Enga mellom fjella

Giving year round. La Pia de Tolommei.

BLOGVILLE:

Are you a giver year round or a 'holiday' giver?

This comment is in reply to entry: "Invalid Entry"  from the blog of BeautyFromAshes who works in a food bank:

The problem I have with giving is that there are needs year round that go unnoticed.

And ... having lived among folks with a low AQ (Appreciation Quotient) I get cynical when I realize that they "need" because they have bought into the materialistic "I have to give a ton of gifts" rather than feed me or my family. The holiday "I need to give to those poor pitiful people that I won't acknowledge any other time" and the "I need to party because everyone else does" seems too much like a co-dependant relationship to me ... but then after being on the streets I'm cynical.

Thankfully, there are many who give throughout the year and/or from the heart and
those who truly need and are truly thankful. I need to be reminded of that constantly.

And I'd hire you! You remind me of Janice, a receptionist with a heart of gold. Should call her soon.

Now I just need to write Kendra a ditty about her cuddlebug! I think I'll kall it: "Kendra kaught a kuddlebug" She'll be flying off to warmer climes while I'm freezing in Montana. Bought my ticket-to-ride low-flying Air Greyhound from Monroe, Washington to Missoula last night. I haven't bought the return ticket yet. Will I?

Someone here (who shall remain nameless ... for the moment ) asked whether I was a guy. I responded, "last I checked". She fired back "you had to check?" ***Ouch***

La Pia de' Tolommei

         after Dante Gabriel Rosetti

Her finery is but a lie.

Worn nails and scrawny fingers,
a skeleton barely alive
tells other tales.

As she spins her ring, the crows turn wing;
to return some other day to dine.

Her rosary rests, set aside.

There is no Ave Maria that will save what's left
behind her sunken eyes.

© Kåre Enga 2007 [164.347] 2007-11-08

The painting:
http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/resources/narrative/rosetti.shtml

Elizabeth Schultz did a poem based on this work. Mine looks at it differently. I'm hoping to do a workshop on ekphrasis someday with her.

Ekphrasis: art based on art. Simple? Perhaps not quite so simple. Do you tell the story as an observer, from the painter's perspective, from the object being painted, from some minutiae that is overlooked by most? In what voice does the poem speak?

Nature poems are similar. In that case one is merely making a poem based on the Great Artist's work.

As humans we fashion nothing that has not already been fashioned.

ME:

Got my bus tickets; sent out the book "Rabbit goes to Kansas" to 'little' Gary. And will give one to Bella-bella at Thanksgiving for her birthday. Picked up my photos. Got pictures of her, my sister and Mt. Rainier. Some of the photos of Montana (my prized UM game photos) are double exposed with photos of flowers from Tulsa I took three years before (also prized photos). Except for one or two surrealistic keepers, I lost them all.
This was on the unaffected roll:



See! I was in Montana.

Kansas: cloudy and a warm 60º.

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