two kinds of skein

two kinds of skein

but i'm looking at milkweed

 my camera and me are limited

we focus on one thing

and then another shouts to us

but we become confused

enamoured

aroused

full of wonder

 until i look up and see it:

landskein

 this lovely word, 

landskein,

 is exactly what i've been seeing

for a long time

 in robert macfarlane's book 

about lost or disappearing words

related to landscape

 LANDMARKS

 he mentions some new words

honeyfur, slogger, wolfsnow, sutering.

landskein is "the braid of blue horizon lines in hill country on a hazy day"

exactly.

 the word was first spoken by "a painter in the hebrides"

and it is 

like hortus siccus

a word for a new body of work.

landskein. 

i am making landskeins in a landskein.

the work began and the word found me, beautiful.

 i am also finding seeds.

i'm guessing it's dogbane

but i need to check.

it arrived in my living room

and took up residence on my warp.

 a new flower for me--

still looking this one up

but notice it has those odd stems

 tiny and bold.

 i have been in a struggle with emotion and exhaustion,

so

 the weeping of spent daylily blossoms

has properties i've tried to catch

 on spun lokta

another landskein.

and today,

another pot of contact prints.