Ad Libitum

"vatican cameos"

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-21T14:31:58Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

night wraps his long arms around me
pulls me under his cloak of dreams
and lowers his lips to mine
sways me into a slow dance
that tilts me on my axis
as if i am an entire world in his arms
whispers that only with him can i see so far
into the vaults where all the stars in the sky
sparkle in their deep-space-wall-safe
the combination to which
he holds in his hands

Composition note: The titular reference is from BBC's "Sherlock" , Series 2, Episode 1, "A Scandal in Belgravia".

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Spun Glass

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-15T11:27:12Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

Spiderwebs lace the lawn's green thicket
looking like mouth-blown hyaline panes
and the sun traces his many fingers
of shine through every gossamer scrap
lighting up miniature bulbs of dew
strung like white holiday lights
on blades of grass and spider glass alike.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Sunday Things: Happy Mother's Day 2012!

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-13T11:34:48Z

"We all dream of flight..."

This photo, of me, my mom and my daughter, is the endpaper for my chapbook, "The Consequence of Wings (On Angels and Monsters and Other Winged Things)", published by FootHills Publishing.

Mother
(Mother's Day 2012)
By Annette Marie Hyder

I watched you preen your wings in the sun
and dreamed of feathers of my own.
We have touched different parts of the sky
but it's thanks to you that I have flown.

My fledgeling's fletches are dazzlingly bright
seem hybrid especially for height
and visible in their elegant line
is your iridescent shimmer; unmistakeable
shine.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

when you are an ark

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-10T21:26:21Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

water besieged and heavy
with all the cares of the world
(two by two and sometimes
multiplied by seven)
remember: you are resinous
float like hope
in the maelstrom all around you
and look for me
my heart is the dove
that will come branch in beak
with news that there is land

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

One of every book written

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-10T21:25:20Z

"To the making of many books there is no end..." -- Ecclesiastes 12:12 NWT

Brewster Kahle is making a Noah's Ark of sorts for books. He is collecting and preserving a physical copy of every book ever published. Earlier projects of his include the digital library internet archive. He was recently inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. The book preservation project is fascinating in how it anticipates the future. Here's an excerpt from an article from the Huffington Post on this archiving project:

The Huffington Post reports:

"Brewster Kahle, Richmond-Based Internet Archivist, Seeks One Of Every Book Written

Tucked away in a small warehouse on a dead-end street, an Internet pioneer is building a bunker to protect an endangered species: the printed word.

Brewster Kahle, 50, founded the nonprofit Internet Archive in 1996 to save a copy of every Web page ever posted. Now the MIT-trained computer scientist and entrepreneur is expanding his effort to safeguard and share knowledge by trying to preserve a physical copy of every book ever published.

"There is always going to be a role for books," said Kahle as he perched on the edge of a shipping container soon to be tricked out as a climate-controlled storage unit. Each container can hold about 40,000 volumes, the size of a branch library. "We want to see books live forever."

So far, Kahle has gathered about 500,000 books. He thinks the warehouse itself is large enough to hold about 1 million titles, each one given a barcode that identifies the cardboard box, pallet and shipping container in which it resides.

That's far fewer than the roughly 130 million different books Google engineers involved in that company's book scanning project estimate to exist worldwide. But Kahle says the ease with which they've acquired the first half-million donated texts makes him optimistic about reaching what he sees as a realistic goal of 10 million, the equivalent of a major university library.

"The idea is to be able to collect one copy of every book ever published. We're not going to get there, but that's our goal," he said.

Recently, workers in offices above the warehouse floor unpacked boxes of books and entered information on each title into a database. The books ranged from "Moby Dick" and "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" to "The Complete Basic Book of Home Decorating" and "Costa Rica for Dummies."

At this early stage in the book collection process, specific titles aren't being sought out so much as large collections. Duplicate copies of books already in the archive are re-donated elsewhere. If someone does need to see an actual physical copy of a book, Kahle said it should take no more than an hour to fetch it from its dark, dry home.

"The dedicated idea is to have the physical safety for these physical materials for the long haul and then have the digital versions accessible to the world," Kahle said.

Peter Hanff, acting director of the Bancroft Library, the special collections and rare books library at the University of California, Berkeley, says that just keeping the books on the West Coast will save them from the climate fluctuations that are the norm in other parts of the country.

He praises digitization as a way to make books, manuscripts and other materials more accessible. But he too believes that the digital does not render the physical object obsolete.

People feel an "intimate connection" with artifacts, such as a letter written by Albert Einstein or a papyrus dating back millennia.

"Some people respond to that with just a strong emotional feeling," Hanff said. "You are suddenly connected to something that is really old and takes you back in time."

Since Kahle's undergraduate years in the early 1980s, he has devoted his intellectual energy to figuring out how to create what he calls a digital version of ancient Egypt's legendary Library of Alexandria. He currently leads an initiative called Open Library, which has scanned an estimated 3 million books now available for free on the Web.

