Peter Bott textile artist

 Peter Bott of Hancock NH is a remarkable artist who uses wool to express his deep feelings for animals and other subjects.

 

 

 

Hellebores in March

 

 

Hellebores bloom through the last layers of thaw. We kneel and stare as if they were our newborns. We planted these five years ago and this is the earliest they’ve blossomed. Big white pines lean over the site. The hellebores aren’t intimidated. They will flower all summer and into autumn. We should try to emulate them. We need a reflowering, another shot at glory. But it’s teatime, so we leave the hellebores to their musings and go indoors. I plug in the electric kettle and pluck a couple of tea bags from the big red Typhoo box. We drink our tea in silence. The first flowers of spring always seem a little sad. After washing and putting away the cups we step outside for another look at the hellebores, but it’s raining hard now, erasing the last tatters of snow. The sky looms low and bulky. It never looks so large as when the clouds stoop to brush our faces. The rain is fondling the flowers and encouraging them. Why do we feel small and awkward when such large forces gather? We need that reflowering but doubt it will come.

Rally in a Snowstorm

 

 

 

Silver and Black

 

A flutter of silver and black

streaks in peripheral vision

frames the daily snowstorm.

Those are people holding signs

 

to protest the latest outrage.

Or maybe they’re the residue

of victims adrift on global

currents too strong to resist.

 

I lean over the bridge rail

and admire the Rorschach of ice

forming where two rivers meet.

The snow fondles me all over,

 

the last of my wanton lovers.

The black streaks could be death

ripped from neoclassical texts.

Not actual death but an argument

 

about the interstices of the past

corroding the useable present.

The silver could be the tint

of my unruly old man’s hair

 

ransacking imperceptible winds.

I return to my roadside position

and wave my sign: America

for Workers Not Billionaires.

 

The silver and black converge

as passing traffic honks and yells

curses or praise, silver or black,

the snow absorbing the pain.

new book

 

Self-Portrait

 

The Daily Political Moment

 

 

Scolding the world in public

eases the dark congealing

in your shapely, old-fashioned skull.

 

The coffee shop hums. Urns deplete

as snow whirls in the doorway.

Baked goods hunker on display.

 

 You speak loudly to allow

the woolen opposition to hide

behind phrases heard on TV.

 

Yet no one shouts or even speaks.

You’ve engendered a silence

too dense for the digital world

 

to violate. Your mouth turns down

like a crescent moon warning

of far worse weather to come.

 

(first published in Breathe)