I’m hosting for Tuesday’s dVerse Poetics and am looking for poetry about feathers. Please join us with a poem of your own.
feather art
she would paint feathers, she told me,
would spend her days waiting
for feathers fluttering to earth
borne on gentle zephyrs
feathers fallen to the ground
those scattered by a bird of prey
the bodies of a sparrow or a wren
she chooses brushes carefully
(the finest sables) or a nib
she’d load with color or with ink
to focus on delicate detail
outlining veins and every plume
the clash of color line and shape
for feathers are what makes a bird a bird,
she says, and wonders why the jays glow blue
and orioles gold and how to capture iridescence
such glorious structures fractal-ly complex
her studio’s awash in brilliant quills
exotic colors luminous light
collected on the beach and desert floors
some in the mountain heights on trails
and in her garden bed beneath the trees
her work is like a prayer, she says,
a mystical mandala journey to within
she dips her pen into the very heart
of our creation’s source, and recreates
the energy that throbs beneath
the skin of every living being
Such a spiritual, lyrical poem! Just lovely.
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So so beautiful — her thoughts, her studio filled with feathers — the use of the quill, the brush. Giving life with and to something that has floated to the earth, unloosed from a living creature.
Wonderful prompt and wonderful lead poem for it. Just getting to my reading this AM.
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Wow! Blown away (pun intended) by the depth of those feathered thoughts and imagery! Beautiful!
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Wowza! I wonder if words flow differently out of something that comes from nature…? You always touch my senses with your work, V. This one has me pondering! 🙂
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Such delicate, patient works – painting and poem both. The last stanza ties it together so well; so true.
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Oh this is such a glorious and ethereal write 😀 especially in awe of these lines; ” for feathers are what makes a bird a bird, she says, and wonders why the jays glow blue and orioles gold and how to capture iridescence, such glorious structures fractal-ly complex” Beautifully expressed.
Lots of love,
Sanaa
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Love the image of the care she takes in her painting…choosing the brush with care to pondering how to recreate iridescence.
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Yes, feathers are beautiful! And really amazing!
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“her work is like a prayer, she says,
a mystical mandala journey to within”
Wow. This poem is as delicate and enchanting as a feather, Ms. Victoria. ❤
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BEING CLEAR
When hope is in a pillow
to make the pillow billow,
the night will be no study
by which the visions eddy.
🙂
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[…] In response to dVerse‘s Come Fly with Me—dVerse Poetics by Victoria C. Slotto who wrote her very own Feather Art. […]
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Your words linked with the artist, is pure artistry. I was absorbed Vic, totally loved this.
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What an amazing piece of work here, Victoria, I love it. I’m so inspired by the images and the sacred feel of the artist’s work and her connection to her “canvas.” Bravo!
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What lovely things happen in her well-paint studio!
1a
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When work is a prayer..beautiful things happen…
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I love the portrait of the artist in this, the artist who carefully chooses just the right color and instrument to recreate something beautiful from creation.
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“her studio’s awash in brilliant quills…
her work is like a prayer”
Oh, Victoria. This leaves me breathless. Just gorgeous.
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All through thinking of this prompt, the “feather” theme from Forrest Gump played in my head. Also thoughts of my Grandfather’s pigeon coop came to lace my memory. Visions of him pluck squab for occasional meals with feather strewn about… quite traumatic for a young boy. Your beautiful words inspired so many things. I’ve written one; will work on another. Great job, Victoria!
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In Norway we have two idioms pointing to each other, being “fugler og fjær” (f.. and f..) (that is “birds and feathers”) and “kvinner og klær” (k.. and k..) (that is “women and clothes”). 🙂
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Beautiful… and inspiring!
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Oh, that’s just gorgeous, Victoria. It kind of reminds me of a Joni Mitchell song, ‘Ladies of the Canyon’. I absolutely love the stanza describing her studio.
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This is so cool! I especially like the second stanza and this section:
“and wonders why the jays glow blue
and orioles gold and how to capture iridescence
such glorious structures fractal-ly complex”
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I really want to meet this artist – she sounds wonderful! You really took me on a journey with this poem.
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The question, what are birds without the feathers, is interesting. For sure, the look of the birds gives us a notion of the symbolism of birds. I dare to question your statement, though, that feathers express
“the energy that throbs beneath
the skin of every living being”.
Men wear suits. 🙂 And my poems are always formally written. 🙂
I perceive your poem, though, as a nice demand for impressions – for identities.
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I like the way you write about feathers, especially the last stanza 🙂
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The art and reality overlapping is breathtaking….as is the entirety of this poem. Mystical mandala, indeed. Brava
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The last stanza is amazing. her work is like a prayer, she says,
a mystical mandala journey to within…she definitely turns the feathered to the sublime to the prayerful. Beautiful.
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Fascinating as well as poetic, this piece is part tribute, part Zen prayer, sharing a form of art & spiritual totemism most of us are ignorant of; nice work. I like your lines /her work is like prayer, she says/a mystical mandala journey to within/; so bang on.
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The challenge in capture a feather…yes so delicate, so much alive… love the way you write about the process in itself, the quills and brushes, how much alive it seems even when it’s lost.
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