet to meet. She is the first grandchild of my siblings (the daughter of my brother Tom's son, John, and his wife Jill).) So I dedicated this book to her. I will meet her at Thanksgiving and can't wait!

Here is the link to the book on Amazon: Come Fly with Me

Coming Home

I have created a poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House, which is now available on Amazon.  The "chapbook" approach honors an old tradition in which poets handed out small handwritten pamphlets of their poems on the street. I don't really want to do that, so I made a little paperback book instead! Read on for background and more information. At the end of the post is a video of me reading the title poem, because poetry is always meant to be read aloud.

Coming Home

I am home again. To me, "home" means pretty much anywhere in New England, but we have landed on beautiful Cape Cod. 

I am grateful for the journey of the past 20 years, which took me to the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, the high desert of Santa Fe, New Mexico, all over the place in a motorhome, and for the last 10 years, to the palm trees, beaches, and hurricanes of Florida. This unexpected journey (I never thought I would move so much!!) helped me grow and evolve in ways I never imagined for myself. And, like every life journey, some of it was extremely challenging and some of it was wonderful. 

The road took me where I needed to go, and now it has brought me home again. Of course there is no "geographic cure" for life's challenges, so we bring many of those with us. But now I feel like I can face them with my feet planted on familiar ground. 

My new poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House,  is the culmination of an exploration of poetry writing that came during the forced isolation of the pandemic. Like everyone else, I was looking for things to do with my time, so I challenged myself to write a poem a day for  the whole month of October 2020. That effort produced a lot of gibberish, along with a handful of  poems that won awards in international poetry competitions in 2021 and 2022. 

The title poem won second prize in the 2022 Oprelle Coming Home competition and is about a place that was special to me in my childhood. The love of  this place was shared by my brother Tom and sister Jessica, so I have dedicated this book to them. My niece, Olivia Hart, who just finished her first year at Pratt Institute School of Art, created the cover for me. So, a family affair :)

The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House

The book is available only on Amazon. If you've been moved by the poems I've shared, perhaps you'd like a copy for yourself, or for someone you know. If you would like a personalized note to go with the book, I have created cards on which I to do that, so contact me through Facebook messenger and I will be happy to send one to you.

Click on the book title to go to the page on Amazon: The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House

YouTube video: 

The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House

 

Walk up the dirt road that runs alongside our old house. When

you crest the hill and the road curves, step into the brush. Plow

 

through a mess of sumac and blackberry brambles, then down

a small slope and into the trees. It’s cooler here under

 

the cathedral of limbs and leaves, where sunlight, only now

and again, sneaks through to sprinkle stars in the brook.

 

This is where I came when I was small, to play.

This is where I came in teenage years, to cry.

 

And this is where my brother came on a bitter January day

to bargain for Grandma’s life, even though the

 

thermometer read nine degrees and he had to wade,

half-blind with tears, through deep snow, the wind biting

 

his face, and the thorns on the dead

blackberry canes tearing at his sleeve.

 

Don’t misunderstand – all favors won’t

be granted, or all grandmothers saved.

 

But the trees will shelter you while

the brook’s pulse lulls you to sleep.

 

Open your sticky eyes to sunlight weaving a path

through the leaves, just to caress your face. Wash

 

away your crusted tears and let the soft breeze dry your cheeks.

Fill your empty pockets with acorns when you go.