Many of these books for scanning were borrowed from libraries. But Kahle said he began noticing that when the books were returned, the libraries were sometimes getting rid of them to make more room on their shelves. Once a book was digitized, the rationale went, the book itself was no longer needed.

Despite his life's devotion to the promise of digital technology, Kahle found his faith in bits and bytes wasn't strong enough to cast paper and ink aside. Even as an ardent believer in the promise of the Internet to make knowledge more accessible to more people than ever, he feared the rise of an overconfident digital utopianism about electronic books.

And he said he simply had a visceral reaction to the idea of books being thrown away.

"Knowledge lives in lots of different forms over time," Kahle said. "First it was in people's memories, then it was in manuscripts, then printed books, then microfilm, CD-ROMS, now on the digital Internet. Each one of these generations is very important.""

Read the entire article here.

Links of interest:

Profile for Brewster Kahle on TED
CNET reports: Internet Hall of Fame inducts first members
Excellent article in Business Standard: Too much or too little
brewster.kahle.org

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

dandy lions

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-08T22:05:58Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

with white windblown manes
roam urban and residential
serengetis
shake their heads and pounce
only
to float away on the breeze

Links of interest:

I Love this book: Stalking the Wild Asparagus, by Euell Gibbons

Things to do with dandelions
"One person's weed is another person's wild flower." -- Anonymous

"Turn dandelion whines into dandelion wines" -- annarbor.com
"Make soup and salad" -- wildlifegardeners.org

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

R.I.P. Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-08T22:05:34Z

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, 'Dear Jim: I loved your card.' Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, 'Jim loved your card so much he ate it.' That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

- Maurice Sendak

News Link:
New York Times article: Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

lullaby

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-07T19:20:27Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

and the ocean is rocking, rocking
her baby to sleep
while the stars in the sky
promise to keep
the heavens held like a canopy
to soar overhead
to ripple with all the breezes of dream
and never fall down, and never fall down
rest and drift asleep

Ways of sharing a world view

When my daughter was a baby I never sang her all the right words to the best loved lullabies. Take "Rock-a-bye Baby" for instance and its refrain of "Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetops, When the wind blows, the cradle will rock, When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, And down will fall baby, cradle and all." I always sang the last two lines as "When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, And mama will catch baby, bough, cradle and all." I just didn't want to be crooning messages of impending disaster and imminent doom into her little ears.

So I made up my own lullabies. That is where all the original lullabies came from, right? From individuals. I wanted to share my view of a world where she was safe and if anything threatened her I would be there for her.

With Mother's Day right around the corner, I've been thinking about the way my own mother shaped and influenced me and hoping that the ways that I have chosen to emulate her -- or not -- are the right ways for me and my daughter. I want all of my communications, verbal and non-verbal (the way I live my life) from lullaby to last words to sing from my heart to hers with purity and goodness.

Links of interest:
Rutger's University: Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration
Betty Kenny Tree
Rock-a-Bye Baby Wikipedia
Songfacts.com

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Sunday things: Green rocks, red ones, and white ones

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-06T18:47:02Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

You give me green rocks.
You call them jade, say they are money.
I say "Illusion", let them slip fast like shadows
through my fingers spread wide.

You give me red rocks.
You call them rubies, say they are passion.
I say "Concupiscence" as they sizzle and slide,
trail scorch marks out of my hands.

You give me white rocks.
You call them diamonds, say they are beauty.
I say "Avarice" as I cast them on water
I see them flash as I throw them aside.

You give me no rocks
come empty handed
ask what I want, say "Tell me what kind".
I say "This is love" as I fill your empty hands with mine.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

my right ear

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-06T00:42:00Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

is a chocolate box
filled with your sweet confections
even the moon leans in closer
hoping to overhear

Super Moon

Check out the moon tonight -- it's the biggest and closest it will be all year. It is the perigee moon and it is awesome!

From Reuters:

"A "Super Moon" will light up Saturday's night sky in a once-a-year cosmic show, overshadowing a meteor shower from remnants of Halley's Comet, the U.S. space agency NASA said.

The Moon will seem especially big and bright since it will reach its closest spot to Earth at the same time it is in its full phase, NASA said.
The Moon "is a 'super Moon,' as much as 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than other full Moons of 2012," it said in a statement.
The scientific term for the phenomenon is "perigee moon." The Moon follows an elliptical path around Earth with one side, or perigee, about 31,000 miles closer than the other, or apogee.
The Moon will reach perigee at 11:34 p.m. EDT (0334 GMT on Sunday). One minute later, it will line up with the Earth and the Sun to become full.
The last perigee Moon was on March 19, 2011, when it was about 250 miles closer than Saturday's.
A perigee full Moon can bring tides that are higher than normal but only by an inch or so (a few centimeters). The effect can be amplified by local geography, but only by about six inches."

the river of night

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-04T18:19:34Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

laps at the shore
of my wakefulness
I walk boulevards lined with lamp post stars
and catch the lamp lighter's song on my lips
before I know it
wavelets lick at my bare feet
toenails painted black to match the sky
and this dark velvet's indigo dye
I am drawn towards the moon
at the end of the lane
left like a lover's lamp
to light my way to you

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Spring Thrush!

