"To be Still" (2023) submission by Monique Castillo for New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs 2023 Activity book Artistic interpretation of "To be Still" by New Mexican Poet Lauren Camp
Masani (maternal grandmother) teaches her granddaughter traditional weaving techniques on the loom. The rug is purposely left blank to encourage others to color in their own design.
Monarch butterfly sat on a columbine flower with a half-blank wing to encourage people to color in their own design
Tools needed for weaving: Floor spindle and yarn spun from sheep wool and dyed with natural desert fibers
"The sun settles sideways on a field of seeded columbine; the heart of June is the slope of dusk. Sparrows and finches sing on their absent-minded journey past dandelion brush heads."
To
be
Still
by
Lauren
Camp
Sometimes you have to drivethrough a river basin and a bracelet of cypressto find the center of forgetting.It is practical to be sitting here,seeing down to acorns,unknotting into the umbrella of each tree.The sky has not fallen, not yet.If you have to move to be still,be satisfied by this.Let the world offer the roughed-up edgesof a stacked wall, each stone talkingabout what it cannot contain.Rubbing the day against your small self,you realize the pitch of water,the crowning balm of lavender.The sun settles sidewayson a field of seeded columbine;the heart of June is the slope of dusk.Sparrows and finches singon their absent-minded journeypast dandelion brush heads.The red-leafed ash, lobelia and catmintall gather nearby — in concentration,not making a sound.Lauren Camp – lauren@laurencamp.com
