A Visitor by Mary Oliver

My father, for example,
who was young once
and blue-eyed,
returns
on the darkest of nights
to the porch and knocks
wildly at the door,
and if I answer
I must be prepared
for his waxy face,
for his lower lip
swollen with bitterness.
And so, for a long time,
I did not answer,
but slept fitfully
between his hours of rapping.
But finally there came the night
when I rose out of my sheets
and stumbled down the hall.
The door fell open

and I knew I was saved
and could bear him,
pathetic and hollow,
with even the least of his dreams
frozen inside him,
and the meanness gone.
And I greeted him and asked him
into the house,
and lit the lamp,
and looked into his blank eyes
in which at last
I saw what a child must love,
I saw what love might have done
had we loved in time.

My Father's Passing

My father finally passed.

His death was predicted many times by Doctors over the last 30 years since he and my mother suffered simultaneous heart attacks one day in May 1980. My mother died that evening at the age of 54. From then on we would have to learn how to relate to dad individually, apart from mom who had always been the source, the connective tissue that bound us all together as a family. She smoothed the rough edges and in doing so unknowingly instilled the beginnings of denial. She dutifully fed the myth of our family. Maybe she needed it to be real too. But it wasn’t. I long ago grieved my last for what might have been.

For those who knew him in a different light, I envy you. From one whom he never had a good word to say about, again, I envy you who he cherished. You were indeed lucky.

I will search for peace. Our war is over. There was no winner. The battle scars remain.

For My Father, "Grief"

Red Bubble - My Newest Venue for My Artwork

I am very pleased to share my new endeavor with all of you my blog friends! I have listed my artwork on RedBubble.com and am very excited to realize the potential of this new site. With Red Bubble I will be featuring my new digital artwork for viewers and buyers. Red Bubble is headquartered in Melbourne, AUS with printing facilities also in the US, UK and Canada. This opportunity makes my artwork available to buyers from around the world for the first time. Red Bubble is a marketplace community for everyone interested in creativity and learning, and for artists and writers from all around the world. With this site I just have to send them my digital files and Red Bubble does the rest from printing to shipping and meeting all customer needs. My favorite thing about this new venue is that buyers can now order my work in 9 different presentations, from a simple greeting card for $2.79 to a large framed print. And especially exciting is that on the site the buyer can actually see the artwork in the option they choose whether it be a greeting card, matted print or framed artwork - even T-shirts in some instances. I truly love working digitally - I hope you enjoy what I have created and am now offering for purchase. You can find my Red Bubble site at -  http://www.redbubble.com/people/maureentillman  
           
Some of my work now available at RedBubble.com

The group Fantasy Fine Art Composites from Red Bubble featuring two pieces of my work this week!

It's Peony Time Again!

From the Chinese Poet, T'ao Yuan Ming

"I built my cottage among the habitations of men,
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses.
You ask: "Sir, how can this be done?"
"A heart that is distant creates its own solitude."
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze afar towards the southern hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words."
                                                  

A Taste of a Tornado

Local residents here were always told we were pretty much safe from tornados even though we are in the midwestern US where such twisters are fairly frequent. Because we are sandwhiched between the Wisconsin bluffs and the Minnesota bluffs that bound the Mississippi River, we always believed that any tornado would hop from one bluff to the other right over us. Some also believed the old Indian belief that tornados don't appear where 3 rivers meet like here. However there was a tornado here in 1966, not any since though. So it was a shock Saturday, May 21 when we were struck by a tornado. Luckily it was not as powerful as those recently experienced in Alabama and Missouri, but it was frightening enough to make us all thank God we were spared to the extent we were. It awed and humbled all of us. I missed being in the path by not much more than a mile, but there were 200 homes and many businesses that were not so lucky. We lost over 600 trees, many of them were huge and over 100 years old. Considering the degree of trauma this community has suffered, it is inconceivable to imagine the pain and loss felt by so many this Spring in this country who lost so much more. They can all use our prayers and assistance any way possible. The following photos are reprinted from the La Crosse Tribune.