Feathered Dreams

Brrr…it was early in the winter of 2015.

A humongous box arrived at my studio door.
It held some things from my father’s house.
Way down at the bottom was a little zip lock bag.
Inside were six carved wooden figures.
Hmmm.

I’d never seen them before.
After my father’s death a few years ago, I uncovered many items and stories,
some of which were familiar history, and some of which were mysteries.
I found photos and writings about his grandparents
and knew that at least one of his grandfathers tinkered with wood.
So, I thought that maybe these were saved from his childhood.

Then the muses struck.
I called Pat, can you come over…now.
She threw on her coat and boots
and slodged over to the studio from the log cabin.
I love writing log cabin.
Anyway, I bade her to lie down on the daybed…and take a nap.

I found the paper bag, filled with chicken feathers,
which Homer had collected for me last summer,
and I dumped them on her head.

Then I laboriously positioned the little chickens
and the little goose around her sleeping head.
Tucked in her red snuggly blanket
Herself was content to model as long as I liked.
Until the feathers started…to tickle.

I managed to sketch out this image
just before…the sneeze.

When I was finished,
and the model was back in the log cabin,
and the feathers were corralled back into their paper nest
I arranged the dear wooden ones from their perch
along the window sill next to my easel.

Finnegan came over to give me an eagle hug
and her tail swept the smallest bird onto the floor.
When I picked it up I noticed some writing on the underside…
Made in Indonesia.

With a sigh,
I put her back on a higher shelf…
and began to reinvent her past.