Barbara Hazard

Blessings, Barbara and to all your family and extended family and distant fiends, of whom I consider myself one, thou your generous spirt always was open and inviting and inclusive, certainly a model we need in today's rapid slide into fascism and hatred. I hold on to your spirit and I try to honor it to the best of my ability. Thank you, Barbara, thank you, thank you, "thirteen thank yous."

I am so touched by the entries here. I still miss Barbara every day. I was so fortunate, as her daughter, to have her in my life so dearly and for so many years, and in so many places and treasured adventures.

You know, it has been five years since Barbara left us and yet her memory burns as brightly as ever in my heart . . . what an easy person to love, such an open and generous heart . . . I imagine she would be thrilled by Kamala's presence on the Democratic ticket . . . though I have no idea really . . . I will hold on to my memories of Barbara as long as I am granted breath . . . "Bless her heart," as my Mother, that diminutive North Carolina farm girl, would say . . .

"in the BBC CAFÉ" by Barbara Hazard, an artist and poet in Berkeley California whom I first met as a carpenter working on repairing her fence. I did numerous projects for her home on Arch Street in Berkeley and we became friends. She attended a number of our poetry evenings at Howard Curtis´ on Milvia Street and June and I attended her 80th birthday party at the Hillside Club in Berkeley in 2012 (?). For $25 she allowed me to pick which ever painting I wanted...

I still miss you, Barbara. I´m so lucky to have a number of your beautiful pieces of art around my home and I think of you often, like the painting of tiger lilies, or the brightly colored frog needlepoint, or the beautiful patchwork quilt you made for my mother. You lived in extraordinary life. Love to your family.

I miss Barbara a lot. I hope she and Mom and Francie are together again laughing at all our foibles and sending us their love and strength. Xo

Father, I Have Forgotten

Forgotten
are the Kings of England,
the dates of battles
and the farewell speech
of Julius Cesar . . .
or was it Mark Antony?
Gone to some internal limbo
are sine and cosine, the square
of the hypotenuse
and how to tell the red pine
from the black.

But I remember days with you--
days in the gray beech forests of my childhood.
I remember the slow swish of oars at evening

A year has gone by?! I have thought of Barbara nearly daily. We are lucky to live with her paintings and so we are with her all the time. One lesson from her life that stays with me is the way she blossomed into her over-70s bonus years, quilting, painting, writing, traveling, falling in love. What an example she made for her children, grandchildren and friends. Love to you all, Melody

Remembering and missing my dear friend Barbara, whose paintings have filled my home with joyful color and lively shapes for the last forty years. She had a deep belly laugh and a wise and loving heart.

I painted my bedroom to match my favorite of her brussels sprout series and slept at the root of that wonderful image for the thirty years I lived on College Ave.

Still enjoying her art work every day!