Friday, December 31, 2010

"Paper Roses" by Millie Donovan

May your DREAMS be pleasant and your WISHES come true
on the Eve of 2011!
Happiest of New Years to all my loving friends.


Dear God...I can't stop, I am always dreaming.

But the dream turns into a nightmare,

Images of what can't be,

Images of what is just out of reach.


The dream is always beautiful,

Gilded, resplendent,

A hope that is hopeless,

A love—loveless,

Craving, yearning but never satiated.

Content but not complacent.


As I wander through the poppy fields,

My feet are sinking,

The earth is soft beneath the fragrant flowers.

I fall and am swallowed.

Dew drops fall on my face,

Sparkling like precious stones,

Cold, wet, smelling of tea and peppermint and sweat.


My life is not my own.

At the moment when I awaken,

The colors fade,

The night is dark and charcoal gray,

Only the embers fight against the cold,

Weakly glowing in the grate of the fireplace,

But I can still smell tea and peppermint,

I can still taste the want, I can still feel...


I shiver as cold hands run down my spine—A ghost's caress,

Haunted by the back of his head as he leaves me behind.

The dark holds me in place,

Without it my world would fall apart.


I fight against the drowsiness but eventually I sleep,

Once again only to dream of a life unclaimed,

A colorful world of black and white,

Where you and I fit together like pieces in a puzzle,

Pieces long lost that have found each other,

Making everything just right...

Just right until the dawn comes and life moves on.


We stumble through this earth

Barely feeling the ground beneath our feet,

Barely noticing the clouds around our ears,

Waiting in line like good citizens,

Paying tribute to the everyday.


We are blind to the flowers growing in our gardens,

We cannot feel the air rushing past,

We hurry to our next stop, our next appointment,

We dream of our next life.


Who will we BECOME?

Who will we LOVE?

Who will let us BE?


We climb endless stairs and as we walk in circles,

We hope that our paths will cross.

For just that moment, we can dream with our eyes open.

The world of flesh and bone welcomes us and we smile,

We smile at the little boy who hands his friend a paper rose.




Tuesday, December 28, 2010

My Favorite Things...2010

As the New Year approaches it is time to look back and take inventory of the moments that have shaped my current existence. So here is a list of 2010's favorite things:



Painting LARGE • Filling the Gallery • Birthday Parties • Pierced Ears • Spring Fling • New York Summers • Art in the Windows • HOLDING HANDS • a Worn Leather Journal • the Smell of wet PAINT • Caprice Salad • JUMPING into the Sea • Making Hearts in the Rocks • Italian Namaste • Braces and Missing Front Teeth • Good Tidings, Great Art • a New Furry Friend • the Sunlight on the River • Kisses & HUGS • Pablo Neruda • Painting on a Lovely October Evening • LAUGHTER & Wine • FRIENDS from All Over • Poetry Read Out LOUD • Hearing "I LOVE YOU" • FINDING A PLACE OF MY OWN—Love Life & HOLD ON tight because you never know what might be beyond the bend in the road.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Alone, Together in a Crowded Room...

This is one of my favorite poems. My words, like my paintings, come directly from little moments in my life. They are moments of self-reflection. Opportunities that present themselves when I need to learn something: how to love, how to let go, how to be a good friend. At times, it is easier to accept being alone because we have no one else to worry about. But I think that loneliness is just a symptom of wanting more...wanting to love more, wanting to be more, more than what we are, more than where we are. This momentum shapes us in so many ways and at the end of the journey this want for life is what we will most be proud of.

----


Alone, Together in a Crowded Room


I miss you.

I don't know why.

How can you possibly miss someone you see everyday?

How can you possibly miss someone that was never yours?


Shared dreams connect us,

to be someone,

to be with someone,

to belong to each other.


But we are all alone in a crowded room.

Strangers and friends,

lost in the hurt,

lost in the present,

lost in familiar surroundings.


I am the same.

We remain unchanged.

But we are always changing,

always looking to the horizon,

forever in motion,

looking and searching for each other,

but gazing at the moon.


If we look back and remember...

Remember the little moments...

The moments when the world was just right.

We just might turn into pillars of salt.

Salty tears wiped from my eyes,

staining your fingers as you touch my cheek.

Lips hot on my neck.


Did I forget to tell you that you are loved?

Did I remember to listen to you when you said it to me?


The sand hastens to collect.

Time slips away with every sunrise.

But today is a cloudy day and I can only hope

that the clouds hide the loneliness I feel,

how empty I am without you,

a vessel with nothing to hold

(to have and to hold).


I am searching for my purpose.

We are yearning to belong,

to be with someone,

to be someone.


Shared dreams connect us.

But we are alone in a crowded room.

Lights dim, the crowd thins, the night is over,

and all I have to look forward to

is the sunrise on the horizon

and you gazing at the moon.


-- Millie D.


Night Lights at La Feniche, M.Donovan