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-05-02T14:03:30Z

May 2012 Thrush Poetry Journal
ISSN 2164-7933

The May 2012 issue of Thrush is now online. I have three poems in this issue, Weather Report: Foggy, Rainy, Dark, Everglade drifting, and Sunday Things: Lake Calhoun. Check it out here.

Celebrate spring by reading Thrush. It's filled with fabulous poetry and the name of the journal itself is just fun to say: T-H-R-U-S-H-!

Spring rain

It rained last night and the drops are still scattered on my window panes. The rain kisses all things mundane and beautiful, from roses to blacktop. Maybe that is one of the reasons we want to tip our faces into the rain, to be a part of the benediction.

Link of Interest

Listen to the sound of thrush song here:
wildmusic.org

"Many people consider thrushes the most beautiful-sounding songbirds in North America. Birders describe their songs as “airy,” “flutelike” and “haunting.” Each species of thrush has a distinctive pattern to its song." wildmusic.org

Saint Paul Art Crawl 2012

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-04-25T00:55:19Z

Saint Paul Art Crawl Poster

Free art event! All the studios of Lowertown St Paul are open to the public with works of art in all mediums, styles, and price ranges. Take a guided walk from building to building as artists open their spaces for display and sale.
I will be in the Carlton Artist Lofts Building on University Ave
2285 University Ave.
St Paul MN
Friday 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Saturday 12:00 noon to 8:00 PM
Sunday 12:00 noon to 5:00 PM
Check out more information at: http://stpaulartcrawl.org/
Click here for the PDF link.

Look for this!

The Facing Feminism: Feminists I Know project will be shown at the art crawl this year. Come check it out at the Carlton Artist Lofts Building on University Ave.
2285 University Ave.
St Paul MN

Saint Paul Art Crawl Mission Statement

From saintpaulartcrawl.org

"In 1991, the St. Paul Art Collective organized a series of open-forum meetings to provide a platform for artists in our developing neighborhood. The most requested need was public venue. The Saint Paul Art Crawl is the product of that initiative. It is run by the artists and open to all.
The mission of the Saint Paul Art Crawl is to create an artist-run venue which facilitates a mutually beneficial and meaningful interaction between the arts community and the public. For more information call the Saint Paul Art Collective at 651.292.4373 or contact us by email at web@stpaulartcrawl.org"

Flowers for the mind

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-04-19T13:25:54Z

Photo courtesy Anna Schuleit

tanka with kigo
By Annette Marie Hyder

hearts laid fallow long
in the dark years of the mind
then budded and bloomed

remembrances were not pressed
'twixt pages, they lined halls, rooms

Flowers are blooming

Flowers are blooming everywhere here in Minnesota, a pleasure to eyes, nose and mind. Surrounded by such, I was delighted by the serendipity of coming across the following story about artist Anna Schuliet's art installation "Bloom".

Story via This is Colossal:

"In 2003 a building housing the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (MMHC) was slated for demolition to make way for updated facilities. The closure was a time for reflection and remembrance as the MMHC had been in operation for over 9 decades and had touched countless thousands of patients and employees alike, and the pending demolition presented a unique problem. How does one memorialize a building impossibly rich with a history of both hope and sadness, and do it in a way that reflects not only the past but also the future? And could this memorial be open to the public, not as a speech, or series of informational plaques, but as an experience worthy of they building’s unique story?

To answer that question artist Anna Schuleit was commissioned to do the impossible. After an initial tour of the facility she was struck not with what she saw but with what she didn’t see: the presence of life and color. While historically a place of healing, the drab interior, worn hallways, and dull paint needed a respectful infusion of hope. With a limited budget and only three months of planning Schuleit and an enormous team of volunteers executed a massive public art installation called Bloom. The concept was simple but absolutely immense in scale. Nearly 28,000 potted flowers would fill almost every square foot of the MMHC including corridors, stairwells, offices and even a swimming pool, all of it brought to life with a sea of blooms. The public was then invited for a limited 4-day viewing as a time for needed reflection and rebirth.

Perhaps no single installation or piece of art seen on Colossal has touched me more deeply than Bloom. After learning about it for the first time a few weeks ago I decided to reach out to Anna and ask if she might be willing to share some photos and information about the genesis and execution of such an incredible installation. What follows is a brief Q/A I had with Anna the and a number of high-resolution photos that have never been shared before online."

