Just read "Say You're One of Them" by Uwem Akpan.

I call this piece "Words Spill From the Page."

On a parallel note, my poetry is quite expansive this year, like my life, like my art. I am growing larger; new lexicons are spilling out of me. It is good to be verbal, to see with my aging eyes.

How does one age gracefully? I am in the Autumn of my life.

My sweet grandmother, Zemmie, advised me when she was 83, "Age gracefully," she said. She was beautiful! Covered in a fine net of lines, with her "Cherokee" cheekbones and just a few silver threads among her thick dark hair; I could gaze at her for hours. She died 20 years ago and I still appreciate her timeless face, full of time, yet timeless. She is in my thoughts all the time.

Thank goodness for our mothers and grandmothers, they give us roadmaps for living. Now I have a granddaughter and I can pass on the torch to her.

summer

Summer is the heart of my year. Born just after the summer solstice, I carry the season of hot afternoons and brilliant days with me into the winter. The Fall Equinox usually brings a dull sadness with it, and I suspend my seasonal disorder into a tightly folded envelope, I suspend myself in time, and wait in quiet hibernation until June.

I decided to alter my former photographic & realistic art to fit my vision and to reflect my altered physics of time. Here goes. I call this altered altered book piece "Egg Suspended."