Post-Blog

B"H

Dearest Blog Readers,

It is official, this post is post-blog. There won't be a poem and the photograph is a combination of shots from yesterday and today. This project has been one of the wildest rides we have ever taken and we thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for taking it with us.

A little about us when we're not blogging, today just as two ordinary citizens, Eric took over 170 photographs and Jackie, wrote 6 poems which changed and grew as we went about on adventures. Without a deadline our fingers still dash across the keyboard (but without anxiety) and our batteries dying won't destroy the world; if the internet chooses to be temperamental we won't be as tempted to curse the heavens above for taunting us so. The comments and support we have received in the past 24 hours and the past 365 days have been overwhelming and life changing.

We hope you have seen enough to have a favorite post, enough that the images are stuck in your mind, enough that words of your own blossom upon your tongues, and maybe occasionally you remember a phrase.

From the mind of the Poet: Writing on a single moment (trapped in the lenses of a camera), has drawn out my appreciation for the little things in life. The way the beach marks your trail, by inviting footprints into the sand it holds, or the joy of dancing as though nothing else in the world matters. Single moments barely exist in life, for they are linked to a chain of events before and after, so closely that our memories of them are never completely clear. Taking the time to love that truth and push it to its limits has been an extraordinary experience.

From the mind of the Photographer: : Grabbing my camera as I head out the door, my brain automatically goes into “story mode”. Walking down the street, everything I see suddenly has a story. That bird to my left is courting the one on the power lines. The dog across the street is walking his human, trying to get her to run and be healthier. The squirrel running around under the acorn tree is hunting for food to last through the winter. Upon the return to my computer, my stop-motion stories are fixed up and sent off to my poet to be told.

Thank you each from the bottoms of our hearts, to those of you in our home communities, and to those of you across oceans. Our art is the most we can give you, and in receiving it you have parts of us.

With Peace,

Jackie & Eric

Day 365

She was in love with the whole world

He was trying to find the world and saw her

The wind in her hair, the way she twirled

Free visions that began to stir

Dreams were drenched that wonder year

In sounds that only spoke in color

Side by side there, they knew no fear

Delighting in shaking the rule they were under

And so it was they were caught in an array of tales

That were not planned in any way at all

Filling the wind of their childish sails

Slowly daring to break down the wall

They made beautiful mistakes in the town

That leaked in tears across the pages of time

Started by wicked joys that pulled the stars down

Turning every moment into the perfect rhyme

He watched her with the eyes of awe, no words to speak

She lived the only way she knew, in love with the world, not a person

The day turned into many a sunshine bleached week

In those days the creativity had only just begun

So he went about capturing the moon

Just that she may reveal its strange light

All they said was with the essence of a tune

One that darkened day and illumined night

Seasons waxed and waned in time with growing

Sunflowers once green as emeralds began to droop

Less was given space, and they stopped knowing

Once inspiring moments could be found on loop

But the golden days returned in fields of hope

That flung words into the sky of freedom

Stringing beads, words and places upon the rope

That lasso-ed the wonders of their kingdom

And now the photographer with the poet at his side

Is pulling forward the messages of rhythmic deeds

Together they fade into the horizon, as the ocean’s tide

Destined to leave a healthier ground for inspiration’s seeds

Day 364 - Always the Ballerina

Answer the question that covers it all

She is the belle of the whole ball

And yet she hides behind her grace

A ballerina is not about her face

She is about the story that she writes

In the many twists and night time delights

That fills the theatre as she makes her way on stage

Ready to pull all the audience into another age

Perhaps it is the world that was long ago

Or one, which without her leaps we could never know

That speaks in the arch of her arms swaying

All the whispers that lips are not saying

They twinkle in the life she is creating

That has all the world, catching breath, waiting

To see who she is in the world they know not

So purely in her fantastic spell are they caught

Day 363 - Yin and Yang

Let us hide our answer away

It is too precious to simply say

Lie by my side and trust me, dearest

Things are alright when you are nearest

It is in finding your hand to hold

Turning the deepest lead into gold

So pure that it emanates light

All the while bringing on the wisdom of night

That echoes in shades of the moon

And each way the lovers swoon

Across the pages of every book

In the ways that their eyes look

But only when gazing at each other

The other half to be found in one another

The other answer to the question

The other response to the suggestion

The way the birds wish they could fly

High and away into the azure sky

We are the two halves of the soul

Only united can we ever be whole

She who radiates light at every turn

She needed some shadows to finally learn

She who walked with night as her cloak

It was time that she finally spoke

And so hands held we go on

With the stamping of a bear and the grace of a swan

Day 362 - Night of Splendor

There was a great boom and the tune we know so well

It holds thousands of midnight kisses and even more stories to tell

The light that was raining down upon the world where we stand

Inspired a hundred dreams as I held your hand

And we danced in the streets singing all the songs we knew

The glee was blatant and honest, no other experience was ever so true

We stayed up late into the night wandering when day would begin

Surrounded by friends just as close as our kin

We pondered at the stars like fireworks stuck in the sky

The collective genius of all the world made us together, sigh

Some things can only be expressed in the miracle of breath

The moving and filling, that keeps us far from death

There was a great boom and the tune we know so well

It holds thousands of midnight kisses and even more stories to tell

Day 361 - Twenty-Four Hundred Times

I wondered what happened on this block

So much so that it was repeated again and again

So amazing that it was inscribed on the rock

To be seen by the next age of men

Was it the dance that put all melodies to disgrace?

Was it the place where they ended the last war?

Was it the memory of seeing such a fair face

That nothing like it had ever been seen before?

I hope it was the words between the truest of lovers

That cannot be shared between any others

I hope it was the peace that echoes forever

When all of the universes stand together

Tell me if you can with all of your rhymes…

What was it that happened twenty-four hundred times?

Day 360 - The Angel's View

Well far out and away

Are the places the angels used to stay

The mists would lift their wings higher

Riding the winds like a horseman his sire

The deepest of the angels were the seraphim

In the blackest of night, they make the stars gleam

The true blue angels with loyalties to match

Dance about the clouds with dreams to catch

They throw the dreams down to messengers of a lighter shade

Who then put the dreams in our minds to later fade

Those who dare to perch on the buildings man creates

Spin the threads that each our destinies elevates

And the final in golden rays high up above

Those angels send down the showers of who we love