Can You See Me?

An Original Watercolor by ZenMama

Hidden in the corner of the layers of my life, nearly invisible as I descend into the earth.

Purple for the angry Oklahoma sky when it herds homes like an unmerciful shepherd amidst the pleasing prairie of golden wheat, whipped by the winds, stripped of its sins,

to an era past filled with red dirt and wrath.

Many years before, gold turns to grey

and the journey ended there with five tribes
arriving on a trail soaked with tentative tears.

The red dirt greeted them and opened up

to receive them as they lost their birthright

and could no longer do right in the light

of the lives left in unforgivable years.

In between as imperceptible as me, a hint or a glow

of a sunset trapped in a place where light meets dark

and the tall grass and Heather once touched by a 

daughter cannot begin to untether from the shadow

seizing the light or the light forbidding the dusk

and whether one is better or if one should ever

dare to question a sunset in the midst of their life.

Red



Orignal Watercolor Work by ZenMama

The trees are red and foreboding.
Stripped of their clothing,
exposed and unable to hide.


The river runs narrow.
A place to dream and clench
strength from the dirt
until your hands are hurt
and the labor lays your body down
as one, a fetter to the earth.


One breath held too tight,
Or released with a whisper blow
Downstream runs down
into the dark spiral all around
which comforts you only
in your fears as a home you know.


The sound of going under again and on again
until possible the last time before you sleep
When you give up the brawl and  the clash
And realize you must fall, over the fall,
waterfall, jagged and sharp, and splash
into waters still and painfully deep.



There are more trees laid red and bare,
compelled to grow without their voice
floating in a haze of washed out violet light.
Nothing to hold them to make them right,
without their sound, they can take to the night,
beyond the hazy violet light,
and fly above the wintery falls and blustery noise
of the one who failed to give them air.


Their colors change as elegant, brilliant glare
the God, the Mother, a higher power and holy son.
The place of golden orange I knew was there
I wished for it upon thousands of ones
where lovely trees who have come undone
can transcend into rapture without compare
and multiply limbs and leaves and color to share,
never again to be red, exposed and bare.

An Artist Blooms

An Original Watercolor by ZenMama

I was told I had the misfortune of being born into a non artistic family and therefore it wasn't by fault I couldn't color as well as my best friend, Donna.

I suck at Pictionary.

I've crocheted uneven scarves for every member of my family. I even attempted a doggy sweater but it was more of a doggy straight jacket.

I've "cast on" a knitting needle 45 times but couldn't knit or pearl to save my life.

My sewing endeavors are limited to a 1970's tube top I made in the 1970's. It came already formed to look like a tube top, I simply had to cut to size and sew one straight line. Nope!

When my friend's children were dressed in elaborate custom made Halloween costumes, my kids were ghosts and sad clowns who upon reflection, looked a lot like Heath Ledger's Joker.

I went through a craft phase in the 90's. I made early 90's floral creations in mauves and wedgewood blues with large raffeta bows and I attached them to wreaths and vines and hung them all over my early 90's house.

Today I gaze longingly upon my beautiful friends with their ceaseless talents to sew and quilt and make jewelry and decorate and live gilded lives. They inspire me to want to be something more.

It can't be true, this misfortune of my birth. My dad went through a jewelry making phase, followed by the painting years and ending with basket weaving. I wear his jewelry and have his paintings and baskets displayed in my home.

My writing has always been my offering to the world but it is not enough. My eyes are drawn to art and my recently awakened soul feels a need to splash color on a canvas and see if something creeps out of it in a serendipitous manner. So I offer you my first sketch with watercolor pencils. The paper I used is a tiny 5 inch square. It was enough. I had five pencils to work with and they were enough.

I am an artist and I am enough. It is called "Fifteen".