April 27, 2013
A Friendship with Forsythia
The forsythia flower
whatever
the weather,
slowly forms
to come forth
all-0f-a-sudden;
as well seen
faraway
as near.
The above image is a sample page from
my recently released
A Friendship with Flowers.
In the US, Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12th. This book of my reflections and illustrations on flowers could be an everlasting bouquet to give to your mother, wife, sister, daughter, girl friend, or any woman who is special in your life.
It would make a perfect gift for any occasion for anyone who appreciates the beauty, wisdom and playfulness of flowers!
It is now available at amazon.com with free shipping. You can also preview more pages there. It can also be purchased and previewed at lulu.com.
Five Star Review by D. Bennison of Bennison Books:
This beautifully produced book will not be left on a bookshelf for long; and as if the exquisite paintings (you’ll never look at a dandelion in the same way again) are not more than enough in themselves, the author also includes her unique commentary on the natural world as she studies and interacts with it while coming to terms with an unspecified experience in her life.
This combination of artwork and poetic observation, that is both personal and universal, creates a unique alchemy that calms and comforts while still leaving open the essential mystery of the natural world and our place in it. Sometimes, the author seems to suggest, it’s OK for there to be no answers; there may be no pat solutions, but there are insights and realisations, looking back to move forward (This holy rose/is another reminder/of the summer past/and yet/to come…), and new ways of seeing things (I found the snow didn’t drop/from above/but sprung from below/to cover the ground…).
The illustrations and the accompanying poetry, which is controlled, understated and pared back, combine to create a companion book that will reveal a little more each time you dip into it; you will feel (to borrow the author’s words): here’s a friend/I just got to know — /suddenly,/by the roadside,/as I was going/nowhere.
This book also includes a detailed glossary listing all the flowers shown in the beautiful illustrations throughout the book. This glossary includes the everyday and Latin name of each flower plus brief information about its habitat and the time of year that you’ll be able to spot it (easily recognisable in real life from the painstaking accuracy of the artist’s depiction).
Here is a photo of one of the forsythia bushes in my yard, taken just this morning, a glorious spring day!
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
April 21, 2013
To Give Hearts Ease
Copyright 2013 by DM Denton
Look up, look down
for what is found
to ease the cares
and catch the tears:
little pansy,
Mary’s mourning
gave you color
but left you pure;
or, if you please,
to give hearts ease
like fairies dance
Copyright 2012 DM Denton
upon the sense
that renewal
is hope’s pupil.
Writer’s note: The violet/spring fairy in the center image at the top of the poem is one I have left from a series I made in the early 90′s.
Writer’s apology: To the blogs I follow – please accept my apologies for being behind on your posts. I just started a new ‘day’ job and am on the last stretch of the sequel I am writing to my novel, A House Near Luccoli (for which marketing endeavors take up a lot of my time, too). I know I am missing some wonderful writing, artwork, photography, and more, and hope to catch up as I can. Blessings to all.
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
April 6, 2013
How to Handle Worry
Copyright 2013 by DM Denton
It’s snowing!
April fools!
Though I’m not fooling
and not fooled;
anymore than the budding daffodils,
or the growing grass,
or the crocuses
already full-grown,
closed for warmth
and, maybe, so they won’t worry.
Writing note: I tell a lie – it isn’t snowing today, but it was April 1st, so posting a few days late. Actually, today is lovely: songbird sunny and pleasantly expectant. Hope it is for you, too.
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
March 17, 2013
To Éire with Love
I know a few of you will remember these pieces, but I thought they were worth reposting because they reflect my experience of Ireland. Both were written on trips I made to Southern Ireland in the 1980′s. (There are also some allusions to a couple of traditional Irish folksongs…curious if anyone knows what they are) The ‘Iris’ painting was actually never quite finished. I decided to leave it so.
Copyright 2012 by DM Denton
I traveled there a woman
and came back a child
with my eyes full of the clouds
coming over the mountains
so I could never tell
how high they were;
the rivers going on
forever,
the irises
floating down to the sea,
the fuchsias so wild,
but not really.
All along the way
cowslips lived
where meadows survived
and milkmaids didn’t mind
the rain
so sudden
as suddenly gone.
The fields were greener than any
in France
through the glass of our visit
going down to the sea,
everywhere surrounding,
only my heart brave enough
to go on
into the waves,
a lonesome boatman calling me
to come live with him
forever.
1983
Copyright 2012 by DM Denton
This time the blackberries were ripening, seed pods cracking, rose hips shining in the sun blowing in and out of the sky. There was honeysuckle in the hedges, like the bloom in our cheeks as we rode along. And in the gorse and heather, again and at last. The moss was a carpet laid for our steps through a wood-and-wonder-land, dark oak, grey ash (red-berried too), silver birch and airy fern. And bluebells imagined, like a strawberry tree. Elsewhere there were mushrooms, surprising us like rabbits. While jackdaws were expected at the end of a shorter day, a silent peat fire making the night and reason we were together familiar.
