Travel Tiles #1

February 27, 2026

Travel Tiles #1

mama’s words are always true

don’t walk in the dark,
mama scolds,
why the heck you walk
after sunset and
before sunrise,
girl?

oh stop
fussin’ at me,
i’m fine, i snap.

what snaps back at me
from i don’t know where
inside my own self:
why you walk
in ten kinds of
dark
even with sunshine
bright’s can be
middle of a day,
when you got
a heartlamp
to light your way,
girl?
heartlamp
never burns out,
not once,
not never,
girl

—dotty seiter

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*I Start to Speak, Then Stop*
4 x 4″; ink, acrylic, and watercolor on paper
grid scribble design
2026

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Notes about poem and art:
• “mama’s words” began as a haiku, shifted to a modified haiku, and eventually left the haiku form altogether, but it was the original constraints of haiku that pushed back at me again and again to clarify and refine and revise until i found what wanted expression.
The title comes from a tongue-in-cheek mantra my mom was known to repeat to remind us kids that we might not know everything there was to know (and that she did).
The opening line holds recent words of hers—I think she literally meant to admonish me against walking in the dark of predawn as I am wont to do, but when I heard her words I knew a deeper truth immediately.
• I Start to Speak is a tiny scribble grid I made while on a trip to Virginia earlier in the month. It fulfilled my wish to play a bit with travel art that would be soothing to create, could be picked up and put down at a moment’s notice, and would require only a few easily-packed supplies.

artist at play

inspired by lina forrester, soothing scribbles, travel art

Posted by:

Dotty Seiter

9 responses to “Travel Tiles #1”

Joyful Puttering

February 27, 2026 at 8:24 am

Oh don’t you love those catch phrases that stick with us! This is such a thought provoking poem….we all walk a little in the dark…even in bright sunshine!

And I love that you weren’t held back from where you started….you shifted gears until the poem found what wanted expression. That is your gift.

And a new series! And a perfect travel series it is! Yay!

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1. Dotty Seiter
  
  February 27, 2026 at 10:08 am
  
  MaryAnn, thank you for shining light (in keeping with this poem’s theme) on your appreciation of my process in “mama’s words.” I often have to work really hard to push beyond where I’ve started or where a poem first lands in order to make the discoveries that come from making that effort. I’m grateful for your support/encouragement.
  
  Thanks, too, for shining light on my use of catch phrases that have stuck with me from earlier in my life.
  
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lolajovan

February 27, 2026 at 1:12 pm

the heartlamp! Hearing a truth other than your mana’s words! Scribbles becoming a beautiful quartet! Yaaaaaaaasss! (And I also love walking in the dark!) xoxo

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1. Dotty Seiter
  
  February 27, 2026 at 1:18 pm
  
  My first walk of the day is almost always in predawn darkness. I love the hush, and solitude, and connection with the universe. I think it may also be when I’m actually most easily able to know the light of my heartlamp. Nonetheless, I was so touched by the reminder of that heartlamp and its ability to shine through inner darknesses that often have little to nothing to do with physical darkness. xoxo
  
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carol lee

February 28, 2026 at 8:30 am

I am trying to keep my “heartlamp” shining!

Love your little quartet! Great set of tertiary colors.

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Dotty Seiter

February 28, 2026 at 8:57 am

I know my heartlamp is always shining but, I think, I often unconsciously ‘hide it under a bushel’ and then there I am in the dark, needing once again to get out of my own way! So, yes, we’ve got to let that light shine, Carol!

Thanks for feedback on the colors in my little quartet. I had multiple challenges and impediments when making this piece far from my home studio. Still and all, it bookmarks my travel : )

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Sheila Marie Delgado

March 17, 2026 at 9:39 pm

I love this poem and where it came from. It made me laugh, hearing my own mother’s, “Why don’t you turn on the light?”
(There is a light, just not the big main light. )

Love the tiles, and your creative persistence.👏👏👏

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1. Dotty Seiter
  
  March 18, 2026 at 7:52 am
  
  Sheila, LOL that my poem evokes your hearing you own mother’s, “Why don’t you turn on the light?” My dad was the one who always said that to me when I was younger—now I’m the one to say the same to my own kids and grandkids. And here is my mom, dead 10+ years now, telling me not to walk in the dark!!!
  
  Thanks for affirming my creative persistence : )
  
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Sheila Marie Delgado

March 19, 2026 at 9:49 pm

xoxo

My Mom’s mom always told my uncles when they were young,
“Get off of the fridge!” And I can still here her clearly. She’s been gone almost 20 years. (They were in high school when I was tiny. My mom has 10 siblings, she was one of the oldest.)

Love that you tell your kids now. Haha. 🙂

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