Daybreak Potential

As new as the sun

Early at dawn

My native amazement in

Self satisfied style

Filled me with daybreak 

Potential and smiles

Freshly suspending 

This moment in time

To savor the flavor and

Rejoice a while!

-Kelly Voelker

Anywhere West Painting series

 Anywhere West Series

by Kelly Voelker

Oil Paintings with Beeswax Medium on Paper

9" x 12" paper shipped in 12" x 16" floating glass frame*

To PURCHASE,  email me at kellywriteaway@gmail.com.  Venmo and cash accepted.

This summer I'm at the Windmill Market.  Windmill Market, at the Old Pilger Rest Stop near Pilger, Nebraska, on hwy 275.

2024:  June 29, July 27, August 31, September 28

.                                                                             #1 Anywhere West.   July 2023   SOLD 

#2 Anywhere West July 2023    $125

                                                      

#3 Anywhere West July 2023  $125

#4 Bio Vitale  SOLD
1 Print available $27

#5 Grassland $125  SOLD
1 Print available $27

#6 Change $125

#7 Spirit of Sage SOLD

#8 Anywhere West One  SOLD

#9 Anywhere West 2
Framed in Barn Wood $155

#10 Wetland $125

#11 Sand Landscape $125

#12 Coyote Not for Sale
Prints available $27

To purchase,contact me at kellywriteaway@gmail.com

*All paintings ship in floating glass frame.  

Strangers and Roommates

We are coupled for life

Strangers and roommates alike

My physical body and me

Mysteries to each other

Unable to see

Unable to know

The depths of each other

Learning of new things

Surprises and wonder

We will never understand or imply

We will never agree which of us really is "I".

-Kelly Voelker

The Delta

Always traveling winding round

Faster, slower, success bound

Long is the river of the prime voyage

I'm at the delta of revision

I've brought myself with my sediment

Like the bottom of a wine bottle

All that's left after a rich life savored

To a large and endless horizon 

A large body of water, new to me

With no obvious current or direction 

I cannot go back up against the stream

So I sit here in the delta

Letting the muddied waters settle.

-Kelly Voelker

When Trust is Pruned

If you've ever felt pretty

Or valued so wide

The growth kept on greening

The branches confide

As though the surroundings

Would have ever more

Of your blooming and greening

Towards expansion du jour.

In years of your habit

Maturing in height

Someone decides

"I'll prune you tonight."

For any who have had their

Trust pruned or sheared,

May your branches recover

More lush than last year.

-Kelly Voelker

Bleak

 It was here I learned

The meaning of bleak

I felt it in my bones

Here week after week

The word whispered 

Behind my mind's eye

Suggesting a feeling

Of others before I.

-Kelly Voelker

Bleak* - (of an area of land) lacking vegetation and exposed to the elements.

(of the weather) cold and miserable.

(of a building or room) charmless and inhospitable; dreary

*Definitions from Oxford Languages

Dusk

The breeze at dusk was kind and good

So some clouds went as far West as they could

To watch the sunset glow and dim

As shadows drew the landscape grim.

-Kelly Voelker

Our Own Canopy

Within our own canopy

Of perceived reality

Relying on none

Alone in the sun

Besting our own

Personal records

Refraining from drama

Obeying our accords*

Between our own

Conferring aspects

Keeping it pure

Keeping it abject.  

-Kelly Voelker

*accords - official agreements or treaty

*abject - (of a person or their behavior) completely without pride or dignity; self-abasing.

Unmaintained Road

I knew at once

When I finally faced

The unmaintained road

That led through the "waste"

I'd gone into a realm

With nowhere to go

Nothing to count

Nothing to prove

My tumbleweed escorts

Lined the sand road

Holding together

A strip of their own

Tiny birds chirping

A dainty soft song

Protected in thickets

Of plum brush now bare

The road led to a warm, sunny trance

Not to a what, where or when kind of place

Thoughts couldn't stand it

For beauty won't dance

With the intellect suitor

Who does not stand a chance

In the innocent place here

Not shown on a map.

-Kelly Voelker

A Glimpse of Wonder

In the distance a sea of soybeans

Unfolding into waves 

Varying shades of gold and brown

The dawn shown brightly on the ground

Breaking the rays of light and sight

Three coyotes single file in flight

Following rows toward destination

Leaped above like dolphins do

To see above the height of bean

A glimpse of wonder

Seldom seen.

-Kelly Voelker

Realizing the Nexus

What I can't bear to hold

What I'm feeling unfold

What I cannot express

I reflect back to my chest

And take a deep breath

It slows the pace down

To a mortal moderation

Exhaling the excess

I realize the nexus.

-Kelly Voelker

Along Fences to Woods

Through the lens of a watering pond

I see the sweet face of a fawn appear above me

I feel a love as if for my own

I express through intent my most sincere

Offerings to quench and make thrive

Every move it makes after

That those big brown eyes shine

This new angel moves on in the morn

Along fences to woods and onward through corn.

-Kelly Voelker