12 Thursday Mar 2026
Posted in Art, Flowers, Nature, Painting, watercolor
Tags
Garden, beautiful, Poetry, watercolor, Nature, magnolia, magnolia blossom
Magnolia Blossom by Joan Currie
You have bloomed first
in my back garden–
O sovereign of pale flame.
Your receptacle, a golden crown,
royal, resplendent;
your lavish velvet robes,
pallid yet proud, spread wide
and stained with magenta
all around you.
Astonishing us–
magnificent, insolent–
you parade your brief glory.
05 Thursday Mar 2026
White Horses by Eleanor Farjeon
Count the white horses you meet on the way,
Count the white horses, child day after day,
Keep a wish ready for wishing – if you
Wish on the ninth horse, your wish will come true.
I saw a white horse at the end of the lane,
I saw a white horse canter down by the shore,
I saw a white horse that was drawing a wain,
And one drinking out of a tough: that made four.
I saw a white horse gallop over the down,
I saw a white horse looking over a gate,
I saw a white horse on the way into town,
And one on the way coming back: that made eight.
But oh for the ninth one: where he tossed his mane,
And cantered and galloped and whinnied and swished
His silky white tail, I went looking in vain,
And the wish I had ready could never be wished.
Count the white horses you meet on the way,
Count the white horses, child, day after day,
Keep a wish read for wishing – if you
Wish on the ninth horse, your wish will come true.
28 Wednesday Jan 2026
Posted in beautiful, Daily Life, Fashion, Lauren DiMarco, Photography, Poetry, Reflections
Puzzling by Joan Currie
I sit before a spill
of a thousand pieces
trying to make order–
edges, colors, shapes:
an airplane, little man, Shrek,
Swiss cheese punched with holes…
It hardly matters.
The pieces are finite,
and even if a few are lost
the picture will declare itself
in time.
But in life–
I will never know the count.
The shapes keep changing,
colors fade as I reach for them.
I turn my mind this way
and that, seeking a fit,
some clear design.
Still, the table
remains scattered.
I learn to live beside it.
The clarity I seek
remains elusive.
21 Wednesday Jan 2026
Posted in Art, Drawing, Garden, Home, Nature, Painting, Poetry, Reflections, watercolor, Writing
Tags
beautiful, continuous drawing, Garden, garden cuttings, garden in winter, succulents, tending a garden, watercolor
Getting My Hands Dirty by Joan Currie
I dug my hands into the cold, moist
soil,
dark with iron-stained oak leaves,
geraniums collapsed into themselves,
the soft wreckage of mulch
returning to its first idea.
There were celandine and verdigris
succulents stained with bluish grey,
swollen with the calm confidence
of continuing.
They rose from cuttings
I gathered last season–
still busy, even now,
making life.
As I knelt there, I thought–
does the one who never tends a plant
miss this small astonishment,
this unannounced miracle,
or is it enough
to stand back,
hands clean,
and love the beauty
without knowing
how deeply it must be touched
to appear?
© Joan Currie – Succulents – continuous drawing
07 Wednesday Jan 2026
Posted in beautiful, Lauren DiMarco, Poetry, Reflections, Snow, Winter
Tags
beautiful, Clarity, Lauren DiMarco, Photography, Snow, snow storm, white, Winter
In White Weather
by Joan Currie
The trail vanished.
Wind rushed past like an animal
that did not see me.
Snow came harder, then harder–
the world narrowed to breath,
to the small miracle of standing.
I lifted my hands
and they disappeared.
Nothing stayed long enough
to be named.
The storm had its own mind,
and I was inside it.
Then–listen–
something opened.
Not the sky.
Not the snow.
But the place in me
that waits for silence
before it speaks.
Ideas arrived gently,
as they do under water,
or in the shower,
clear and shining,
each one saying:
Here. This is yours.
I stayed awhile
in the great unseeing,
learning what the storm knows:
that sometimes
not being able to see
makes things more visible–
the true shape of a thought,
the calm beneath urgency,
the joy of simply being here.
When I turned back,
the lodge glowed like a promise–
lamplight, voices, heat.
I carried with me
what the white weather gave:
a rinsed mind,
a quiet heart,
and the bright understanding
that clarity does not always arrive
in light.
Where or how do you find clarity?
17 Wednesday Dec 2025
Tags
Akita, beautiful, Border Collie, Cats, Christmas, Dogs, Rescue animals, Shiba Inu, Siamese cat
Joy is contagious. When you choose joy, others around you will feel it and want it too.
– Mother Teresa
My daughter found this darling Siamese kitten at an animal shelter several days ago. The kitten, named “Joy,” had a such a severe case of pneumonia, she wasn’t expected to live. However, my daughter took her home and tended to her with such care that she survived and as you can see from the photograph, she is the sweetest creature. She joins Lauren’s rescue dogs, Chester, Yumi, and Kimmie.
We started to think about Joy as a concept- especially during this holiday season. I have been finding this special kind of profound pleasure and delight everywhere: children’s smiles, robins at my kitchen window, felted animal ornaments, a riot of yellow fallen leaves, Christmas roses, decorative lights at night, Christmas carols … But joy is more than a fleeting feeling of intense happiness. Sometimes it can be held onto for a brief while: in hugs and kisses, in snuggles, and in lending a helping hand.
