The Mango Fairy

I just liked the idea:)... It's been a tough mango season thus far... our starch tree has produced a grand total of three gnarled ones, and the julie trees are just putting out little ones. My grandmother grieves for mangoes, reveres them almost. She watches the growing Julies every day, cups them, talks to them, warns the dogs against interfering with them. This is where the idea first came from.

If I squint up at the tall mango tree by the back fence, I can just picture Mango fairy sitting on a branch, legs dangling among the leaves. I like the expression on her face... almost caught in the act. And I think she's so beautiful too... Feel free to comment if you like.

Blessings,
~D

Hope is a thing that grows....

This painting occupies a wall in my mother's classroom. (She trust me, eh?) It started as a small thing, a feeling of uncertainty. I didn't really want a concept, I just wanted an idea, a flash, a shape to build around.

So she isn't lost, although she looks it. She comes back to the hope tree to reassure herself that hope keeps growing, no matter what doubt, what change waits in the distance.

Painting this was a comfort, a light... hope someone else finds it something of warmth too.

~D

Mermaidy Poem for my Sister

I am thinking of all the mermaid poetry I have read now, and running my mind over all the different textures there are. I can think of a few Goodison poems, and Neruda's Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks.  And then there is this... a small teardrop of a poem for my mermaidy sister:)... 

Seagazing

for Jolie

the

need to

be broken

and fixed

unravels

before you like

infinite blue thread.

you are casting questions

into the ocean, questions

it cannot answer

without first

claiming

your silence.

The wind howls

on the open

bottle

of

your throat,

your soles are shredded

by broken sea-

stars.

Naiad,

go hide your

treasures

now

the

nets

are waiting

to carry you

home.

On Mermaids, Real and Imagined

On Mermaids, Real and Imagined

If mermaids exist at all, they can't be happy all the time. There must be enough sadness under the sea to reach them. I think my sister might have been a mermaid in another life, there is something sea-green, wild and translucent about her when she is at the sea. She always seems, somehow, like she is about to walk right into the ocean, to slip beneath the waves and to disappear, of her own free will... not to drown, but to become something different entirely. There is a mermaidy look about her that I can't quite define. I wonder if this is how mermaids are made. Reminds me of Lorna Goodison and the "don't care girl" becoming a mermaid in From Harvey River.

Anyway, this one with the drowned eyes is reckless. She is tired of having to be lovely, to turn the corners of her mouth up, to sing to fishermen and divers in their deepest dreams. She plans to leave the Sea-kingdom of her birth to wander all the dark, light-less parts of the ocean, to lock eyes with blind things, to get lost for a time. She is done with brushing her long blue hair and penning songs about sunshine. She plots her course using fishbones and sea-stars. I, too am curious about her.

~D

Dreamer

Dreamer
drawing featured in Anansesem May 2011 issue

Maybe every person has a dreamer... a beautiful little winged thing that curls inside your sleep and paints behind closed eyes the secret land of your dreaming:)

Wanderer in Blue

Wanderer in Blue
drawing featured in Anansesem May 2011


Some nights you dreamt of forests. Oceans of trees and tangled little fears… the things mothers know all too well, but do not speak of, especially not to their little girls. (We pretend that little girls are not wild, feral creatures from birth, but really we fool no one.)

At first, you panicked, but then… but then it drew you in. What would happen if you wandered a little further? The leafy whispers and the blueness spoke to you softly, brushed against your cheek, promised you an inner world that would remain unscratched, untarnished by the day’s small tragedies.

Sometimes, on the edge of sleep, you willed yourself to fall headfirst into the cracked blue sky, to remain so still you could feel the glow of the very moment you entered the dream...
....

~D