Tag Archives: poetry

Winter Solstice

December 20, 2025 By in Archetypal currents, Art, Painting, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

~

Ouroboros

~ 

The moon shivers silver and stirs

As the branches of Life’s Tree, kiln dried,

Spark and Ignite in the cauldron of a Dragon’s exhale

As still holding the Center

The Dragon pauses before its first next Breath before Flight

As the Vesica Pisces, resonating through eons

with the Triangle of Light’s Blessing,

In quantum symmetry smiles

And Mycelium dance in prayerful delight!

~~~~~~~~~

” There are two ways of sustaining something. It may either be carried, or enfolded by creating an unbroken circle round it to prevent its falling apart.”

The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols 1996 addition… by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant under the category “Serpent”.

~


(Adieu to the Chinese “Year of the Wood Snake”)

~

I was a child with dreams of becoming

Now that I am older

The same dreams of being hold

Like a snake shedding it’s skin

While spitting out it’s swallowed tail

Returning and turning

Always the same

In all ways transformed

~

Happy Solstice!

~

Painting and poems © Jana White

Instagram @ Jana_h_White

Enigma

December 11, 2025 By in Photography, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

~

Rooted in the Greek word for riddle

I steady myself

in the middle of the stream

So much rain

my toes search for purchase

as I move along in the strong current

~

But I’ll not wander in the side eddies

where the slickest algae

coats the surface of the stones still idling there

passing time as if singular

feigning reflection

~

An intoxicated accumulation

of over fertilized organic matter

girdling themselves

as if they could hold on to the ground

~

My days have been emptying

full of the feeling that I’m living in two separate realities

~

More than a waiting game

too much hard evidence

~

Carrying a pack that needs to be cleaned out

and made into a traveling case of essentials

fit for traveling in even faster flowing water

~

I’ve been carrying these stones around with me for decades. The one with the impressed shells is from the Northwest Pacific coast and was gifted to me. Its partner once dwelled further south, somewhere along the coast by Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.

They traveled with me when I returned to the waters of the east coast, after my sojourn with the Pacific.  The stones always hold a corner of one of my gardens, along with a bowl of water for the critters and birds.

The poem inserted into the photo arrived out of the blue, as many poems tend to do. It came as a puzzle and I chuckled as I considered who it could be referring to.

That is until…. could it possibly be “water”?  And partner with the poem “Enigma”?

~

Poems and photo © Jana White

Instagram @ Jana_H_White

Dengue Diary

December 4, 2025 By in Art, Pencil Noir, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

~

Becoming

~

Even substance

can not slow to definition

The holiness

of momentum

~

Weather

~

It’s called the “Bone Crusher”.

At the end of 2019 and five days into a month long artist residency in Mexico, I fell into a deep viral vortex known as dengue fever. As the virus rummaged through my physiology, the microscopic mutants concentrated in my skull. My brain swelled with a pain so focused that I couldn’t open my eyes and for days I lost all sense of whether it was day or night.

All I remember of this time is literally having no other choice but to surrender to the pain. Finally, within this weird dark place I “saw” what I remember as an image of the archetype of Mary, which I held on to with the thought that perhaps I wasn’t being swallowed whole afterall.

Shortly after the pain subsided, and other than the bones in my head being tender and my lungs congested, I slowly re-entered the day to day world of the rest of the residency.

The canvasses I had prepped were all ready and hanging on my working wall. My paints were arranged on the table, but I found that I could not tolerate color! Light also bothered me and I was unable to look at a phone or computer screen without feeling some internal wires were being crossed. My original intentions disrupted, I sketched instead in black and white trying to express the experience and make something of the residency.

Even more disconcerting was how it felt simply inhabiting space. When walking there was the feeling of riding up and down an elevator. For months afterwards I would have to stop to steady and ground myself….in a panic. Since this feeling was this side of actual dizziness or vertigo, it took months to understand my eustachian tubes had been permanently altered. Finally allergy testing confirmed this and also that my body remained on high alert. I continually exhibited allergic reactions, and I became a human barometer of weather and environmental and seasonal changes. It took years to convince my neurology that neither hard wood trees, nor a new weather front, would upend me.

