swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

frozen waves of pink gray tan
Toni Ortner

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Lake George Window, 1929
(Farmhouse Window and Door, Lake George 1929)

We see wainscoting above the white panel door.
It is a door with shutters that looks like a window.
Sequence makes no difference.

In a dream a door is a window and a window is a door.

Take 1 Cliffs Beyond Abiquiu, 1943

Cliffs dwarf a narrow strip of sand
dry river beds where water ran
frozen waves of pink gray tan
a geometry you cannot understand.

Take 2 Cliffs Beyond Abiquiu, 1943

The mind sees what it wants to find.
The sky you know is not the one under which you stand.

Black,White, and Blue, 1930

Black and white
straight lines and curves
arch and pillar
opposites combined.

What the arch spans is invisible to the viewer.
The pillar supports no structure.

The bridge is mind.

I studied the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe in an attempt to grasp the essence of her work.  I did a number of takes and with each new view my comprehension of O’Keeffe’s paintings took on a greater depth.

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Toni Ortner has had 29 books published by small presses. The most recent are Daybook I and II by Deerbrook Editions and Daybook III by Ardent Writer Press. The daybook series is based on the idea of Virginia Woolf as to what a diary should contain to present the light of our lives. She hosted the Putney Public Library Writers Salon 2022. She is the Vice President of Write Action which is a nonprofit group that supports writers in Southern Vermont. She has won grants from both Pen America and the Author’s League.