The Leaves Conferred (Imprints #2)

AUTUMN LEAVES ON THE SIDEWALK
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~ PRAGUE 2019

"If you go looking, you will find sidewalk squares to measure.
You will find steep concrete steps leading to stoops and into houses.
They are everywhere. . . .

. . . home is fragile and varied and elusive.
Just the word 'home' can bring a smile or a tear.

I suppose I write and draw in an attempt to locate home,
some center point that grounds me."

~ Jan Donley ~
[See also: Safe Home & Picture of Home]

Bright Soul ~ Edinburgh, 2018

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I didn't realize, until my last post, how many leaves and sidewalk imprints I had collected over the years! Searching through my files, I realized that it was going to take more than one post to make all the connections. I think it all began when my friend Jan sent this mesmerizing picture, nearly a decade ago:

I responded with this one,
taken in Dallas on New Year's Eve 2012:

My son Ben was with me that day, walking around Dallas,
in the pouring rain, and he thought it would be funny
to take a picture of me taking a picture of a wet leaf:

Additional wintry variations on the theme include snowy leaves --

Instead of looking down at the sidewalk,
this one is taken from a different perspective:
looking up, from inside, at the glass ceiling of my sunroom!
First, the leaf fell against the skylight; then, the snow fell!

-- and some unexpected Jack ~ Frost
on the floor of the garage!
[See also: facebook & brainpickings]

And this icy manifestation from Jan
New Year's Day ~ 2017

I have been a collector of leaves from way back!
Let us leave it (yes, pun intended!) to Emily Dickinson
to explain why we love them so:

To my quick ear the Leaves — conferred —
The Bushes — they were Bells —
I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels —

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls — begun to tell —
Creation seemed a mighty Crack —
To make me visible —

The Leaves like Women interchange
Exclusive Confidence –
Somewhat of nods and somewhat
Portentous inference.

The Parties in both cases
Enjoining secrecy –
Inviolable compact
To notoriety. [additonal ~ posts]

both poems by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

From my saved files but not sure from when, where, whom?
Possibly shared by my friend Terry Menard,
back in the earlier days of facebook.
Sure do wish I could recall!
[Note to self: take better notes!]

**************

Thanks to my friend, artist Susan Blubaugh
for sharing the following:

"So here are my 'imprints.' The first is a big leaf maple
on the hill across from my house.

The second is an oak leaf impression from leaves
that I picked up in Rome at the Borghese Palace.
Mary Firestone at Artists’ Own
incorporated the impression in a ceramic dish."

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Imprints"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Shadowy Sidewalk Imprints

A CRACK IN THE SIDEWALK
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"The day she quit poetry
the sidewalk insisted
on revealing its magic
shadowy imprints of fallen leaves

dancing frozen in concrete
people trampling
over autumn snapshots trapped in gray
but she knew it was a sidewalk
herself a pedestrian
She had quit poetry. . ."

~ from The Day She Quit Poetry
by Michael Kuchma (1979 - 2008)

Another timely coincidence (aren't they all?): for the past few years, I have been collecting photographs of leaves in concrete, planning to pull them all together into a blog post. Then along comes this sad and beautiful poem, "The Day She Quit Poetry." The imprints are not consistently clear, yet I sense that they capture the poet's impression of magical leaves frozen in concrete. And of course, it is autumn now, or nearly so, the perfect tme to relish the imagery of Michael Kuchma and Shel Silverstein.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

by Shel Silverstein (1930 - 1999)

Oak leaf on concrete
January 30, 2020 [Pictures: 2019-08-30]

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Shadowy Sidewalk Imprints by Julie
September 15, 2020 [Pictures: 2020-0501]

Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, September 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Imprints"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com