I was finding that I was having to come into perceptual relationship with everything around me…in a deeper way. This relationship wasn’t a new experience. I had been relying on nature for a sense of wonder and relationship, but also emotional regulation, since a child old enough to wander alone in the wildness of it. This is where I found true beauty in the rhythms of life, sometimes death, and learned to trust change.

Considering the archetypal image of Mary that I saw during my dengue episode? It has become clear to me that this was the Earth herself….in one unbroken seam.

~

Drawings by Jana White ©

Instagram @ Jana_h_White

Fragile

March 1, 2025 By in Art, Poetry Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

`

Fragile like smog shadows rifling valleys

the mountain holds its breath

~

Fragile like feverish water

the ocean aborts the moon’s children

~

Fragile like bees losing direction

and stamens playing their last hands

~

Fragile like children born overwhelmed

by viruses perplexed

~

Fragile still

like a flower

self-sewing in the garden

in blooming will make no mistakes

Intelligence in its unfolding

~

~

“The Sky is falling. The sky is falling”

Painting and poem by Jana White

Instagram @jana_h_white

Loosely Binding

March 19, 2017 By in Poetry Tags: , , , , , , 17 Comments

Hanji

The making of Hanji paper ….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulberry bark

Gather,

skin, boil, wash, pound

In winter

cover with the root mucus … of hibiscus manihot.

Blended together … artfully form.

In a warm room … dry slowly … covered with stones.

I am durable … unpreserved I outlast civilizations

Enter my door … I am cool in summer, warm in winter

Impenetrable … the rain that falls can not dim my light

~

Accompanied by cricket sound in a field of stars

I sit in the soft glow of papered lamp light

it’s ancient tradition a beckoning

all my loved ones resting deep in sleep,

and tonight a great nest of grandchildren

dreaming of mountain tadpoles

and the wild strawberries they picked

as their own sun kissed bodies ripened in the sun

In this moment

I wonder at the naturalness of this great love that binds us

I am dazed by this spiraling life my heart forever flies towards

while still maintaining my own self … full, nurturing, self providing

I sit here like an open field arms held wide for it all

Tonight looking out at the shadows cast in response to our light

the dreaming of this family and the vast silence of living surrounds me

I wrap myself round with the wonder of it all

At the strength and resilience this steady cadence our hearts beat

Seemingly fragile

But oh, so strong

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hanji paper is a traditional paper made in Korea from the inner bark of the paper mulberry. It is durable with archival properties and can be openly displayed in museums without protection. It is a good ventilator but can also keep a room warm so it is used to cover their wooden framed doors. It is also waterproof. It’s translucent qualities lend well to the artistry of shading lamps.

Hanji Paper Artist: Kitty Jun-Im

osmosis

March 26, 2016 By in Art, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , 20 Comments

~

thought hovers

is this thought mine?

~

I watch the few words

just there

I look askance to see if they move

do they move of their own volition?

no

they hover

simultaneously

we’re moving through walls

what does this mean?

~

I once could hear through walls

I’d lost my skin

rendered immobile

I heard nuclear indifference

red lights green lights

flying metal and a dying jesus

I wet myself

although the bed stayed dry

~

I looked for what was left

at the time

I was empty

much later I understood

this was the right place to start

~

it takes awhile

starting from nothing

to un-know everything

~

we hover

not knowing

we move through walls

~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Acrylic on paper….j. h. white

Lumens

March 15, 2016 By in Art, Pencil Noir, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , , , 40 Comments

~

The push the pull the moon’s sculpting hands

Its broad face spilling transparent

over lunar mountains

Full bright

but veiled by cloud’s chattering

Obscured

yet still felt in the marrow

~

With a tactile sensing

for the peaks and dark hollows

My blood its own compass

I map the edge of the sea

as the tide recedes

filling the carved pools as it leaves

~

The clouds drift away in their own mystery

as the moon glides free

in luminous ascending

and I sway as a puppet in a shadow play

bathed in luminous manna

~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pencil sketch and poetry: j.h.white