Copyright 2012 by DM Denton
We lived day to day; what else was there to do? Waking to the rain that misted our view. Though it was something to see the crows claiming a chimney. To warm their hearts? Or dry their wings? By the time we ate our pink bacon the mountains were rising again. So we took to the road that still sounded wet, passing the jaunters as they passed us sympathizing or gloating as we walked up another hill. Sometimes we abandoned our wheels for the slowness of our step. To stray. Even from each other. And meet like the waters where time stood. But not too still, the water boatmen as busy as we weren’t, a fat robin flirting nearer and nearer until flying away, the light always changing.
So much time. To do nothing. But eat cream cakes and salads and sandwiches. And look at the mountains surrounding us more noticeably than the sea. It seemed all the same, being in love with each other and the place; at the end of the day going the same way as the jaunters who couldn’t see us either as we climbed gates and crossed fields, trespassing where we felt welcome.
1985
And as a bonus, from St. Patrick’s ‘Breastplate’ Prayer:
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
March 10, 2013
An Artist Revealed
By my mom, June ©
The secrets of your heart
are stacked against the wall,
canvases for your art
of hiding what you missed.
No mistaking your style,
a freedom out of hand
that kept you all the while
believing as you wished.
A world that long was yours
before it was revealed—
imagination soars
with courage its master.
Flowers filling a place
left bereft of your own,
a portrait in a vase
found by me, your daughter.
Landscapes take you afar,
cats and soup bring you home
to settle for who you are:
the author of this poem.
By my mom, June ©
Happy Birthday, Mom,
my dearest friend and mentor!
And I know it is Mothering Sunday in the UK today, so loving wishes to all who are mothers (to human and animal children). It is all about nurturing the gift of life!
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
March 2, 2013
A Friendship with Flowers (New Publication)
I have a new publication
incorporating poetic musings
and flower illustrations.
This journal was originally created by hand while I was living in Oxfordshire, England in the 1980′s, during the year or so after my father suddenly passed away. I spent a month in the States with my mom, and came back to a time that proved more difficult than I expected.
One of the things that helped was the TV series “The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady” (also an exquisite book) that was airing on the BBC . I unashamedly admit that it inspired my undertaking of this work.
The book was done with gratefulness for the flowers that graced and healed me with their beauty, wisdom, and playfulness.
At this time, it is available through lulu.com,
where you can also see a preview.
The Original Journal
I hope that it will bring a few others the soothing joy it offered me while making it once … and then again.
A special thank you to my mom and D. Bennison for continuing to encourage me to get this done!
Blessings to you all.
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
February 24, 2013
Migration
It is almost spring
and I have just come home,
having just been there,
like those black-necked geese
flying home to home.
There the robin had arrived
clumsy and bold-breasted
on the last snow
that came
like the first.
Here the robin stayed
small and poised
to see the winter through—
this bare, green winter
that would’ve been even longer
without it.
The doves welcomed me back,
side by side in the open sway of the lilac.
The blackbird teased with its company;
so often my only company.
This is some old writing, the opening pages of a journal I did while living in England, written after returning from a visit to the States. I offer it for all those who have, at some time, experienced being transplanted in one way or another.
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
February 17, 2013
Repost: Winter Flowering
Copyright 2012 by DM Denton
By the window
there’s a pot
of Paperwhites
as sweet
to the scent as
they are
to the sight;
one then two,
three,
even four
and five of a kind
with their eyes
so bright,
some looking out
and
some looking in.
Hope this brings a little brightness and sweet flowering to you day.
As well as being a repost from last February, this is also a sampling from my book ’A Friendship with Flowers’ that will be available in the near future.
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
February 14, 2013
A Valentine Imagined
Copyright 2013 by DM Denton
Daffodils like music can court the heart into stories that begin without end.
I followed the trail through mud and dust to walk mainly alone; the affairs of this life and others better recalled with imagination than regret.
When I stopped looking, love stopped leaving.
Everywhere is an embrace; the place I find myself is full of possibilities for engagement.
I cannot look at the moon and believe I am unloved, sense a breeze and be unmoved, know the birds’ song and feel forgotten.
There are flowers enough to romance me, even in winter I can paint them into view.
There are words enough to convince me that what I create is the only lover I need.
And so I am foolish still.
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
January 19, 2013
Cracked Pot
Copyright 2013 by DM Denton
Looking for a little relief.
The pot is cracked from the cold,
the lavender scented like summer;
spring bulbs show impatience
while knowing they must wait.
©Artwork, writing and photography unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
