Steve Brooks (Abhaya) – Poetry, Prose & Art

December 31, 2009

Square Roots

Filed under: Art — Steve Brooks @ 4:04 pm

Square Roots CoverSquare Roots, 48 original watercolor paintings, 5” x 7” each, are, collectively, a small tribute to the art of Marc Rothko. I picked up a book of Rothko reproductions in Borders Books in Bettendorf, Iowa, one afternoon in ’04, and, sitting in the Borders Café, as I was preparing to write what became the book called “Mother”, Rothko’s art brought me to tears, surprising me, at the time.  I was in the Quad Cities, now called the Quint Cities, more specifically, Moline, Illinois, where I was born and raised, after my formative years in McCook, Nebraska. I was living with my mother in the last year of her life, taking care of her and writing about it. After my time with her, I left her in the care of my brother, John, who had been with her for two years before I was. On my return to Seattle, I began a series of paintings based on the square. This series is the result of that time.

 

Download here:

December 23, 2009

I Am

Filed under: Book,Poetry — Steve Brooks @ 8:41 pm

 

I Am Cover“Sun is shining in its place as Sun, and here, now, Sun is shining in this place I am. Sun fills me with its heat and light, and I am made the same as Sun. Never thinking I am the Sun, I am Sun.”

“The Wind blows,” we say, but Wind is Wind. Standing in Wind, like a fish swimming in the ocean, I swallow Wind, it swallows me, and I am Wind.

Earth, this land, this soil, this ground beneath our feet is lifted from itself by wind. Earth becomes scattered across the surface of itself, as I am scattered from my origin, across the surface of my life. I am Earth, I live apart from myself, I settle down to myself again.

Rain falls, as rainfall does, down upon the land and sea it rises above. My eyes rain from themselves, in brokenhearted memory of what’s been held close as my own self. I am the rain of a tear that falls to sorrow from sorrowing. I am this Rain that evaporates in the air, to fall again, when sorrow calls again. I am the rain of my raining. I am Rain.

I breathe in and out the Air that breathes me. I am the Air that fills and empties me. I am its vessel, its container, the shape of its strength. Air opens and drains my lungs. I taste its nectar. I am the shape of shapeless Air. Without Air, I am the shape of its destruction. I am the Air of my demise. I am empty Air, from which I breathe myself alive. I am no difference between in and out.

I am Water, as I seek the shape of my container. I seek my shape in myself, as flow seeks itself across the flat bed of a stream. As I level myself with any like me in my range. I am Water, in being round in round things, narrow in narrow things, spiral in spirals, wide in deltas.

I am true to myself in many forms. I am Water. I am Air. I am Rain. I am Wind. I am Sun.

Download here:

Contents

I Am

Blog at WordPress.com.