seventeenth bird

Make something that floats (it doesn't have to be a boat).


"It doesn't have to be a boat," in my mind, is an underhanded challenge that it should not be a boat.
I considered a Monty Python witch, but dismissed that as hard, and instead made Ursula.

In case you can't tell, it's two pieces of brown paper that I whip-stitched together. You probably can't tell.








But, of course, Ursula in water is not just a bear.

Being a pack-rat, I sort of didn't have the heart to put it in water because, while I'm sure it will float, I'm also sure that it won't survive.


But, maybe that should be the point.

First the outside-legs of the bear
Up and fell down, in the water, like knobby garters

Then the outside-arms of the bear
Fell off, as easy as if sloughed from boiled tomatoes

Low'red in a genteel curtsy 
Bear shed the mantle of her diluvian shoulders;


And, with a sigh, 
She allowed the burden of belly to drop like an apron full of boulders








I made her blue because, even though the song never says it, I always imagine Bear becoming a constellation, like in mythology, when the hero doesn't really die, but goes to live in the sky. 
 
I'm not sure exactly how Joanna Newsom would feel about this. She probably wouldn't care, since it's not a tremendously amazing art project.

Side note: when I asked Chris what it looked like without telling him it was from the song, he said, "The Pink Panther."