A face like yours

[Rel Constant]

I'll throw my face into the ring. The following is a picture from a series of paintings that were made of my face. This one comes with numbers: as in a paint by number scheme. You get to pick your own colors for the numbers. I thought the idea was really cool. My face has gracefully aged much since then. I am now much more beautiful.

paintjack.jpg

thanks jack i love this face and head, it is beautiful. Did you ever colour it?

[lazariuk]

thanks jack i love this face and head, it is beautiful. Did you ever colour it?

[Rel Constant]

Well, is that all pretty amazing or what? Sounds like lots of fun. You look sort of English but also quite Frenchish, should be ok, or?
nice colours.

[Violet]

.. thank you, Jack.. and yes, I love these Leonard lines as well.. to go down so deep..

I like the line about the river is going to weep.
Last weekend I got to spend time with my great nephew Bucky and I brought him and some other family members for a walk to the river. One thing that rain and tears are good for is making mud. Children like playing in mud and the place I brought him was where even an old guy like me has been known to get on his knees to play in the mud. Mud is a soft place to land if you are falling. When I was playing in the mud I noticed that when I got to a certain depth the river would begin weeping into the hole. I thought "Hey that reminds me of something" My niece was one of the people with me and we began singing one of her favorite childhood songs "Down by the Riverside" like you can hear by Sister Rosetta at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xzr_GBa8qk

It also reminded me of another Leonard song which goes:

And you say you've been humbled in love
Cut down in your love
Forced to kneel in the mud next to me
Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one
Who kneels there as deeply as thee

Jack.. I like the line "mud is a soft place to land if you are falling".. there's poetic possibility in that..

Sister Rosetta and women seemingly like her have me in awe of them... women like Sharon Robinson maybe.. I don't know their personal histories, but the word "strength" comes to mind.. a kind of strength that maybe I never possessed, even if I've known some hardship.. but maybe not the same kind of hardship, which could mold these wonderfully strong and talented and beautiful women..

Anyway, speaking of myself, tears -- as many women, especially, seem to know -- are very often healing.. though they have you swimming in sadness sometimes.. and the feel of them running down your face.. well it can cause more tears to come..

.. I guess I'm talking about what it is to be crying rivers..

So, here's to strong women with beautiful faces.. and even tear stained faces.. that know of hearts, striving to be beautiful..

v i o l e t

.. oh, by the way Jack... isn't that yellow floral background on your portrait our kitchen nook??..

[Violet]

Now yer really smart1 to provide such tearful pained love in a beauteous form. on demand.

Rel.. I still say you are very very cute... and thank you for appreciating the poem I wrote on the fly.. I'm afraid it was rather easy for me, which in this instance, is a bit sad to say...

v. xxx

... oh, by the way, you might notice, I've been tweaking the spacing of the words of this poem a bit, just so that it reads with the sort of rhythm I'd intended it to have.. to me it's one of the trickier parts of transcribing the feeling of a poem you're putting down on the page.. how to capture a concrete sense of the rhythm intended..

[Rel Constant]

Now yer really smart1 to provide such tearful pained love in a beauteous form. on demand.

Rel.. I still say you are very very cute... and thank you for appreciating the poem I wrote on the fly.. I'm afraid it was rather easy for me, which in this instance, is a bit sad to say...

v. xxx

... oh, by the way, you might notice, I've been tweaking the spacing of the words of this poem a bit, just so that it reads with the sort of rhythm I'd intended it to have.. to me it's one of the trickier parts of transcribing the feeling of a poem you're putting down on the page.. how to capture a concrete sense of the rhythm intended..

I must say, I really liked how you tweaked your poem. The meaning is enhanced.
Yr fr
R

[Violet]

.. that's good to hear, Rel.. since you can't always tell when you're reading it to yourself, so outside verification is much appreciated!

fondly,
v i o l e t