/ hail mary full of grace, brooklyn november 2009

/catch the whispers like stars, october 2009 stratford ct

sometimes i rush around

and feel like ive lost it/

then, in moments like these,

i realize

nothing is ever lost

for all it takes

is to be still and

it will all come back to you

again and again

like a great wave

the books that help you most are those which make you think the most. the hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty. - p.neruda

mom & dad/ home, webster ny january 2010

the tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.

look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.   

i am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly

as the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.   

i am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.   

i have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses   

and my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.

they have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff   

like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.

stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.

the nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,

they pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,

doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,   

so it is impossible to tell how many there are.

my body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water

tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.

they bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.   

now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——

my patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,   

my husband and child smiling out of the family photo;   

their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat   

stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.

They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.   

Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley   

I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books   

Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.   

I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.

//excerpt from 'tulips' by sylvia plath

my grandfather, dziadzi/ irondequoit, ny summer 2009

lots of new family and life work to come!

/perfect photograph for a blustery winter morning, via miss pandora

'and she looked out over the water and said 'good things are coming, i can feel it' and the wind whispered back to her, 'look around, my dear, the good things - they're already here.''

i will have some photographs in an exhibition at the university of pennsylvania entitled 'this is not an invitation to rape me' opening on february 18 and going through march 5. a special thanks to the exhibitions coordinator charles hall for contacting me regarding participation in this project, i think it carries a really important message and im really happy to be a part of it. ive attached the show flyer with more information regarding the exhibition.

casey/ 1 november 2008, syracuse ny 

seeker!

do not be reckless.

meditate constantly.

or you will swallow fire

and cry out: 'no more!'

if you are not wise,

how can you steady the mind?

if you cannot quieten yourself,

what will you ever learn?

how will you become free?

with a quiet mind

come into that empty house, your heart,

and feel the way

beyond the world.

look within-

the rising and the falling.

what happiness!

how sweet to be free!

/excerpt from 'the seeker' in the dhammapada

old loves/ feeling nostalgic lately

flashbacks/ 2007

something profound and beautiful and therefore profoundly beautiful / syracuse may 2009

february is going to be a beautiful month.