But the signs are saying a new life will be arriving here within the next 24 hours…
Thank you all for your warm wishes.
fine art prints
Welcome
I started this blog after moving to northern New Mexico from coastal North Carolina. Feeling the loss of my creative community, I started posting works in progress as a way to push myself forward and connect with other writers and painters.
For the first eight months or so I offered original narrative images as weekly image prompt for writers. The Storybook Collaborative pages document the collaborations.
Sadly - for I have enjoyed the adventure, and meeting so many interesting, creative souls - keeping the blog has has taken a back seat to sleep, family, work obligations and the birth of our Mountain daughters. I'd like to get back to it and still hope to one day. Until such time I am delighted by your visit and hope you will leave a comment and come back for more.
mine enemy grows older 
Keeping everything crossed for a great labour. Give Naomi my best, hugs to you and Mr B.
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Hoping that by the time you read this you will have some news. Just to let you know that I am still working on your ‘Venice’ painting.
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congratulations!! 🙂
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Thanks for the sweet thoughts. Naomi’s labor tapered off so I am going in to work… labor, work, labor, work… hers is the harder work
But it will happen naturally, won’t it, all you moms out there? I have to keep her from hopping up and down to get things going. I still expect to have news for you within these 24 hours!
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Goodness gracious, I saw the sliver of the crescent moon this morning, and I realized that the great moment will become even greater as your astral cruiser buzzes about looking for the right moment, of wind and current and temp, to descend, to make a landing, and make contact as the latest Mobbs.
Your painting [God,you are prolific, sir! Do you whip one out in an all-night frenzy?] is so Rickitikki, so wonderful; with the watching, watching, gazing, and waiting, with the great spirit guide hovering, and the daughter already chosing her features and her attire, with giraffe, Teddy, and even the nose of lion, waiting softly and lovingly in her room, in her crib, stuffed warmly in the corner on her pink blanket, waiting, waiting, as Naomi waits, as does Mr. B and the Rickster, and yes, even us out here who more than wish you and yours well; beyond well—the best!
Glenn
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Rick:
I got into your archives and reworked some of your fabulous prose. It came out like this; great stuff, sir.
Dreamtime
I asked the man
who stood beside the child
and held her hand,
what he called her.
Both of them were muffled
in canvas clothing;
rough,
shapeless clothing worn
to soft and muted earth tones.
He seemed to be wearing
what had been
a military uniform;
one fit to blend him
into a summer forest
in a temperate zone.
And temperate
and mild
he had become,
it seemed to me,
even as the uniform
he wore
had lost its strength
of color,
so that he now
stood out
like a pillar
in this winter forest,
among these bare trees.
I wondered if
there had been something
of that mildness
in him
all along,
even in the days
of carrying a rifle
up and down the mountains.
“I call her,
Found along the long march home,
with winter in her eyes,”
he answered.
Somehow I knew
that neither of them
sensed a threat
in me.
I knelt
and took the girl’s hand,
her left hand,
and held it between mine.
Her hand was cold,
so cold!
“Do you want to go home?” I asked her.
She was small,
barely half his size,
if that.
She was bundled
in scraps of canvas
rudely sewn together
with bits of string
and soft wire.
She wore a rope,
worn and silky,
as a tie around her waist.
A hat
made of bird wings
and moss
covered her head
and trailed down her neck.
I looked into her eyes
and immediately wished
I had not.
I have never seen such eyes!
The crystal clear cornea
was a liquid skin
stretched across a place
where weight meant
nothing,
time meant nothing;
and the something
that was there
was as far away
as the moon.
In her eyes floated everything –
earth, moon, trees,
even this man beside her,
and me.
She turned her head
slightly
to look at her friend.
As she shifted her gaze,
snow flurries rose
from the bottoms
of her eyes
the same way they do
inside a glass sphere
containing a winter scene.
I could see
the snow drifting
in liquid suspension
and I wondered if perhaps
I had stumbled upon
the spirit of winter.
“Sweetheart,” I said to her
and she shifted her eyes
back to me.
“Are you cold?”
She shook her head.
“Are you warm?”
Again she shook her head.
I released her hand
and it rested
in the air
for a moment
before she raised it
to the man
who had named her,
Found.
There was a spot of color
in her palm
and he cradled her hand
in his own
and began to rub
the color in.
A blush of rose appeared
and spread to her limbs,
her face,
her cheeks
and the silent woods
echoed
with the sound
of a beating heart
coming back to life.
Her tears came then
and spilled from her eyes,
instead of into them.
I was mesmerized.
I don’t know how long
he rubbed that spot
of color in her palm,
or how long she wept.
The man thanked me
and said
he would take her home
now.
She was sobbing
and clutching at his coat.
He lifted her
into his arms
and she threw hers
around his neck.
Her tears darkened the collar
of his old, worn overcoat.
He adjusted her weight
and as he was turning
to go back up the mountain
in search
of the road home,
he saw me staring
at my hand
in disbelief.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
“It’s a gift.”
Rick Mobbs 2008
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Auntie Kota checking in…. blowing you kisses that i hope reach the new babe.
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Tapered off……..I found walking made me start, but who knows if I was going to anyway………I heard the sex thing too, but frankly I was so bloody huge by the end of both my pregnancies that no way that was happening. Relaxing, that’s the trick…….I’m sending those labour vibes, Naomi, lots and lots of luck!
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The earthquakes creates new life -so it is with a woman
when the rubber band snaps -there life unfolds the blood of generations and cleans the canvas for another hero of color and the lung breaks the world and all its time game, and laughs so hard
the living bow back and let the light remake the story -one more time again the golden peace is named a child and mercy is remembered.
