by Celia Hughes, Executive Director.
It has been a remarkable year. What started out as a typical January, launching Winter projects and planning for the Spring, suddenly became a technicolor dream, complete with masks, Zoom windows, and six degrees of separation. The news was surreal, and days were meshed, one to the other, into weeks of an opaque COVID haze. But with the end of this year fast approaching, there is a rent in the fabric, and light has begun to shine through.
I am proud to say that Art Spark Texas has kept the entire staff employed, and many of our programs were successfully aligned with this “new normal.” We reached more artists, presented instructors and guests from around the country and “across the pond,” designed exciting new projects for older adults living in isolation, encouraged Veterans and their family members to try new ways of creative expression, offered numerous opportunities to bring people together in community conversations, music-making, spoken word, and advocacy.
As we watch 2020 grow distant in our rearview mirror, I think it is a good time to write a poem.
This is a lesson called Borrowed Lines.
After reading the list below twice, choose your favorite line and borrow it as your first line. You may change or delete any words in the line. You may repeat the line or vary the line. You may introduce another line from the list after you have written at least five lines of your own. Be playful, be brave, and do not worry whether it is a poem. And then, if you like please share it in the comments below.
- I am told but I do not believe
- Some memories won’t sleep
- When two times two was three
- We’re seated face to face take off your mask
- Time’s honey
- I’d like to tell you something with my hands
- Let the light of the late afternoon
- Everywhere that summer there were angels
- Dear Phoebe, wherever you are
- How can I make bread speak
- How will we get used to joy
- In the dream I am burning the rice
And now that you have written your poem to 2020, I want to thank our artists, staff, board members, their families and community supporters for staying with us this year. We faced this crisis together, and although there are still more economic and social challenges ahead of us in the new year, we go forth with the confidence that we stand on a sound foundation, able to bend with the winds of change and hold firm.
Celia Hughes, Executive Director
Art Spark Texas
I hope we see some poems sprout up here. 🙂
I am told but I do not believe
that you and I are different.
Sure you’re tall and very able
but so am I, in my own way:
how I can hum a tune that flutters
through the air like a bird song, or
cause my wife to laugh,
loud and unbecoming,
the laugh of an elementary schoolgirl,
or hold stern as a guardian
to the dog in my lap, when fireworks
break the certain calm of night.
I can also look through a window
for hours, and always see
something new.
Now, tell me,
what are the things
that you can do?
Thank you Eric. This is terrific and really paints a picture.
Eric,
Your poem is beautiful! We miss seeing you at the Lion and Pirate. Heck, we miss everything. Hope you are well and that it will be safe to see you soon.