note: a photo attributed to Joshua Black Wilkins was the inspiration for the sketch. ( I was unable to verify the source however)

 

Jazz

March 3, 2016 By in Poetry Tags: , , , , , 32 Comments

 

Peter Harskamp

~

The beams, thirsty in their plumb aligned structure,

drink deeply of the improvised sound issuing from the garden

The cello’s notes satiating the kiln dried wood

~

In an upstairs bedroom a woman moves to the music

unbidden thoughts seeping in slow aching, wandering

the intimate landscape still mapped within her heart

~

Shaking them loose, she leans precariously out of the window

listening to the ripening tenor notes, admitting she’s

grateful now to be by herself yet questioning…

~

What am I to do with my internal tenderness?

There is no one here to reach for

listening to the first bird’s song?

~

This softening moves through her

seeking to be moored in the infinite, not in the observed

third person distance of Wife or Her or She

~

Bending her head to the low deep notes of the cello

the forest memory of its burnished wood

resonates between her thighs

~

I’ve reawakened the elasticity of my flesh

by becoming weightless, a quickening again

There is no measure in this

~

Vulnerable it moves too fluidly to have a name

it spreads out and collects

like dark pools reflecting sky after rain

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““

~

Painting….Peter Harskamp

Slow Infestation

February 9, 2016 By in Art, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , 38 Comments

~

He was a wolf …

a solitary wolf culled from the pack

expertly herding his words

through her undulate terrain.

She welcomed the seduction

amply savoring his patois.

~

Beguiled by his seeming intimacy

she failed to assimilate the slow infestation

of his oblique aural patternings

insinuating edgy consonants

and limbic vowel howls.

It was her stomach at first that resisted the enchantment

with small flutterings of continual distress.

Slowly she became aware

that his words were predictable

acid but effervescent

lying tips of tongues

corroding her silence.

They dangled from her

like wind chimes with little meaning

Their fractured light cascading

from her now weary ears

pummeling the surface.

So she gathered herself

and sent him,

and his errant words,

away

Though at times she could still hear their echoing…

The scent of him having so easily

permeated her skin.

~

To ward off this sonic residue

she bathed daily in lovage root and vervain

and made a tincture of his words,

a verbal potion dissolved in fine brandy

She took one dose timed exactly

as the cusp of the horizon split day into night

Delicately,

Three drops under her tongue,

with a twist…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had fun with this one. Looking over older work I saw a story weaving between a few different poems and so I threaded a needle and sewed them together. The drawing is an old one too. Newer than the poems, it is cut from the same cloth.

~

PoePoem and drawing: jana h white                 Drawing: Pastels on black paper

balance balance

January 28, 2016 By in Art, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , , , 44 Comments

~

The swaths of sky above crisscross in a babble of breathy scars

I see more than chemtrails though…

I try to imagine the people up there in the winged bullet

making its way across the sky

their feet dangling in mid air

save for a foot or so of wires and baggage and metal.

From this perspective, looking up, it’s barely comprehensible

that people are really up there at all.

~

When I think about it,

anxiousness and excitement both feel the same

The same pit of my stomach startled wings

 A choice of persuasion then?

My choice what to make of it?

~

Perhaps ‘being lost’ and ‘being free’ are similar

the same choice of persuasion of this or that.

I’m not talking about real loss

The punch in the stomach that takes my breath away,

but the weightless existential can’t find my shoes

want to sleep all day being lost

translating into the realms of flesh.

~

Aren’t both ‘being lost’ and ‘being free’

a casting off from the perceived familiar?

Being pushed off or pushing off

from a finely honed routine of nomenclature

that causes a shift in my internal gravity?

Are they so different?

I stand in the middle of either …. lost or found

~

Even while recognizing the breath of this feeling though,

my feet want to touch the ground

whether covered by moss, or sidewalk, or water.

Pragmatic, I want intimacy to have a face, a hand, a leaf, a claw

and be swayed by ideas or feelings

that have grown from some shared fertile ground.

It’s simpler to pick them up and put them to use

to make something, to hold, to do.

Even if it is simply making dinner, holding my grandson’s hand,

or doing nothing at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Painting and poem by j.h.white