Emily Pumpkinson

Lately, in my early morning drive, the full October moon, setting in the west, has been wearing a tippet made of tulle in the form of gauzy white cloud cover. Here is Emily Pumpkinson wearing hers!

My daughter took these pictures for me, and I got the decoupage idea from this excellent article on "Bookish Pumpkins," though I failed to watch the tutorial and risked spray gluing my fingers together.

But I had lots of fun, and will dispose of Emily before she rots, saying a sad goodbye to all those buttons.

See the ghostly little halo under her nether parts? That's made of tulle, too!

And here she is with Judge Otis Gourd on our kitchen table. Happy at last! He's in a stiff collar and black bow tie, and his wife has died, clearing the way for their romance.

Indeed, here is a photo from their hasty imaginary wedding. It's a little blurry, as they were in a hurry!

And if faceless or poetry-faced pumpkins aren't scary enough for you, go on over to the Poetry of Fear at Escape Into Life.

Happy Halloween!

Moon Like a Peach

This morning I saw the big old orange full moon sitting like a peach on the breakfast table of the western sky. I'd seen it rising, sweet and white, in the east last night out in the country. It's the Hunter's Moon for some, and the Blackberry Moon for others, as noted in a previous blog entry that uses this same lovely still life painting by Jonathan Koch. (Thank you, Jonathan!) For some, it's the Kindly Moon!

I saw Cloud Atlas this weekend because I couldn't help it--a noon matinee. Loved seeing it in a movie theatre, despite the loudness of the speakers, because it is meant to be a spectacle. I was moved, despite the cliches. I pondered this later, thinking, hey, a whole huge bunch of people will feel affirmed by the cliches, even if I cringe a little at their utterance. In a way, of course, it fits the character(s) who speak them. Example: fabricant born to serve in fast food restaurant who then reads all of human history off floating computer screens. See what I mean?

Anyhoo, I loved the book and enjoyed the movie. And here's another Jonathan Koch painting, also used previously (recently), Cloud Study.

Cloud Study + Wind

Very windy even in central Illinois today, as Hurricane Sandy blows up a storm in the east, smacking Cuba and Jamaica on its way. The sun was shining here till noon, but now it's clouding over, with rain likely in the afternoon and snow possible next week. Wha--?!

But, for now, this peaceful Cloud Study, by Jonathan Koch.

Happy 20th Birthday to the Beyond the Books Foundation, celebrating with a gala tonight. This local organization gives grants to local teachers for innovative projects in the two area public school systems.

Happy New-Book-Out to lots of poets: Laura E. Davis, Braiding the Storm (Finishing Line Press); Carol Berg, Ophelia Unraveling (dancing girl press); and perhaps you saw yesterday's link to Sarah J. Sloat's Homebodies (Hyacinth Girl Press).

If you don't happen to be homebodies today, be sure to take your umbrellas, and hold onto your hats!

Quite at Home

It's Poetry Wednesday over at Escape Into Life, a poetry blog day for me, so I've posted a mini-review of Sarah J. Sloat's wonderful chapbook, Homebodies (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012). The amazing art, there and here, is by Kim Joon, one of EIL's feature artists. Look for a scary-poetry feature at EIL on Halloween, and a new solo feature in early November.

It may go up to 80 today, so it'll probably be a home and garden day for me, a chance to harvest some more balsam seeds. Maroon mums are blooming but need to be propped up after recent hard rains. The lawn is covered with yellow sweetgum leaves, but it's been a little too wet or windy to rake. Um, the neighbors managed some raking, but not me.

My daughter has a powder puff flag football game tonight, to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation, about which I have very mixed feelings. I am glad to raise money for breast cancer research, but I tend now to choose other ways. Including postage stamps. She wore a bright pink shirt to school, and I saw the other senior girls arriving in bright pink, as well. I think she doesn't want us in the stands for this, but we'll see.

Her volleyball team played its last game last night, losing in Regionals, but she had a great game, so I'm glad she ended her season on a high note!

Perspective, Curiosity

It's a blue sky day in central Illinois, and I did get to walk out into the yellow leaves today, and the red ones, orange, brown, and still many green, as is the grass, a joy after our summer drought. Sugar Creek has running water in it, pebbles, bubbles, and fallen leaves.

Speaking of leaves on water, here is a live link to one of the pictures Joel Gillespie gave us in the comments section of the Sweetgum Sadness post: Sweet Gum Leaves on Pond in Columbia (South Carolina). Thanks, Joel!

And here's another, showing front and back of sweetgum leaves, in Greensboro, North Carolina, the bright orange and bright yellow that abounds right now, though our own sweetgum tree is all yellow, with moments of light green.

The day is full of beauty and awe, and I walked home filled with another kind of awe and another perspective. Tasha Dunn, a scientist, was guest speaker in church, showing us various pictures of the universe from various telescopes with various techniques--pictures in the ultraviolet light spectrum, pictures where colors match certain kinds of atoms, and, in general, mosaic or collage pictures created from combining the information of multiple pictures. Plus the famous Earthrise photo from the Apollo 8 mission. Seeing an earthrise from the moon, instead of a sunrise from the earth, is an interesting perspective.

And seeing the earth as a dot on a sunbeam, as Carl Sagan said, is also awesome! Thanks, Tasha!

Coming around the corner into my own neighborhood, I saw the Mars rover Curiosity sitting on the curb, waiting for the garbageman. Surely not! Surely this was something else, perhaps one of those machines for rolling up a garden hose. Or the backstop of a dismantled driveway basketball hoop. Or the two things side by side seen from an odd perspective.

Anyhoo, it made my day!!