Intersections

I like autumn

and winter

and spring

and summer

and up

and down

and sideways

and especially curves

on mountain roads

with fog it's hard to

see

the yellow line

at night

those little reflectors

help a lot

little eyes coming

up from the hardened tar

tar eyes

that's what they are

other eyes

live in the forest

whose pupils

shine like

lights

in the

dark

in autumn

in winter

in spring

in summer

september 29, 2009
judithpiper

****
One of my favorite activities at my job is communicating with artists. We mainly communicate via email, though sometimes via phone. Every so often face to face.

One artist who I enjoy going back and forth with is Ray. Ray is a collage artist, a musician, and a poet. He always causes me to chuckle, or think, or ponder. He has the most entertaining subject lines for his emails.

At work earlier this evening, I opened one of his emails entitled "M.T. Graves." M.T. Graves...hehe... I chuckled wondering what he'd be sending along. He usually always writes something about Artomat, and then throws in these side notes. This time it was about autumn, and the reality that stuff dies and decays in autumn. So I reminded him that the decay feeds the soil. It's all in good fun.

And out came the above ditty (a rendition) in response to Ray. He wrote back his own poetic verse; complex and dark with a hint of humor.

One of the visuals that came to mind was a memory of driving in thick fog at night in the North Carolina mountains some twenty-five plus years ago. The fog was so dense, I had to open my car door to look down at the middle line in order to drive; there were no reflectors on the lines.

All of a sudden the line disappeared. I applied the brake to come to a complete stop from my 5 miles per hour speed, if I was even going that fast. Panic momentarily struck my heart.

Then I realized I was in an intersection. I creeped slowly forward, and the line reappeared.

Seasons are kind of like intersections too.

Maybe that road has reflectors now, but probably not.