“I Am a Child of the Sun and Wind” original watercolor painting by kayti rasmussen
CANTALOUP AND KOOL-AID
by kayti rasmussen
Where is the door to the story?
Can we all walk through it?
A story lives on the lips of
Diego from Hollywood days.
Far from this dusty village
where nothing happens.
Cantaloup and Kool-Aid
and a bedroll on the floor,
in this stone village
where he tells his stories.
Even the tree outside our windows
seemed to listen with ruffled
leaves tipping and cooling
in the evening chill.
The pleasant knicker of an Indian pony
through the open window over
heads drowsy with sleep,
announced the coming of the dawn.
We sat around the fire pitching our
own stories into the lap of the storyteller.
We dropped troubles and pain.
Are they now someone else’s stories?
Pachofa-Unfinished 
Your head must be full of the most amazing memories, Katy. And yet you don’t mean to put them down for those who come after you …?
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Memories are what happens when you stick around long enough. Some you don’t dare share! Nothing like rattling a few skeletons.
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Oh well. I mean to keep trying ANYWAY. 😀
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Like a cool breeze indeed. Lovely soothing poem and great painting.
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Thanks Gerard. The news is so bad these days, maybe poetry will calm our nerves. We tend to forget those soothing moments.
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So glad you’re around. A beacon of light and needed cheer.
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Hi AK,
I miss you! When this job is over, we must go to lunch. Better yet, how about in the next 3 weeks? I have so many stories about this gig, you will be entertained for hours.
Your memory is astounding. I love you. ( How’s that for getting intimate on a blog).
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Hi Cheri,
Lunch will be great. Just name he day. We’ll confuse the server as usual by remaining in our seats all afternoon! I may wear my new wig!
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I see poetry runs in the blood.
Where are the storytelling circles nowadays? Movies, radio and TV have silenced them. Reading is a reclusive activity, for the most part, with only one storyteller. Blogs polarise author and reader.
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Perhaps we’ve all become too civilized and insular. Native people still do it, as in my poem. And now and then when I meet someone for the first time, they tell their story. I think the trick is to listen and be interested. We are all in too big a hurry to get onto our own story.
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I think you’re exactly right, there — about listening and being interested. It’s one thing I’ve said over and over on my blog: that the post is the beginning, and the interchange in the comments is a complement. Equally important, for sure. One comment is worth a good number of likes, which is why I don’t show the “likes” on my page. I’d rather encourage comments, even those which might be only a sentence or two.
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“Where is the door to the story…” That’s wonderful. So is the painting, and I especially like the phrases you didn’t mention that are added there. “I have only to look inside myself” — because that’s where the best stories are, the true stories, the ones that have been turned into flesh and blood.
My mother once said, “I remember the old days because I’ve lived with them the longest.” And Flannery O’Connor said something like, “Anyone who’s survived childhood has enough stories for a lifetime.”
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One of the things I like most about your blog are the interactive comments. I would love to encourage my readers to leave comments–if only to tell me what they liked or did not like. When I read yours, I like recognizing the names of people who read you regularly. I had not realized that attribute when I first started my blog. Maybe I’ll take the “likes” off my page and see what happens.
I’m always amused when I see a picture of that painting of mine to remember that I had Antonio Banderas’ face in my mind as I painted it. I have no idea why it didn’t turn out to look a thing like him! It took on a life of its own as so many pieces do—sculpture or paintings. It took honors in a Santa Fe show and went to live somewhere else.
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