The Crescent Moon

Tonight the crescent moon hung in the summer sky
the dangling moon the hopeless moon of late July
You and I yes you and I
You were with me and it was just you and I

Bedouin women sit under that moon
marking days by it's glowing dance
until one day blends into another
then she disappears in the sand
being part of the landscape forever

And she is with us because we share the light
shooting down at us one hundred and eight six thousand miles a second
putting a glow on your face
that makes your blue eye seem an ocean
and your shoulders a trellis for me to cling to in the night air

When you are away we share the moon
I dance in it's light
and look for you
conjure you in a prayer keep you close to me
hear your laugh like thunder in the approaching storm

The summer bugs are out to sing and little fireflies on the wing
If this be just a summer crush
crush me hard and crush me slow
stay with me until the hanging moon
the glowing crescent almost ring
is full again welcoming the harvest
a thousand years from now
when other lovers will sit right here
in this very spot
and he will be her trellis heart

and we will be other people in another place
and the only thing that will be the same
is a warm summer evening the position of the moon
the promise of your blue eye
the forever love of a heart sick girl
and this passionate embrace

TWILIGHT

The time has finally arrived when romantics of all ages are flocking to the movie theaters to get their first look at the romance vampire movie of the decade. We've all been taken a little with the dark side of romance and passion; from the old dracula novels to Ann Rice and now the Twlight fans can't read enough of Stephenie Meyer and her teenage drama of love and horror. I was approached by one of those lovely etsy people to feature a bracelet on her blog:

http://www.juststopscreaming.com/2008/11/twilight-extravaganza-finale-ultimate.html

If you are a fan, I'd visit there and follow her blogsite as I am giving away my $90 bracelet there as she's a huge fan and has been doing a daily countdown to the romance. My son's half minded girlfriend spent an overnight at the local mall last weekend looking to meet the dashing star and have him sign a poster or two. I am a big fan of anything that will bring younger people to a book and of course after reading the book, how could you NOT see the movie? I am hoping to make my way to the movie this weekend to get a little peek at Daniel Craig. I have been watching Casino Royale on cable this month and he's caught my eye big time. He's Bond, James Bond. I hadn't really noticed Craig before his Bond appearance and was so taken with him that I went over to feebay and purchased a few old movies of his. I will let you know what I think in future posts.

I have a bunch of Twilight jewelry in my etsy store and could make anything custom for a Christmas gift, from your favorite movie, to my version of your favorite poem on your wrist, to just a single pendant with someone you love wrapped in a heart. You can find my art at www.poetsummer.etsy.com and you can email me at Summerpoet@msn.com. I also ordered some more hearts for the Paris Blues Bracelet that was featured on Yahoo Shine, so if you missed that huge promotion, you can find a bracelet in the store for you. Sorry I ran out. Take care and thanks for spending this time with me. Carrie.

Ring Around The Rosie

Why give me a ring
when you own my heart?
When I feel your love I want to
throw my arms in the air and twirl
in circles and just maybe
one of those circles
would turn into a ring
you could wear on your finger
and look down and know
little pieces of of my heart
are in every turn

I LOVE LOVE LOVE to make rings. I love the wire, the idea that even when I just figured out how to put a whole world of fun on a bracelet, that even smaller I could put it on your finger. I made a little globe ring with an elephant dancing over the top under an umbrella. Oh what an afternoon of whimsy and delight. I even found a way to put the photo charms on rings with the back of typewriter keys working as the perfect little steampunk frames. When I went to the pumpkin farm with family people would stop and say, "is that a little circus ring?" ha. I am working on a book of rings, different styles, a do it yourself little zine. I have been working on it for months and I so get sidetracked. Being the be all end all of your own business sounds like fun until 40 people want something and you realize you have two hands, a worthless child and the phone is ringing. Fuck me. So things get put aside but I am making Christmas cookies this year, two kinds, a few dozen, some kolachky to take to Best Friend and that's it.

It snowed last night. It didn't just dust, it really snowed, enough snow so that this morning I could see a thousand little animal footprints in the driveway. Summer's done. The fall, just a few more days and that's over. We'll be all done eating turkey soon and it's on to the remainder of the Holiday season. If you'd like me to make you a funky scarf (I've been known to make the longest scarves in the world) drop me a note and I'd be glad to get it started. I have a new store on etsy called Hersteria and there are some offerings there. Hersteria is from an Eliot poem about love and laughter and fun. Did I mention how much I miss Best Friend this time of the year? I will get to see her soon and all will be good with the world. I am traveling to visit family for a little weekend (if I can get myself away) and that will be my holiday treat to myself.

I am working on bracelets for Marshall Fields, Suzy Snowflake and Frosty The Snowman. Do you have some Christmas treasure of your heart you'd like to see on a bracelet? I'd love to design something just for you. You can find my art at Poetsummer.etsy.com and on feebay at Poetsummer. You can always email me at summerpoet@msn.com. Thanks for spending this time with me and take care of yourself, pamper yourself a little and 20 minutes a day at least for a little meditation, prayer and thanks. You will be better for it. Carrie.

It's Time Again to stand UP

To Vote or Not To Vote

I came into the election open minded. Well, I had hoped the Clintons would make another spin at the white house and then the Clintons slowly reminded me that above country they are always for the Clintons and it seemed that Hillary had lost her sparkle. Standing around the corner stood Hope. I am from Chicago so when someone tells me about a politican from Chicago I am leary. There are backroom deals here, things done on the sly so the idea of one of those southside bullies from Hyde Park occupying the White House did not thrill me. I kept thinking "let's see what the Republicans throw at me."

I like John McCain. I think he's an American Hero. He spent his life serving our country. He sacrificed his childhood in a sense because his father and his father's father was at war defending our country. This is an honorable man and an honorable family. I like his wife, her efforts to bring food and medicine to starving children around the world are admirable. I guess I'm a one issue girl. I don't get that McCain has any interest in inhibiting a woman's choice in regards to having or not having a baby. I don't think he'd allow the religious right to mess around with Roe V. Wade. But...John didn't pick a moderate running mate and he's not a young man. He's an older man who picked Sara Palin. I just can't sit with that decision. Forget that she seems nervous about giving an interview because she isn't one of the Washington rehearsed. Forget that she hunts moose with a rifle out of a helicopter (not really a fair chance for a Moose to get away.) Let's just drop the idea that I'm not always comfortable with a teenager showing up pregnant and a parent looking a little dumbfounded not having impressed upon their children how important birth control is. I remember when my son was a teenager I kept a giant crystal bowl of condoms on his bathroom sink as a constant reminder that if we make the choice to have sex we best be having safe sex. Even when I put all that aside. Women should support other women. I'm not necessarily a Gloria feminist but when given the choice I support other women and the choices they make for their life and the efforts they make to not only break the glass ceiling but to stomp on the pieces until my feet bleed. Sarah picks when she says she doesn't support abortion rights and it's no inconceivable that she'd be president. There are three justices up for retirement in the Supreme Court and as I'm not all that confident in John's choices, the idea that Sarah would pick one of them just doesn't sit will with me.

Am I thrilled with the unfair redistribution of wealth in this country? No. Do I want people who make more than $250K a year to be taxed unfairly? No. I am a little nervous about a Junior Senator running the most powerful country in the world but...I have to trust in Hope. I have to believe that maybe someone who isn't jaded by the Washington crowd may be able to walk us out of this war and into some economic development for those that have been overwhelmed by rising gas prices and an economy that has just recently exploded with bad debt.

The horrible part of a close election is that half the country gets to feel as though they've lost and it pulls us in two directions rather than bring us together and this is a time when we need to stand together as Americans. We need to bring our troops home from the middle east, to help these men and women reunite with their families and to take care of them. We need to build our economy and to teach our children that you don't buy a $400K house when you can only afford a $200K house. We need to pull together the great minds in America to find alternative fuel sources and to help small business people expand.

