Emma McBean
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emma-mcbean.bsky.social
Emma McBean
@emma-mcbean.bsky.social
Words, watercolor, ink, plants, creative cohorts, community convergences. MD-born, VT-at-heart, MA-living. Support 2 refugee-led orgs in Uganda: 🎨NYTC (art/music ed center) & 🍄GoGreen (sustainable ag/mushroom lab). ✍️➡️ substack.com/@emilykaminsky
She keeps
#Selcouth sundries
Shelved in sight.
Sinew & skull
In shells & nests,
Jaws & feathers
Relishing rest.
Rescued reminders of
Ferality & fragility,
They appear at her feet
Begging for shelter
To add to her keep.
Only a woman
Could hold such mystery.

#vss365
For my mom, reposted w/her "keep"
May 7, 2025 at 10:36 AM
HEADBANGER HAIKU #3

Hell's bronze bell descends
Cast in rock's high voltage hearth.
We all air guitar.

#dailyhaikuprompt
#ACDC
#hearth
#Boston
May 6, 2025 at 12:06 PM
HEADBANGER HAIKU #2

One clean cut fella
Hawk's eye view, salutes Angus.
Mullet long since gone

#dailyhaikuprompt
#hawk
#ACDC
#Boston
May 6, 2025 at 11:54 AM
The music program at the Refugee Art Education Center I sponsor in Uganda (serving 80+ refugee kids, mostly from Congo) has a half dozen guitars now, all made locally by young skilled luthiers. Hit me up if you'd like to sponsor a guitar. $25 each.

#refugees #guitars #musiceducation
May 6, 2025 at 10:58 AM
HEADBANGER HAIKU

Blinking red-horned fans
Carpet the floor like ants,
Thunderstruck as one.

#dailyhaikuprompt #ants
#ACDC #Boston
May 6, 2025 at 10:50 AM
I rough-chafe,
Peeling bark.
Thin-crinkle,
Brittle leaf.
Heart-beat,
Sparrow home.

Tingly soles,
Mycorrhizal connectivity
Or last star blink?

Karmic (r)evolution
From cloudy dream,
I cannot distinguish.

Am I tree
Or is it me?
No answer.

Dismissed,
I extinguish.

#vss365 #karma
May 4, 2025 at 3:10 PM
May 3, 2025 at 6:04 PM
"What's more punk than an existential crisis? Everything." (Working title for my self-indulgent comic).

No 1: "I carry this bag of steaming crap around full of rotted future dreams. My collection of unlived lives. Someone else's fulfilled dream delights and disgusts."

#comics
#existentialcrisis
May 3, 2025 at 3:18 PM
On the Hop Brook Trail
At Garden In The Woods
I baby-step the descent.

An American Lady
With caramel-amber wings,
Pulses atop
Viridescent vegetation.

She is #Nirvana embodied,
Exhumed and triumphant.

Kin to but separate from
Brittle toast-hued leaves,
She lifts above
Yesteryear's hope.

#vss365
May 2, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Dawn breaks, I awake
Brief mono no aware
Firmly plants me here

***********

"Mono no aware" (物の哀れ) is a Japanese concept that translates to "the pathos of things" or "sensitivity of things."

I felt it deeply in Kentucky.

#dailyhaikuprompt
#sunrise
#kentucky
#mononoaware
#brief
May 1, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Nibbled here and there
Withered trillium -
Pale ephemera

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
#dailyhaikuprompt
#trillium
#kentucky
#flowers

My first ever trillium sighting!
April 30, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Our ears strain in vain
On slivered moon evening
For coyote howls

------------
#dailyhaikuprompt
#evening
#kentucky

Darkened pond harbors
Only deafening peepers
Singing their love songs
April 30, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Shy mayapple blossoms
Under leaf and sandstone arch -
A hiker's surprise.

+++++++++

#dailyhaikuprompt #naturalstonebridge
#haiku
#mayapple
#blossom
#kentucky
April 30, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Red wing blackbird squawks
Attacks the window, seeing -
His own reflection

#haiku
#Redwingblackbird

They call him their "rooster"
April 28, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Lingering late breeze
Shakes Eastern black walnut leaves
Moments fly away

#dailyhaikuprompt
#lingering
#kentucky
April 28, 2025 at 1:09 PM
In Kentucky creeks,
Ancient sea lilly fossils
Await the gleaners

#dailyhaikuprompt
#crinoids
#kentucky
#fossils
#coral
#gleaners
April 28, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Free to pee
You and me.

#vss365 #greatpyrenees #free #kentucky #farmdogs

On my sister's farm in KY
April 27, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Bulrushes whisper
Fresh breeze tickles rocketcress
Dragonfly alights

#dailyhaikuprompt #kentucky #spring #breeze
April 27, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Recharging my whole self with family in Kentucky under big skies with scrappy goats.

Poetry is everywhere.
April 25, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Waiting for plane wings
To take us to Kentucky
Family awaits

#haiku
#travel
#vacation

(Kid in middle has sweatshirt hoodie cinched shut to catch zzz's)
April 23, 2025 at 9:35 PM
RE-MEMBERING

I travel on the wings
Of my imagination
To that a priori place.

And return laden
With souvenirs
Both sweet and sour.

The ticket
To ride
Costs nothing.

The return
To wholeness
Worth everything.

#vss365 #cost #place #poem #poetry #watercolor #myart
April 22, 2025 at 3:16 PM
This doesn't do your glowing fireball of a sunrise justice but I wanted to give it a shot... Probably won't be the last time either. Also was reading Self-Reliance today thanks to @intjohn.bsky.social and therefore the quote...
April 21, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Love, except the thread was red!

(AI art fails Greek myth test)

Ariadne shakes her head.

#7SyllableSentence x 3
April 21, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Soggy swamp, clear sky
Mottled spathes birth bud balls -
A bug's warm refuge.

#dailyhaikuprompt #skunkcabbage #clear #sky

The skunk cabbage spathe is a protective cover for a ball of dozens of flowers called a spadix. The spathe emits heat and shelter for pollinators in early spring. Wonder full!
April 20, 2025 at 3:48 PM
We suffer from
Blood relation
#Segmentation.

Our Nuclear family
First hewn in 2,
Then cleaved into 4.

Our youngest
Little Bear,
Suffers the most.

His North Star
Lost forever,
He floats
In space
Untethered.

Forever forced
To choose
With whom
To celebrate
Life's
Magical
Moments.

#vss365 #poem
April 19, 2025 at 11:04 PM