Kathleen Cerveny

I try to pay attention to the common and the extraordinary experiences of the human heart and mind as they touch me, and wrestle them into words that I hope mean something.

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Looking Through Others' Eyes; a Question and a Wish

http://bit.ly/2yXj4Y2

Early morning moon The moon was still trying to fuzz its way into the morning through the pervasive cloud cover. Its faint light hung over the neighbor’s house like a stray fluff of lint on a gray wool blanket. It’s the morning after we gained an hour, but it still seems like 5 am rather than 6. ...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Not Exactly Staying in the Moment

http://bit.ly/2y2k3pm

It’s Sunday morning and I’m walking downstairs, my special prescription computer glasses still on.  I’ve just printed out the Times crossword to work on over breakfast. The stairs are a little out of focus as I step down, but I manage. The crossword’s in one hand and in the other I’ve got t...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Grateful for the Trashmen: My Garbage Footprint

http://bit.ly/2uRPsJD

(AP Photo/John Minchillo) 6:15 Tuesday morning and the big green trash truck rumbles down my street.  The sanitation workers hanging from its sides leap down,  grab and toss the trash in a rhythmic dance of efficiency.  In almost a blink, the flotsam of the past week that washed up on the curb ov...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

How Can I Not Laugh?

http://bit.ly/2LaJF7w

Chipmunks, like gazelles, racing stipes a-blur, trampolining through the uncut grass. Irreverent tails flip the bird as they dive into the ankle-twisting mine shafts underneath my lawn.  

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Regarding Deer

http://bit.ly/2tanjyR

  They reclined, unmoving, in the lush ivy at the back of the yard, like life-size lawn ornaments.  Six of them, with the lowering sun’s rays glowing warm through the oval cups of their ears; dark noses, turned toward the house. I’ve just come home, parked the car in the drive and am half...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Raptor Rapture

http://bit.ly/2FuyLYi

Last weekend I had the incredible privilege of holding in my hand, an American Kestrel; one of the “Ambassador Animals” at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.  Stryker, as this beautiful bird has been named, lives at the Museum, having been saved from a near-fatal injury which left it with a...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Resolutions at 1° on 1/1

http://bit.ly/2Ewm6Us

From my kitchen window I watched the last day of the year close down. Streaks of coral fire, warmed the purpled underside of cloudbanks stretched across the luminous cerulean of an otherwise unclouded western sky. A spidered tangle of tree limbs was stenciled against this riotous backdrop.  It ...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Starting the New Year as a Plucked Duck

http://bit.ly/2EoBthy

This post is not about what you might imagine, given the title. Thinking of starting the New Year with clean bedding, and being mindful of the single digit temperatures predicted for the first week of January, I made the mistake of removing the duvet cover from my big goose down comforter and...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Christmas Mysteries

http://bit.ly/2pvOF0z

There’s a fire and a tree and candles, this Christmas morning – and I’m caught up in the mystery of some childhood memories. What were your favorite gifts, as a child? And what do you think about them now?  Do you ever wonder why your parents chose that gift, at that moment, for you? And did you ...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Festooned

http://bit.ly/2nqhZob

Corn snake As a teenager, my first awareness of the power of contemporary poetry came from an encounter with D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Snake.”  So beautiful, evocative and seductive the language, but so dark the subject.  The darkness did not lie in the image or actions of the poem’s snake, but rath...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

In the Pool II: Learning Gratitude for Casual Friendships – a Process

http://bit.ly/2mTAQrC

C. and I bond over birds. He recounts his joy at the late-season appearance of Bluebirds in his yard. I am tickled to share this morning’s story from the Times about wild turkeys taking over towns across the U.S., this day before Thanksgiving. The conversing balloons of our heads float above the ...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Losing Daylight

http://bit.ly/2lQjBH4

It warmed a little today, after a half-week of rain flirting with sleet. Even now, approaching midnight, the air is mild. Into the quiet, a cricket drops its late autumn chirps, one-by-one, measuring the night at the meditative pace of breath.  Like a melancholy memory of summer, gone. I spent ...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

On Bringing Things Down to Scale

http://bit.ly/2yPWYI4

October 28 is International Observe the Moon Day. Yep. Our lovely celestial neighbor gets a special day on the calendar. Or, rather, a special night.  Here in our corner of the globe, the moon will be waxing gibbous; a little more than 50% illuminated.  56% to be more precise. It will wax fuller ...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

On Bringing Things Down to Scale

http://bit.ly/2yPWYI4

October 28 is International Observe the Moon Day. Yep. Our lovely celestial neighbor gets a special day on the calendar. Or, rather, a special night.  Here in our corner of the globe, the moon will be waxing gibbous; a little more than 50% illuminated.  56% to be more precise. It will wax fuller ...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Aiming for No Regrets: Looking 'Upstream'

http://bit.ly/2xW35uO

When I was a little girl, my father and I used to sketch together.  He never declared himself as an artist, but he was. In later life he would carve animals from wood or soapstone, and I have several of these among my most prized possessions.  He was color-blind, so pen and ink or pencil were h...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Ghost Knowledge: Leaf Tea and Astral Jell-o

http://bit.ly/2yqZzrH

Some delights of autumn leaves: the stained-glass cathedral light they filter through the trees, the shusss-and crackle of a walk through those already fallen, their earthy perfume rising from the ground after a rain. Another delight is the ghost images left behind; shadowy impressions of their...

[kathleencerveny]

New Post has been published on Kathleen Cerveny - Artist

Another Sign of the Apocalypse

http://bit.ly/2yeXOOv

Despite the picture, this post isn’t about bees.  Although their demise is probably yet another sign of the apocalypse. ———————————————————– It rained all last night; a...