faith is caught in dirt, breathless
ink is curled like a snail, filtered
the artist is flirting with the ink’s future
chopped prose is waiting to grow fond of
the blue sky that sends, majestically
a swirl of cranes over vermillion cliffs
there, a proud peacock fancies himself a songbird
only to realize that seagulls croak

Ever since I have fallen in love with words and the written language, I have been collecting words and phrases and sentences. I find terrific beauty in them. They are my little every-day treasures. As a teenager I collected them in a small journal, and organized them alphabetically. These days, I jot them down in a google doc first and then fill flumsy birds in my journal with them. Mostly in botanical inks. They are organized by theme and significance. When I looked at the most recent phrases that caught my attention, I was able to weave them together and change them in a manner so that they are now reborn and not just stolen from another person. These days, it is words and phrases by other artists and writers who share small glimpses of their world that become magnificent to me. And then I combine them with words I would like to use sometime.