Lily S. May–Life with Art
Photo & Haiku by Lily S. May, 2025 The writing isn'ton the wall. It's in the treesof burning faces.
Here's another poem I recently wrote, plus a photo I took in 2021: Blue Forget me notblue silk skyof forgivenessof acceptance into the realmof all imperfect creation:the blue of birds' flightour sadness held by the skyreflected back to usto the lost blue soundof the heart of the landbeneath the cityto the seekers of deathto the… Continue reading Blue
I'm back again, this time with a poem I've recently written plus a sketch. Here they are: After the FlowerYears agoI named myself after a flowerbut hell on earth now calls forsomething less innocent,so I will call myself clenched teethfollowed by shouts out loud.I'd like to become:she of rock earth and treesshe protector of birds… Continue reading After the Flower
I love these lines by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish that are part of his poem, Mural. The lines speak to me about so much of our world today, from genocide to climate change to extreme inequality to rising political authoritarianism. Darwish wrote Mural in 2000. The poem appears in the book If I Were… Continue reading On Limits & Excess
Last week I began rereading Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems. It's by the Palestinian poet, Ghassan Zaqtan. Straw Bird is translated into English by Palestinian doctor and poet, Fady Joudah. I bought the book in 2013 after attending a reading of the shortlisted poets for the Griffin Poetry Prize in… Continue reading Wood Carving by Ghassan Zaqtan
As I continue to hear and read about the horrifying mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the violence also in the West Bank, I again turn to art. Sometimes I ask myself what the use of art is. Then I think "use" isn't the word or meaning I'm searching for. It's more like , what's the point… Continue reading Art and News of War
In the midst of this summer of terrifying wildfires and evacuations in Canada and across the globe, here is a poem of song, nature and the circle of life. I unearthed it earlier this month when I was organizing writing I'd done ten years ago. The poem is part of a series I wrote about… Continue reading Songs of the Body
Here's a poem I began a few years ago that I made some small changes to today. The inked linoleum block that follows the poem was not done in response to it but seemed to fit. Map of the Body The body is a map in relief carved by the nail of time. The body… Continue reading Map of the Body
I came late to chimney swiftsbut now that I take note of them, living close to the sky in a high building, my life has expanded.I await their return in springand am saddened when they depart in fall. There's much false talk of freedom these days but watching the flight of the swifts above the… Continue reading Other Lives
Arts of May 