Here is a link to the full story and the never-before-shared photos:
Bloom: 28,000 Potted Flowers Installed at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center

The story includes comments from visitors to the installation. I especially liked the observation on the sod in the basement made by an anonymous visitor who remarked, “My therapist’s office was in the basement and the floor is covered in grass. Grass does not bloom but it cushions and it is in the right place. It is the foundation, it softens everything. Conceptually it is brilliant.”

Other links of interest
Scientist Discover 'Switch' in Plants to Create Flowers
Anna Schuleit
Bloom
Art in Bloom 2012

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Tax day 2012

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-04-17T13:28:00Z

Huh, who knew that there would be freebies in honor of the April 17 filing deadline? Here is, according to Christian Science Monitor, a comprehensive list of tax day freebies from a variety of businesses:
Click here and enjoy!

Photo credit Annette Marie Hyder

I know you see pyrite,
By Annette Marie Hyder

fool's gold, and cheap lamé
but for me
gold shimmers
on the horizon
of my day.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-04-16T13:09:22Z

I made this blueberry coffee cake on yesterday's rainy Sunday afternoon. It got rave reviews. My daughter, Jasmine Rain, also suggested that I make a variation on it and call it rain cake. She said rain cake can only be eaten when it's raining outside and it must be garnished with jasmine flowers sprinkled with raindrops. The next time I am home on a rainy day I'll give it a try!

Can't make rain cake today because it is SNOWING out on this April Monday. Yep. I do live in Minnesota.

Photo by Jasmine Rain Hyder

Blueberry Coffee Cake Recipe (Yields 1-9 inch Bundt cake)

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup secret ingredient
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 5/8 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tablespoon confectioner's sugar for dusting

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9 inch Bundt pan.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the secret ingredient and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the batter just until blended. Fold in blueberries.
Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan. In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Sprinkle half of this mixture over the batter in the pan. Spoon remaining batter over the top, and then sprinkle the remaining pecan mixture over. Use a knife or thin spatula to swirl the sugar layer into the cake.
Bake for 55 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted into the crown of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan over a wire rack. Invert onto a serving plate, and tap firmly to remove from the pan. Dust with confectioners sugar just before serving.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Sunday Things: It's cold and it's rainy; I'm thinking of you

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-04-15T17:41:40Z

Your Voice Is a Scarf
By Annette Marie Hyder

Your voice is a scarf
I want to wrap myself in,
silkily soft but tasseled
with nubby knots on the ends
that tickle my neck and decolletage
and your arms are an umbrella
I stand under not to be out of the rain
but to press up against the refuge of you.
Your arms are the kind of umbrella
that's black on the outside
but when they are opened
there is the sky painted blue.

Image courtesy of I New Idea

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Happy National Poetry Month 2012!

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-04-05T18:10:28Z

Sunlight glitters and bounces
By Annette Marie Hyder

on the lake
like tiny fairies
skipping themselves
like stones
across the surface.

Related links:

Read about National Poetry Month here.
Happy National Poetry Month!
Happy poetry month!

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Braille, Script, Codex

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-04-05T03:10:18Z

By Annette Marie Hyder

I wish to learn your hard muscles
and sculpted lines like I am blind
to everything but the Braille of your skin
that rises to kiss my fingertips,
a script written in desire,
each rope of muscle a codex
for my curiosity to explore
all the while the wild tale of you
catches my breath and hammers my
heart --
percussive exclamation points
punctuate your beautiful font
and leave me breathless for more.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Pieces of sky

Annette Marie Hyder — 2012-03-27T20:24:23Z

Photo Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

By Annette Marie Hyder
(March 23, 2012)

The trees crowd one another
trying to be the first
to give bouquets
of fresh green leaves
to the warm air.

Looking through
their gift-filled hands
I want to slip through
their fingers
and pluck
pieces of sky --

(an ethereal type
of spring harbinger
blooming in shades of blue)
bring fat roses
(azure, robins egg, Tiffany, true)
home for my table, to scent the air
to wear in my hair...
and to wrap in a nosegay for you.

Links of interest:

A note on nosegay (Source: Wikipedia)

"A nosegay, tussie-mussie, or posy/posey/posie is a small flower bouquet, typically given as a gift. They have existed in some form since at least medieval times, when they were carried or worn around the head or bodice.

The term nosegay arose in fifteenth-century Middle English as a combination of nose and gay (which then meant "ornament"). So a nosegay was an ornament that appeals to the nose or nostril.

The term tussie-mussie comes from the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), when the small bouquets became a popular fashion accessory. Typically, tussie-mussies include floral symbolism from the Language of Flowers, and therefore may be used to send a message to the recipient."

Shades of blue: You Only See Colors You Can Name (eagereyes.org)

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder