Cloud Diary

December 27th

I wish to tell a tale of winter. It shows up with the outlines of a Norman Rockwell painting. Cold that rosies the cheek. Wind you must lean into (a wreath hung over one arm). Neighbors bent over snow shovels and so bundled up that you do not recognize them. Snow that connects one house to the next with a deep powder. Bleak skies of stratus clouds giving way to clear blue with patchworks of white. And when there is just enough moisture and uplift, the skies fill with fancy. Cumulus clouds disguised as clams shake from the soft sand. Dragons arch their wings. 1950s alien spacecraft puff by. And one tiny exhalation from our lungs disappears into BIG WIND. (Later, it will swirl and dance across the plains looking very much like Ginger Rogers in search of Fred Astaire.)

December 28th

I.
It was a long summer of clear blue skies. Not a shred of white anywhere. Today clouds dot that blue. After months of stretching out in lounge chairs sipping martinis or pilsners under perfect crystal blue, we mark the invasion. Some clouds know to swarm together and kidnap the sun!

But I know the secret of clouds.

II.
Several horses run by the window. Manes flowing, galloping east. They fly even before I’ve opened my eyes. I am sure of it. I could lay on the brown earth, look up and watch, even though it is well into winter. But I sit here, tea cooling at my elbow, watching. Castles with towering turrets. A bouquet of roses – each flower waving in the active air. Steam locomotives carrying passengers to Swiss chalets. Rabbits, round and fluffy. Albert Einstein, bristly mustache and wild hair.

Cumulus clouds hang over the Front Range.

December 30th

I.
The wind trundled the bed and shook the window panes this morning. “Time to get up! Before they fly!” The light grows and the moon dims and birds begin to wake. Finches twitter and squawk in the mugo pine, jumping from limb to limb under the canopy. The tufts of branches wave to the waning moon. The neighbors’ wind chimes clang and bell. The sound of my breathing mingles with the exhalations of the furnace and the hush of early morning traffic. So much dry air.

II.
A bright fingernail moon hangs in the southern sky. Cumulus clouds scoot by on steady gusts, backed by a field of blue. A ragtag bison gallops by, catching the first rays of the sun in its fur. Then a wayward breeze brings with it a brown wash. It smudges the moon. The wind billows in the eaves, rattles the window panes. The wash thickens, then dissolves in one swift moment. A rag gets caught in the rails of the fence. It twitches with each breath of wind.

Winter is here: shorter days, lower temperatures, wind. But with the late morning breezes, the clouds scatter. The sun pours down, at first a delight, then a baleful glare. The bird bath is empty. No hint of rain. No sleet. No snow.

III.
A snow storm is announced for New Year’s Eve. I plan to snuggle down with my sweetie and a glass of champagne. Watch flakes fall and accumulate on the ground and on every structure in sight. Safe and warm inside. For now, it is blue sky and a dancer in a tutu leaping across it in a jeté. She is the last act. Those thoughtful, whipped cotton clouds will soon be no more.

December 31st

I.
Clouds can carry smoke, not moisture. Turncoats.

II.
Yesterday afternoon, even while blue clung to the horizon, I smelled smoke. I shifted around the house like a zombie, watching the horizon. Clouds shifted and silted. Winds gusted over 100mph, pushing brown and orange puffs up the Front Range from the south. A small brush fire was reported just 10 miles west. It was soon snuffed out. Another fire 20 miles away roared: downed power lines had ignited the tall grasses of the high desert plain.

Yesterday, the celebrated snow did not come. By nightfall while fires still raged, that was a blessing. Piles of snow can smother flame, but also people. Hundreds of houses crumbled to ash and thousands of people ran for their lives. They did not stop to grab a coat. They grabbed their families. Meanwhile, all around them burnished clouds billowed.

III.
I still wish to tell a tale of winter. But I don’t know all the secrets of clouds.

This morning the Twin Sisters wear a smudged cloak. The sun rises bright and white, then disappears in gray. But fear crackles in the silence. Clouds bring burning.

I pass by the window. A patch of blue still clings to the horizon. It is now encircled in white. I choose sides: I will it to snow. I pull out the yoga mat and, just as I bow to loving kindness, my eye catches the first fall.

Then it snowed, dear reader. All day and into the night. Glorious tufts! Swirling with elan! A release of power! As if winter had been working all along to ease the pain of drought and had finally broken through clouds that it had not sent.

Our front yard on New Year’s Eve as the storm finally hit.

January 1st

I.
There is a huge pearl blanket overhead and a foot of snow on the ground. Holiday lights seem brighter than before, shining from inside white cocoons. House finches, gold finches brave the cold. A junco flies up to the squirrel baffle. She pecks at the seed caught there by the snow, then races to the ground. A squirrel plows through the drifts. He dives, then comes back up, shaking his fur and munching on sunflower husks and dropped seed. We nickname him The Surfing Squirrel.

The mugo pine is a warren. Song birds shelter in its branches in-between forays for seed. Some branches reach up with white mittens toward a gray sky. Others, weighed down with snow, bend towards the center, overlapping and creating nesting spots all the way down to the ground. “Cheerie! Cheerie!” The chickadees are here! They are the only ones who can call out with such cheer on a cold winter morning.

II.
A new shower of snow comes down with an insistence that demands respect. Please douse the remaining fires! Please smother the lasting fear and doubt! Now that you have finally arrived – good timing Old Man Winter! – please lift the veil just a little. Just enough to conduct people without homes to a safe and warm place. Just enough that those who have homes to return to, or those who were on the cusp of evacuating, have heat and light and food. Just enough that they have safe drinking water and all the supplies they need to get through this Cold Open of a New Year.

III.
My husband and I. We two. Together. Matching bowls of soup in front of the fire. An open bottle of wine. We are each other. The birds outside the window attenuate our relationship through glass.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a face peak in the window. I turn. It is gone.

Simple and Sweet. Then twisting. Wild magic strikes, then turning, steals away. Sunlight parts clouds and caresses the wound. Then brown clouds return, ready to pierce through the peace of another day. They dissolve into innocent white. And I gather. I gather the secrets of clouds.

— Ellen A. Wilkin

Note: I wrote this piece in response to the Marshall Fire that began south of Boulder, Colorado on December 30th 2021, right before a heavy snowfall was predicted. It was fully contained in a few days. No one in my family or among my friends was directly affected, except for some folks who had to evacuate, but returned safely to their homes. Hundreds of others lost their homes.

Winter Letter 2019/2020

Darkness and snow descend;
The Clock on the Mantelpiece
Has nothing to recommend

-- W. H. Auden, Advent

I sit in the front room clutching a mug of Earl Grey and basking in the radiance of the Christmas tree. Its white lights and silver, gold, and multi-colored ornaments push back the advancing dusk. As the light fades, the candles in the window begin to glow, and both they and the white lights on the tree are reflected in the front and back windows. In the front yard, the blue lights on the evergreens snap on, and looking out, I see an overlay of white on blue. And now the solar lights on the pine at the back window fade in. The reflections multiply: outdoor lights reflecting back on themselves and onto each other and playing over the reflections of the indoor tree and the candles. I am pleased and my imagination runs away. I am the warder of the dark and the watcher over the last beacon at the edge of night!

The first hints of Winter came early this year with a snowstorm and heavy gray days over Thanksgiving. I nestled down into layers of cotton and fleece and wrote. While I’m working on a project, I struggle for inspiration, and gray, snow-choked days make it harder. I have successfully wooed it a time or two, but have more often suffered total failure. (Don’t try Spider Solitaire. Does. Not. Work.) Despite all my experience chasing inspiration over the years, I don’t know exactly what it is. Writers write about it. Musicians play and sing to it. Artists draw and paint and sculpt until they find it. Actors become someone else in search of it. When it comes – and there is no guarantee it arrives at all – it is not to be corralled. It does not follow a structure or schedule. It is or is not. Some folks seem to have it at their finger tips whenever they need it. Some of us don’t. In my experience, when inspiration comes it feels like being struck by lighting. And like lightening, it reveals something. Maybe a memory I’d forgotten or some understanding that I didn’t know I had. Inspiration can feel like a sudden collision of ideas that were unrelated but now have a relationship. A feeling that I am part of the world washes over me. And everything is right.

Beginning at the winter solstice, I try to capture the essence of Christmas to find inspiration. "Christmas" for me starts with a feeling of security and love that I had as a child fostered by the love and generosity of my parents. It then morphs into a tradition completely enacted and controlled by me. Some aspects are the same: Caroling, lights, baking, eating meat-heavy meals and sweets, erecting a tree with presents underneath. I stare into the red, green, blue, and gold lights on the mantelpiece and let my eyes go out of focus so the colors blur into a magical tapestry, just as I would as a child. (I had perfected the eye blur at Saint Mary's primary school during Friday morning mass. I would stare at the altar and let my eye muscles relax. The world became a wash of color and a hint of shape.) But forty-eight years later, my adult sensibilities come to bear on the process. I make wreaths from discarded evergreen branches, pine cones, and used red ribbons. I invite friends and family to make merry. I love the sugar-and-chocolate aroma of cookies baking and the earthy citrus spice taste of mulled-wine-soaked orange slices. I want to hear the tinkling of bells, the brass and boom and trill of instruments, and voices raised in song. It is a grand composition.

As an adult I love the reaction others sometimes have to my winter composition. For example, new neighbor CJ pointed us out to his children as we walked by and said “those are the folks with the blue lights.” Lonny, our neighbor for twenty years now, stopped by the house while walking his dog and, as she nosed into the bushes I had just decorated, said in his Texas drawl, “Yep. That’s the house with the blue lights, Peaches.” Susan, next door, commented as she walked by with her dog that I was "too ambitious." I told her I could stop anytime I wanted to. That's when it hit me: I was making myself happy. The whole point of this process was to find delight in my creativity and to connect with others. Perhaps that's inspiration in a nutshell: a feeling of connection, both to ourselves and to others. The completion of a circuit – in the brain, in the soul, in the body. Then we light up from inside. And then that brilliance spills into the outside world.

The final aspect of my winter composition is this: reaching out to all of you. Hope you find the inspiration to do wonderful and creative things for yourself and for others this year.

I Was Writer in Residence at the Gloucester Writer's Center

I am delighted and a little bit startled by my time as Writer in Residence at the Gloucester Writers Center. It was a period of deep writing for me as well as an introduction to the city of Gloucester, MA: its landscape and its inhabitants. I have met many of the visitors to the center—from the actual “center” to the “fringe.” It was an honor to meet Henry Ferrini my first day there, and on subsequent visits we had charming and unguarded conversations. All the while, I was aware that I was a stranger to the town and the recipient of a free place to stay in a character of a town at the edge of the sea. And all due to the generosity of Henry, Amanda Cook, Dan Duffy, and the other members of the Gloucester Writers Center board and community. As the days went by, the cast of characters increased and grew more colorful but remained generous and welcoming. Thanks to them all, but especial thanks to Amanda for setting up the reading and being my champion although we had just met.

I wrote several poems while ensconced in Vincent Ferrini’s old cottage. Look for some of them to be posted here on this blog.

Calling Inspiration

A nice red Jump dress (Titanic inspiration) back view Photo by ~ggvic~ [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

I saw you down the street
I caught a glimpse of your red hair
The glint in your eye
Then you were swallowed up in the crowd
and you were gone

Something about the texture of
layered limestone on a bed of red sand
in Ojo Caliente
sends a jolt through me
but the moment passes
like an electric field
through me
but neglects to burn the equivalent
language into my brain

I caught the edge of your red silk dress
just then
and felt the soft weave
I hung on as you danced over the water
and soared over mountain peaks
but at 10,000 feet
I lost my grip
and now I am
10,000 feet down
Where was it to? The rest of that flight?
Can I take the next plane
and catch you up
Apparently all flights are full
and I must sag back down to the ground
in this nameless spot on which I have
landed.

Ellen A.Wilkin

Great Horned Owl

Having fun with my colored pencils. There is nothing like sketching every line of a bird, especially one as ornate as a Great Horned Owl, to teach you what that bird looks like! Thank you to Sibley’s Guide to North America Birds for giving me such a detailed painting to work from.

Rembrandt's Prints at the DAM

I pace the length of a white wall, and a tiny portrait catches my eye:
A first impression
A youthful face emerges from the swirls
and hatch marks
It stares out from aged paper and under glass
Renaissance hat perched on the head
(he wants you to think he is a man of letters)
eyes wide, lips forming a silent ooohhh!
like inspiration had just pierced him through.

Rembrandt used a mirror to draw his face
over and over
A series of lines, swirls and shadings
To capture an expression
He must have asked himself each time,
What curves exemplify character
and not caricature?
He sketched the same figure of a portly man with a cane
hundreds of times
before he ever lifted a needle to etch it
into wax or to scratch it onto a naked copper plate
And then he made an impression

He produced hundreds of prints from his press—for his own amusement—
fine-lines flowing as hair on a maid
dense hatches for shadows along a beggar's nose,
lines upon lines upon lines representing the darkness
out of which
the figures of Joseph and Mary emerge riding a donkey—
But friends and even members of the nobility loved his pressings
How much would he charge?
He learned that first pressings fetched more guilder
so once made he might as well remake the plate
and he went deeper
He layered on more wax
refilling the ridges
and re-etching a slightly different scene—
a smaller effort than building a new plate—
He created a new state
from which he made a new "first" impression
which sold well
He could do it in his sleep
and so his hobby helped finance his painting

As Rembrandt impressed paper, so he tried to impress people:
He spent all of his rich wife's money on
expensive rugs and drapes and wine and the most exquisite food stuffs
to keep that Renaissance feel
He held parties and rabble-roused—he was much admired!
But then his investments turned sour
And when Louis XIV offered to buy them
for pennies on the guilder,
He sold them all—
His exquisite light-bathed paintings
And even his most precious prints,
The ones he had kept back for himself
Louis stamped them with his seal—
the initials B. R. under a heavy crown—
And hung the works in a vast empty hall—
The "Biblioteca Royale"—
While Rembrandt died a pauper
His wife, then mistress and son already gone.

Yet first impressions prevail:
the image of "Renaissance" Rembrandt
are printed on post cards
and promotional posters for the Denver Museum of Art,
They are reproduced in high quality gloss for coffee table books—
And they somehow still capture the
Startlement—
the instant of knowing,
the moment of change—
when he knew what he could do
and would do
and would become
It's etched on his face!
I see it clear as day on my own post card—
purchased at the museum gift shop—
and it has not changed for almost four hundred years

That instant of knowing...something...
At certain working moments I feel it, too
like looking in a mirror
and seeing that wide-eyed astonishment
Hearing a half-whispered oohh!
Feeling that still sharp scratch of inspiration passing through
to me
and to the next person
and to the next
as we reshape our words
re-angle our brush strokes
or play with the reach of our pencil lines
Before it disappears
(then seeking it, always seeking it!)
And in the background
Rembrandt still works his press
making his "first" impressions
through the painter on the mall
the graphic artist in her garret
the poet sitting staring out her window.

—Ellen A. Wilkin