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Rick, yeah, I know, if you had wanted to write “long” poems, you would have done so–but I tell you your archives are a gold mine of tremendous prose, rife with poetry; like Naomi is with child. Here is another of your nuggests I have unearthed and gently tweaked.
Glenn
Simple Truths
I’m here
to find the simple truths
that I knew
as a child.
The dogs make a game
of me,
the cats curl
and sleep
upon my body.
The daffodils await
the rising of the sun.
They draw their color
from the world
arriving.
The world I watch
now
takes its color
from the setting moon.
These February trees
excite me.
I crave
their dark and frozen zig-zags,
the hardened lightning strokes
of trunk, leader,
limb and branch.
They pierce the moon,
seem to snare it,
over-lace it,
hold it fast –
but look again
and the moon has moved.
The bare trees darken further
at the rising of the sun.
My hands know
this simple way
of waving and releasing,
too,
but too often I want
to hold onto
the passing things.
What is this restlessness?
A candle burns inside
the house.
It represents things
I cannot name.
The spaces in the weaving,
the colors I have yet
to see.
It also speaks to me
of the way that fear
takes loving hands
and turns them
into weapons.
The mysteries of anger,
joy and sorrow,
love.
Here comes the sun.
A mockingbird screams.
A shaking leaf transforms
into a mourning dove;
an explosion of flight.
The river below
has the look of ice,
spilled from the dawn
and frozen.
And what of intentions?
Do they spill from the sun,
from the moon;
do they rise out
of the wide space
in between?
Do we find them,
recognize them,
or create them?
I need gloves;
I type without them.
I need money;
I work.
I need love;
I share it
where I can.
Every tree, bush, stone, dog, person,
is a mystery deeper
then I can fathom.
All the particles of being
dance
to a sound
the whole
makes.
I am only a moving part
of the dancing machine.
Oil me,
I am squeaking.
I try
and tune myself
and listen.
I try
to catch the rhythm
and move
deliberately,
in keeping with the pace
and pulse
and measure
of the music that moves
through me.
I think more of my ancestors,
I say,
“I love you”,
more often.
I look differently
at my mother,
my father,
my son.
My friends are intriguing,
strange, mysterious
and enchanting.
My hands absorb
and hold
the sunshine.
I feel it
circulating.
The moon makes me turgid.
It rocks me.
In the rise and fall
I see
the flotsam and jetsam
of my life.
Wreckage and raw material
are the gifts
of the currents and tides.
We draw beauty in
with our eyes,
and our senses.
We find it
and recognize it.
We hold it up
and name it,
call it our own.
We set it down
and wonder
where we left it.
There is beauty
in hatred,
love, grief, and war.
In the way the morning comes,
the people go.
Fear and cruelty
are passing.
Love carries
and bears up
under it all.
We all know this.
Our stories will be
spun out,
and all our stories,
all that we have ever known
and done
will be recycled.
No other thing
makes sense.
Rick Mobbs January 2008
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BABY BABY BABY!!!!!
YAYYYY!
A BABY!
Where is it!???!??! Tell it to come out NOW!!!
Wait, those things don’t respond to commands do they……..
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To you, Naomi, Broadus and the new one I send many well wishes, merry thoughts, smiles and peace.
N
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I feel your pain Naomi! Those days I was overdue were the longest of my life. I tried every old wives tale to get that boy to come out, but the only thing that worked was waiting- and he was certainly worth the wait! I am sending love and good thoughts your way.
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Annieepoetry, your comment rocks! It is poetic, and it scans like a poem hidden, like the way Rick writes. And the sentiment is grand, and heartfelt, and spiritual.
Glenn
P.S.: the 24 hours is up, and possibly something has occured but the Rickster is way too busy to inform us of the results yet. If not, then we will go with Heather’s assessment. The child has its own agenda, but it will be worth the wait.
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Hey, here is another poem dredged up from the archives, hot and disturbing, ready to serve to the Mobbs mob:
so this is recovery, you claim (unfinished business)
So this is recovery,
you claim
you found something new
today
to name
but all I hear is
birds, birds, birds.
Last week’s New York Times
sits
still unopened.
You were interested,
you said.
The schizophrenics
you have known
all led front page lives.
The one
or two
you tried to reach
succumbed
to misery,
or death,
or sleep.
TEACH ME DEATH
you say
they dreamed,
yet
you dreamed of fish.
Now it’s birds.
Birds, birds, birds.
All I ever hear is birds.
Ain’t
you got no sense?
Sometimes Frankie
I think
the Devil got you.
I think you think
too much
or not at all.
How come
Frankie
all this talk
of names?
EVERYTHING HAS DONE BEEN NAMED
already, Frankie.
We both know that,
except these damn
birds
your house is full of.
It ain’t enough
to name them
Zimri
as a bunch
like that.
How they tell themselves apart?
That’s how
schizophrenics get their start,
end up calling theirselves
us.
How you think
that feel,
a whole damn flock
within one skull
and furthermore,
Frankie?
Rick Mobbs January 2008
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I saw a double rainbow yesterday…a good omen. Your daughter is probably already nestled in your arms. 🙂
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Has she come?
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Any news? I hope she/he is here…….Thinking of you all, especially you Naomi, you’ve got the hard work to do *grin*.
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Rick, Fernanda’s Bday was the 30th, can you imagine your new daughter being born the same day? This is too much.
Anyway, she will be very much like Fernandita, and just as lucky to have you guys as parents.
It took me 52 hours of labor to deliver, so tell Naomi to hang in there!
Love to all of you, keep you in my prayers.
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