I wish you many, many moments of joy for the holidays!
16 Sunday Mar 2025
Posted in Art, beautiful, Birds, Poetry, Reflections, watercolor, World peace
Tags
Wisdom in Turbulent Times by Joan Currie
The air splinters like glass–
I perch on a gnarled limb, a solitary watcher
in the fractured gloom of night,
where bitter winds gnash at a starless sky.
Below, the earth trembles with despair,
its pulse a staccato of sorrow, as the cacophony
of man’s ruin echoes through my ancient eyes.
I, the silent sentinel of twilight, bear witness
to hearts ensnared in an endless dispute.
I drift through fractured hours,
each moment a shard of broken light,
and in the rustle of dying leaves I hear
the desperate murmur of questions
scraping at the marrow of human intent.
I long for a guiding voice–
a call as steady and resolute as my own nocturnal hymn–
that might reach the steely hearts of
our world’s posturing masters,
whose empty grandstanding leaves their people trembling
at the ominous specter of what is to come.
Yet wisdom is never tender;
it is honed by the relentless edges of despair,
etched in the scars of time and the silent ache of the dark.
I, who have seen centuries unfold beneath these ageless stars,
offer my muted counsel to the chaos below.
I am afraid, yet I remain–a keeper of ancient truth–
praying that, in the echo of my solemn hoots,
a spark of reason my be kindled.
May their voices rise, clear and fierce as the cry of the night owl,
to lead us from the tempest and transform shattered hours into
the promise of a new dawn.
I pray for world peace.
31 Tuesday Dec 2024
Posted in Art, Art studio, beautiful, Family, Gouache, New Year 2025, Poetry, Reflections, Winter
Tags
Art, beautiful, Family, Gouache, Last day of the year, New Year 2025, Poetry, Winter
The Last Day of the Year by Joan Currie
On the pond where frost wove its glimmering thread,
Round and round on the ice, so much laughter was spread.
My father on one side, my mother’s warm hand,
Together we skated through winter’s command.
The cold held no power, our joy burned so bright,
Each smile a lantern in the soft fading light.
My father, a hockey fan quick on his feet,
My mother, a skater whose grace was complete.
Their spirit of wonder still dances in me,
Like ripples of moonlight on a shimmering sea.
Though time has now carried their voices away,
Their love is a gift I unwrap every day.
As the year softly closes, I cherish the thought,
Of the laughter and lessons their living had taught.
I hope that my children will carry their flame,
And feel in their hearts that same joyous refrain!
A toast to the the beauty of years that have passed,
To moments of love that forever will last.
On this last day of the year, as memories shine,
I feel their hands guiding, still holding to mine.
My best wishes to you for 2025! Happy New Year! ❤️
22 Friday Nov 2024
Tags
Art, beautiful, Nature, Painting, Poetry, Thanksgiving, turkey, watercolor, Wild turkey
The Wild Turkey’s Vigil by Joan Currie
In the dappled light of the forest’s edge,
He struts, wary, along the bramble’s ledge.
His ruby throat, a beacon of flame,
Bobs and flickers, untamed, untamed.
Eyes wide with a primal, ancient fear,
Each rustle of leaves, each sound draws near.
A breeze, a shadow – he freezes, tense,
A sentinel poised by a fragile fence.
Down the road, domestic birds parade,
Fat and oblivious, in sun-spotted shade.
Their fates are sealed, their end well-known,
But his is a dance in the wild alone.
Will he endure the frost-kissed nights,
And coyotes’ teeth that gleam in moonlight?
Or will his feathers scatter, a fleeting trace,
Of a noble life in a ruthless place?
No table awaits his wary kind,
No cranberry sauce, no sage entwined.
Yet the woods hold stories cruel and raw,
Where survival bends to nature’s law.
I spied this wild turkey standing alone on my walk today. I have always seen him with his mate and worry that the coyotes may have taken her from him. I hope he can find a good hiding spot in the woods tonight!
Happy Thanksgiving Season! ❤️
06 Wednesday Nov 2024
Posted in Acrylics, Art, beautiful, Poetry, Reflections
My Witching Hour by Joan Currie
At three, my eyes open to the soft night’s call,
A distant train’s echo, faint engines drone,
Murmur of creatures, house timbers groan,
And I’m caught in a web spun silent and small.
Yet once woken, the night takes me far-
To warm tropic waters, to sunlit sands,
To brushstroke dreams with my eager hands,
Where crimson red and blue glow like a star.
I drift in dances on shores unknown,
Beneath heavens that pierce the shadowed dome,
And revel with loved ones near the old home,
By the lake where moonlight and memories are sewn.
Then the hour fades; I’m lulled once more,
Into soft slumber’s waiting door,
Wrapped in the hush of dreams restored.
At three o’clock in the morning, I resist the temptation to turn on the light to read or sew. Rather, I lie very still and the hour overcomes me in the sweetest, best possible way.
The feeling from the song in Only Murders in the Building, performed by Meryl Streep, is aligned with how I feel during that magical hour.
Satin & Sand 