Prompt and Paint Collaboration: Julia Boothroyd & Daniel Biggin

To Think and Feel 

ponder and probe

puzzle and place

we da 

we do 

we die

we die

and ooo

and aww

the thought and touch

our forethought feelings

imagined and real

our careless caress

(DB's first prompt)

"To Think And Feel" watercolour by Julia Boothroyd

(JB's response to D.B's poem To Think and Feel) 

"Flourish of Fall" watercolour by Julia Boothroyd

(JB's first prompt)

Flourish of Fall

You’re 20 autumn’s of beauty.

You’ve changed 20 different ways.

Your flourish will never finish

     and go on and on and on for days 

-and I’d cut down

the entire canopy of fading leaves,

while those colors of autumn cry,

-and leave the earth bare

as your canvas there,

where the beauty 

of fall flourished fair.

Just to give you mountains

     of paper to paint

     its fallen beauty 

     back to me.

Just to see

     you bring the trees back 

     to life again,

and watch,

     your flourish fill 

     a forest once again.

(DB's response to JB's watercolour "Flourish of Fall")


Buddha Nature

See here, what’s hidden in the forest groves,

Obscured with mossy beard, and timber bones.

Unrooted from the earthy floor it grows, 

Floating cross-legged on a throne of stones. 

Look upon the three jewels, brightly a light

Around the one, three monks with blazing eyes

Sit, trying to find refuge beneath his sight.

Yet, under the statue’s gaze fire plays and dies. 

Burning men reaching out for the flowers, 

The petals burn, that grow between his toes. 

They do not suffer in their final hours,

Yet the Buddha’s tears fall on their death throes. 

As immolation, each their own personal pyre, 
As reincarnation cries for the extinction of fire. 

(DB's second prompt)