No matter how your heart is torn, vote. Men died for our right to vote. It only takes a few moments and you're counted. Your opinion matters and when we stand together for what is right, things change. I like the audacity of hope. Hope changes hearts and changes our lives and most importantly the lives our children.

Thanks for spending this time with me. If you have an interest in my art, you can find it at poetsummer.etsy.com. You can always write to me at Summerpoet@msn.com and I welcome your insight as long as you aren't nutty Jeannie.

Nostalgia

I was at a show this weekend and a woman approached me asking me question after question about my jewelry and she said "my mom had bracelets full of charms, little moving pieces of history." I think that's why I love to make my charm bracelets because I get to use components of this and that, things my grandma had on her dressing table, things my mother loved, the cameos, the rhinestones. My parents were never big on excess. They didn't spoil their children the way I spoil my son. We were first told to work for what we wanted and sometimes I feel the guilt of just handing over things to my son just because I want his life to be easier.

But I have a different relationship with my son than I had with my parents. We are closer, more friends, confidants. We take the time to have lunch together and share all about our lives. He has a genuine interest in what makes me happy and although I knew what made my parents happy I didn't really have an investment in it. I had major heart surgery a few years ago and my son took time out of his life to help me heal, taking care of me in a way I didn't even know he was capable of taking of someone else. I had to remind myself of his caring when all I wanted was a cup of broth to feel comforted when I was writhing around in pain and he had to preach to me about the salt content of broth. I wanted to choke him.

No matter how hard we try we are like our parents. I am proud like my parents, and a little set off from the world. I am careful about letting strangers close. Not my Richie. He embraces the world with such a fervent gesture of hope that it takes me by surprise. The last time he was traveling I went to the post office to ask them a question about a shipment. During the summer, when he's home he's the mail person, the mail bitch. The people at the post office not only know him, but know his girlfriend, that he loves the cubs and that he loves to travel. Not one mail person asked me if he had landed ok, four did. They knew when he was leaving and wondered if he was having fun with his brothers. Later that afternoon I wander into 711 to get a cord of firewood. "Hey did Rich call? Is he having fun?" I didn't even know this clerk but he knew Richie and he knew I was Richie's mom and it put a smile on my face for the afternoon.

It's so easy to love our children but to know them and to like them quite another issue. We get to stand back and watch them make decisions and know they aren't our choices but hope against all odds that they are the decisions that make them happy. When he's short tempered I know he has my quick temper. When he's outside playing basketball and 1am it's hard to be irritated when I know he's close and safe and has a little pounce in his step. It's hard to have any authority over a grown man, especially after you've sat in the car with him, his big grandpa boat of a car singing kid rock lyrics together hyped up on iced coffee. He doesn't love poetry like I love poetry and I will never understand Math the way he loves the numbers. When I listen to the same Paula Cole song 10 times in a row he shakes his head and quietly curses me and when I've made his favorite dinner and it's just the two of us and he's busy telling me about his new class schedule I know he's mine forever, a little piece of him is mine forever. When he started working at a bank when he was 16 and loved the idea of counting money all day I wonder what alien tucked him in the crib in the other room and where my real child is out there in the universe.

I miss the little blonde kid digging in the beach behind the lake house, his hair full of sand and his skin tanned from April until October. Everything I do is about those tiny memories that make who I am. When I am putting a mermaid on a bracelet I am with little Rich at the beach and I've taken the day off work and pulled him out of kindergarten for the day and headed to water to watch him build sandcastles. In those quiet moments he became this person he is now.He loves the little animals the way I love them. He loves adventure because his auntie taught him the love of adventure. He has his father's love of children and his Uncle Andy's love of pure laughter just for the sake of laughter. He loves the cubs because his first memories of his uncle Stan were about Cubs games. He reminds me of my dad when he's bitching about me taking a short cut doing anything and when he complains about my driving. He reminds me of my mom when I find the little box in his room full of one earring his aunt loved, movie tickets from his first date with Christina and the tickets from the Cubs Yankees game a few years back.

