I read a wonderful blog “sub rosa” written by Sigrun Hodne, writer and art critic . A week of so ago she posted a poem by Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Simic entitled Stone. I am so fortunate to receive her posts, always finding them interesting and challenging. My work now is a concentration on the beauty of the natural world. It expresses so clearly how I feel about the extraordinary as well as the ordinary. The images are filled the texture I literally feel when I view my surroundings. Sometimes those surroundings come from the written word and descriptions of places I have never seen but see through the eyes of gifted writers. I thank them for the insight they bring to my everyday practice in the studio.

STONE
Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.
From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.
I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.
– Charles Simic