In Good Company
My life as an author and an artist is highly rewarding in many ways that are essential to the nurturance and evolution of my Soul. Among the rewards are the extraordinary individuals with whom I come into contact during the course of my artistic pursuits, persons who light my way through the products of their exceptional talents, at times the sharing of their expanded minds, and often, the offerings of their open hearts.
My work as an interior designer also opens the doors to me of many homes of new people on a weekly basis, and now and then in that endeavor, hearts are opened to me as well, hearts full of treasures that inspire me, that astound me, that make the light of my journey brighter and clearer.
Books, artwork, films, Mother Nature, among other things, support my journey, too. Viewing the films of Turner Classic Movies for instance, especially stories of a historical nature, is one of my favorite ways of boning up on history. Those old, black and white, story-driven movies speak to my storyteller’s heart. The Great Depression and World War II are genres I especially appreciate.
I’ve created this blog as a means of introducing to you the individuals and activities in whom I hope you will also find aids in your journey. It is my desire as well to give validation to the Luminous Souls and the Shining Creations in whose good company I am blessed to find myself. I begin with Theodore “Ted” Waterfield:
“He Has as Many Gods as Stars”
My introduction to Ted and his lovely wife, Mary Catalano Waterfield, occurred when I was engaged in an interior design project with them. Having chosen to remain in their home during their retirement years, they are making changes in it to accommodate that goal. I was able to assist them in an aspect of that venture. During our time together, Ted very proudly showed me three of his father’s superb paintings. Two of them were prominently displayed on walls of the home of Ted and Mary, the third one featured on a little book of Ted’s poems he published several years ago, a book titled, “Sandusky Bay,” named for the area from which Ted hails. Recognizing that here was a couple for whom art and books are central to their quality of life, I took the opportunity to invite them to an artist’s reception the following Sunday, the event to take place at a nearby gallery. A number of my own paintings were exhibited there among works of art of several of my artist associates of the Grove City Arts Council, a group of artists, photographers, crafters and art appreciators active in the art scene of Greater Central Ohio. I told them, as well, about my book, Guardians and Other Angels that is scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, explaining to them that it is my second novel. Ted responded, “I’ve also written two novels, both of them very bad. I’m actually much better at poetry. I write a poem a day and post it on my website,” he continued as he discreetly slipped a business card into my hand. I had the strong sense that I had just met a kindred spirit with whom I needed more contact for the good of my Soul, and I engaged him in a short conversation about the process of writing–about the process of creating any form of art. My intuition about him confirmed, I slipped his card into my bag as I was leaving and was able to log onto his website a couple of weeks later.
As I read some of his poems, it was as if the energy of the Universe, the entire spectrum of its vibration coalesced in his words and sang to me through my computer screen. This man knows things that everyone needs to know, I said to myself. I decided then and there that Ted just had to be my first guest on my blog.
When we talked by telephone to schedule the interview for this posting, I suggested a morning hour on an approaching day. “Oh no! That won’t work! I exercise religiously six mornings a week. You see I’ve had three stents put in my heart and I think the exercise is keeping me alive,” Ted replied. With this statement Ted revealed to me that here is a man intimately engaged with his own mortality. I wondered if it was the motivation behind his drive to write a poem a day. When a few weeks later, we met at his home, I, with my tape recorder and tablet, Ted, with his big and wide, open heart ready to tell me “His truth,” as he calls it, he confirmed to me that my hunch about his motivation was right-he doesn’t want to leave this life with all of his words still inside of him.
I asked Ted what message he would like to impart in this treatise. “Think like an angel and not a brute.” It might also be the title of one of his poems. He added, “If I’m loved, I want people to get something from it. I want it to be a very happy experience for them.” He ended our interview by saying, “Judge me by who I became, not by what I went through getting there.” Read on and you will experience in Ted’s poems what he has gone through, and where he is now, a place anyone would envy. These poems are published with the permission of their author.
Bread on the Water
I shove longings into crevices
and they grow flowers.
I reach for clouds
and snowflakes fall.
Wind gushes
over the brim of goblets.
Stories open
their beginnings and ends
in beautiful pauses.
I am made whole,
allowing night
to begin and end,
and dawn to return
with yellow hands.
Theodore Waterfield
Life is Long
One day, I thought,
life is short.
And then a rain began
to fall in me.
A wind began to blow
and tear the world apart.
The dirt pulled on my feet
and the life I had lived
became a stranger’s life,
a life I had led long ago,
somewhere else,
and in a twinkling,
in a flash of a smile,
I knew I had outgrown time.
I could never hope to know my life.
It was too huge,
too mysterious,
too sweet and sad,
and comes to me like riptides,
flashbacks into falling,
as if someone asked,
is life short?
I would tell them,
it is long,
terribly distant,
and full of notes to myself,
not to forget,
no matter the cost.
Theodore Waterfield
The Light of St. Peter’s
It was a basilica of marble and light.
My feet hurt,
but not as much as my heart.
Beauty is a giant spear.
It is lightning in the eyes.
On the steps
I looked across the great plaza,
to buses, cars,
streets running like tributaries
from a glowing lake.
People wandered,
solitary,
in pairs,
or like tribes crossing a desert.
What had I expected to find?
The hollowness of hills?
It was here.
The sound of a shore
and the sighting of a sea?
It was here.
A bazaar of people looking for their souls,
taking pictures,
murmuring like the wind in the trees?
It was here.
Or my own unexpected sense
of looking behind a door,
and finding the faces of mysterious beings,
Michelangelo,
Peter
the remote faces of Jesus and Mary?
It was here.
And they said nothing,
letting the words be my own,
their vision
whatever I brought
from the valley of my life,
into this vast church,
the soaring dome,
an arcade of hope
of unquenchable thirst
in stone, paint, mosaic,
showing the arms of God
looking for his children
like a father,
hopelessly in love.
Theodore Waterfield
Where Are the Poets
Why do scribblers write poetry and poets write nothing?
Because there’s death in confronting beauty.
Wounds no one can bear.
A search confronting inevitable loss.
Poets hide lest they be eaten,
thrown in the sea,
consumed by the flames of the faithful,
ridiculed by fools and realists.
They are fragile beings
who whisper, I am fog looking for shape.
Laughter looking for joy.
I have as many gods as stars.
Words fly from my heart
like birds looking for a country
where they are not hunted.
I write poems of air,
and die without remains.
Words drowning in silence.
Theodore Waterfield
http://www.theodorewaterfield.com
By the way, Mary and Ted came to my artist’s reception. It was so sweet of them considering we had only just become acquainted. Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you, and especially to Mary and Ted Waterfield.
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