Brooming branches

The wind arching
and bowing the trees

until it looked as if

they were trying
to sweep the ground.

— Alice Munro, short story "Leaving Maverley"
(New Yorker, 11-28-11)

Frida (my 100th posting)

"I think an artist has to tell the truth,"
she said finally.

"You have to use the craft very well
and have a lot of discipline for it,

but mostly to be a good artist
you have to know something
that's true.

These kids who come to Diego
wanting to learn, I'll tell you.
They can paint a perfect tree,
a perfect face, whatever you ask.

But they don't know enough
about life to fill a thimble.

And that's what has to go in the painting.
Otherwise, why look at it?"

— Barbara Kingsolver, "The Lacuna"

Mom

The whole world was afraid of mother:
the trees shivered in the wind,
the bushes hunched together, trying to hide,
the grass lay flat and silent on the ground.
Even the air shrieked.
-- Jessica Lamb Shapiro, "The Animal Kingdom"
(McSweeney's 14)

Breath

Their gasp
was like cold wind
passing through
dead trees.
-- Stephen King, "The Little Sisters of Eluria"
(from "Everything's Eventual")