W is for Window

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, and I’ve also been sharing some of the background on why we do actually need joyful stories.  If you like strange creatures, magical worlds, and being reminded of the good to be found in the world, join me!)

        Today I’ll post another poem in its entirety: “The Window”

     My kitchen window now and then looks out

     Into another world.  Late afternoon,

     I rinse the lettuce, watching distant dragons

     Twine their gleaming tails in spiraling flight

     Above a golden city which no street

     I know can reach.  Sometimes at night

     That strange sky holds a different moon.

     Today a glowing scarlet bird

     Sang opals in the fragrant, dark-leafed trees

     That do not grow in my back yard.

     Small people clad in glittering beetle shells

     Were beating copper drums in revelry

     While I was scrubbing dinner’s dirty pans.

     Is there a window in that golden town

     Where some small person, copper-clad, looks out

     Onto the otherworldly mystery

     That is my un-mown dandelion lawn?

        People who attempt to sell their art and writing are constantly having to provide short bio blurbs, and this poem happens to illustrate a line I like to put in mine: Anne E.G. Nydam makes relief block prints celebrating the wonders of worlds both real and imaginary, and writes and illustrates books, stories, and poems about adventure, creativity, and finding sometimes unexpected joy.  This poem includes wonders both real and imaginary, and celebrates the joy of the ordinary as well as the fantastical.  (Yep, there’s that magic of ordinary dandelions again!)

        The illustration is another of those digital collages made out of pieces of block prints.  For example, you can recognize the distant city here.

        Marketing Moral: Did I mention reviews?  I could always use more reviews!  (Big thanks to A to Z organizer and storyteller extraordinaire Tarkabarka for a new review, and do check out this lovely long review by A-to-Z’s own Tao Talk!  Thanks, Lisa!)

        Proper Moral: Sometimes a molehill really is someone else’s mountain.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

        What’s the most unexpected or interesting thing you’ve ever glimpsed out a window?

[Pictures: Window digital collage by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]