The other day I was wondering who I was. My knee jerk reaction is to say I'm a mother, I'm an artist, I'm a businesswoman, I'm a best friend, a sister, someone's lover blah blah blah. But it's changed now. He's a man this son of mine. I'm an artist, a business woman, a mother, a best friend, a sister, and aunt and cousin, and someone's lover, someone's secret, and mostly I am loved. thanks for spending this time with me. If you have an interest in my art you can find me at poetsummer.etsy.com. Carrie.

Change is about being uncomfortable

Isn't change always difficult because it's uncomfortable? Hi, I'm Carrie and today is the first day of my blog and I am here for a myriad of reasons. I am an artist and I think I have always been and like everyone else life gets in the way. You have a family to raise, you have bills to pay and things to do and what is the core part of you gets pushed aside to get things done. A few years ago I decided I just couldn't push it aside a moment longer. So this morning I sit here with you to once again open the door to a part of my life to strangers. Being an artist, the test is always that uncomfortable moment when you are putting "it" out there into the world and wondering how well this part of you, something you've created with your hands and your mind will be received into the world. And who else to share this spot with me than Van Gogh. His art made him so uncomfortable at times he cut off part of his ear, traveled around Paris with insane artists who tried to steal his soul. So today it's Vincent and I here to introduce you to a piece of my art.

When I started making art that I would share with the public, Ebay was my playground. I made little altered art books full of poetry, strange photos and found pieces of this and that. There wasn't a place I could travel where I wasn't looking for some foreign paper, some scrap of ribbon, something I could incorporate into a book. And when I decided to make art a full time living, buy a studio space, move on with my life I wanted my own web page and of course a blog. Everything I listed on Ebay had it's own little blog of my life because it doesn't seem right to share your art and not share some of your life. This is the next big bold move. Making my web page (you can find it at http://www.summerpoet.com/) was this strange mix of joy and frustration.

You get too comfortable with your life, how you do things and I need to be forced into change. I don't embrace change, I don't find change a challenge. Change makes me sick a little, makes me wonder if doing anything is a good idea, wanting mostly to stand very very still and hope the world will just happen to me rather than me having to happen to anything else. Change makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little and wash it down with a little chicken soup, pretending I must be ill. It does appropriate that moving to my own web site would occur around Valentines Day. The bossy Republican type in my life convinces me that I like Valentines day more than Christmas, my birthday, oh hell all the holidays combined. I celebrate Valentines day every day loving the idea of living a more romantic life. I save every card, every note and once even refused flowers because the card read..."for a speedy recovery." For a speedy recovery? You can write that on a napkin and slide it under the door. But with flowers don't men understand that the card has to be spectacularly romantic, wonderful, profound, something you'll put in your wallet and pull it out a thousands times. A woman will put a tiny card written to send with flowers out of her wallet when she's at the airport waiting to board a flight. She will hold it in her hands and think about making love a little drunk after a party knowing this is what life is made of these little moments and waking up to smell roses next to your bed. So it fits that change, that uncomfortable ball in your gut of putting it out there would occur at Valentine's day, this is the Valentine I send to you, a welcoming to my life and to my thoughts and of course to my art. I create art from anything that will allow me into it's life.

I love to paint, glue things together, find little pieces of this and that and hope it will be a treasure to you. I want to know about what you create and who you are and welcome you to be a fellow adventurer. I make jewelry, one of a kind crazy pieces of jewelry that you won't find in a store. I make little boxes to hide your treasures. I make miniature little worlds you can carry on your wrist full of color and beads, and glass and life. I don't promise to post here every day, I only promise to share here when I have the energy and the faith that the world is ready for the next thought that I need to make into art and eventually share with you. If you are looking for me, you can always find me at http://www.summerpoet.com/. You can email me at Summerpoet@msn.com, you can find more of my art on Etsy.com searching for Summerpoet studios and if you would like to call me in the studio, you can reach me there at 708-422-4160.

Thanks! Carrie.