River--Tattoo Story #2

I have been writing like a mad woman for work and my brain needs a respite from all of the sadness behind the need to write what I am working on. So, I will turn to some body art for a minute and take you on a journey up my arm and one of my favorite rivers.

Below is the tat that graces my right forearm. It is a blended map (one from the late 1800s and one from the the early 1900s with the watershed hatches included) of part of the Huron River which is the main artery of the watershed of the place where I am rooted. is a great organization--check them The Huron River Watershed Council



This river runs through the town I live in and it runs through part of the county I grew up in which is different than the county I currently live in. The Huron River watershed is expansive and beautiful and connected to the great lakes watershed.

Everyday that I ride to work I ride along the Huron River. I see the birds that gather near her sometimes fast and forceful/sometimes calm and glass-like waters. I see bluebirds and goldfinches and barn swallows and cardinals and tufted titmice and nut hatches and geese and blue jays and various varieties of ducks and crows and common sparrows and robins. the voices of the birds blend in perfect harmony with the rushed lapping of the river and the soft hum of the wind.

Other days I walk down to Riverside park and experience the full fury of the Huron as it cascades past the Depot town bridge in white capped torrents of volumes of fluid. It is powerful and glorious and the rushing waters always bring me to calm.

This river moves in the middle of my life--it is as close to me as my own veins. The smell of it seeps through the spring and summer air up to my house and leaves the presence of the animals and fish and bugs and worms that depend on her for sustenance laced gently on the inside of my nose--present in my breathing and exhaling--actually in me.



For an amazing story on how humans have buried water to make the land more usable for us people throughout the Huron River Watershed down load this pdf and check out the storyBuried Water by Janet Kauffman

Crows--tattoo story #1

A bit back, a lovely reader of this here blog asked for some pictures of my tattoos. I will now fulfill the request.

I will start with the one tat that I never really get to see.
The photos below were taken by my lovely kk right after I was inked about exactly 3 years ago.






I like the lighting of the photos. The text is from a poem about crows by Mary Oliver. She is my favorite poet. I stamped out the lines with these old letter stamps that I scored from the art slide library I worked at during undergrad and then my tattoo artist drew it all out on my back. I happen to love crows; the words have multiple meanings for me and they are placed across the deep muscles of my back. there is something about words on skin--permanently cut into flesh--that makes me think of all that is bigger than little, animal me.


Crows
Mary Oliver

From a single grain they have multiplied.
When you look in the eyes of one
you have seen them all.

At the edges of highways
they pick up limp things.
They are anything but refined.

Or they fly out over the the corn
like pellets of black fire,
like overloads.

Crow is crow, you say.
What else is there to say?
Drive down any road,

take a train or an airplane
across the world, leave
your old life behind,

die and be born again--
wherever you arrive
they'll be there first,

glossy and rowdy
and indistinguishable.
The deep muscle of the world.