Cogs
have turned
in the workings
of hidden time
Breath
has filled
the hollows
of secret life
Grace
lives in mud
and quickens
every courier
of joy and fullness
Elisabeth Cooper
Week Three: Beauty-Spring/Poem Five/Completed Print Three /
Beauty carries with it
Strength of Winter
And Courage of Autumn
It is not weak
Or easily bent
But bears in gentleness
Fierce fortitude
Unmovable advancement
Wonder
©Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Three: Beauty-Spring/Poem Four /
Truth is delivered
By the open hands
Of beauty
As she weeps with joy
In the spinning
Dance of angels and saints
©Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Three: Beauty- Spring/Poem Three /
The dance of fruit
Invisible
On wind and wings
In silent offerings
The hold of joy
Unturnable
In morning song
On feathers strong
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Three: Beauty-Spring/Poem Two /
Wonderment
Light
And bright white
Blossoms
Like silver songs
Dripping with honey
Grace held tight
In unfolding beauty
©Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Three: Beauty-Spring/ Poem One /
Week Three: Beauty-Spring/Poem One
*and a bonus appearance by Basil because he has literally been all up in this print making process...he’s even still sporting some paint on his ear from the Fall print😂 so I figured he should get a cameo
Dancing beams
rest on dormant
promise
Everything I believed
under the singing ice
shines in the sunlight
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Two: Strength- Winter/ Poem Five/ Completed Print Two /
In the cold silence
of Winter
The Dreams of Spring are born
The shining beauty
of strength and character
is often formed
in cold
seemingly lonely
but ever promising
stillness
Winter is for dreams
Winter is for hope
Winter is for strength
and beautiful hearts
to lay hold of beautiful truth
Embrace every
moment
of Winter
in your soul
For the seeds of Spring depend on it
©Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Two: Strength- Winter/Poem Four /
Silence is
not synonymous
with void
Solitude is
not synonomous
with forsaken
The pillars
stand
build
sing
They encompass
and hold within
worlds in their arms
To see
a new day born
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Two: Strength-Winter/ Poem Three /
Where there is ice
There are prisms of light
Graciously singing
Some see desolation
But the dancers know
And the poets perceive
Crystalline fractals
of music
kept in colors we’ve never seen
And in this world
of waltzing stillness
Lies a ceaseless assembly
of strength
©Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Two: Strength- Winter/Poem Two /
Winter is a daring mystery
Fruit
cloaked
in bare branches
of belief
Hope
cast
in lines of limbs
like maps to promise
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week Two: Strength-Winter/ Poem One /
My scar bared state
holds in tender hands
raging willingness
to march into
silence
and the song
of Winter wind
with nothing but the core
of who I am
and everything I am not
knowing
I exist
in completeness
beyond my Winter
I stand
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week One: Courage- Winter/Poem Five /
The substance of courage
more than the sum
of guts
and forward motion
There is sacred
wine
that persists
and never quits
Utter abandonment
mingled with hope
tangled into might
There is a sacred
river
it rises
and never dries
Generous grace
enough to carry
Even the weariest heart to joy
There is a sacred
rhythm
That treads
And turns in everlast
Untamed fortitude
Woven into golden threads
loving-kindness incorruptible
The substance of courage
The sound, the shatter, the hammer
The song, the stand, the move
The letting go, the grabbing hold
The stillness in storms
The rumble in the face of fear
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
This is the finished print for week one: Courage-Fall and the first print I have pulled in several years. It’s not perfect. But in the face of perfectionism and self criticism, courage stands its ground in holding an open hand and an open heart in sometimes painful processes and, perhaps, especially in the painful processes.
Next Monday-Friday: Week Two: Winter-Strength
Week One: Courage- Winter/Poem Four /
Towers
In depths
Reaching
Quiet
And rushing
With light
Standing
Giving
Wide open
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week One: Courage-Winter/ Poem Three /
Mine the depths
of every insecurity
every gaping wound
poke at the roots
pluck life from the clutches
of lesser realities
Stare these dark places
between the eyes
Stare
Them
Down
The barrel
Of courage
Rise from their tyranny
Forge into golden gleam
hands on hammer
and fire
Sculpting
in tides of brine
and tempest
© Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Week One: Courage-Fall/Poem Two /
If you look
underneath
these dead
frozen leaves
Beneath
heavy soil
you’ll find
gnarly roots
clinging to future fruit
The unrelenting breath
that fights for the forthcoming
The ceaseless song
standing against the howling wind
Holding hope
in the dark places
of courageous release
©Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Photo: Aduro Images
Week One: Courage-Fall/Poem One /
Vicissitude rolls in the air
light and shadow glow
newness
dripping with uncertainty
The crushing of leaves
that once shimmered
in Summer sun
The letting go
The leaning in
And here is me
If
I
leave
what I have
behind
I’ll
make way
for real life
to run through
my viens
©Elisabeth Cooper 2020
Photo Credit: Aduro Images
#micromacroproject with the New Poets of Immortality /
Monday (Feb. 3rd) I release the first poetry post in my Feb. project with the New Poets of Immortality. In addition to the poetry for this project I will be making some accompanying prints. It has been years since I pulled prints, and these will be my first after a long dormant season in this area for me.
I’m doing it because I made a choice to “get my art back”. And the subject matter of this poetry project seemed to call for a deeper work in my own life in terms of seasons and standing and never relenting in the face of challenge, devastation, etc.
My creativity took a destructive hit several years back, and I’ve been recovering it bit by bit over the last few years. The music was the first to start coming back, then the words, and now it’s time to recover the visual arts.
So I’m using this project to foray back into my love of print making.
Starting tomorrow I will be posting poetry for our #micromacroproject I will be posting pictures of the print making process during the week along with the poetry for each day. Each Friday I will post the completed print that partners with the theme of each respective week for my personal project.
Here’s to recovering lost and broken things in the process of doing great and brave things with amazing people! #newpoetsofimmortality