shadow work

arise to witching hour,
the moon eclipsing the sun–
in afterlight crow echoes his own call

gathered clouds, a bower
of reflected light returned,
unwrapping into daylight from its pall

orbits overlapping,
crossing time as well as space–
a hush that parallels the day’s forestall

twin umbras pause, passing–
opposites in brief embrace–
Aurora wakes, released to fly withal

Another kerf poem, for Colleen’s #TankaTuesday, where Gwen Plano has provided the words Dawn & Twilight. My apartment doesn’t face east at all, but the eclipsed sunrise felt very different yesterday, veiled and stilled, and the crows had a lot to say about it.

Another collage from the archives.

By What Means

Sailing in potions.  The aftermath transformed from apparition into gold.  Navigating in the middle of above and below, breath and fire.

How to make a path through the shoreless sea.  How to find what was left behind on its phantom boundaries.

Coiled and enclosed by emotions that have no name.  Entangled in a web of circumstance.

To be alive is always a risk.

Who acknowledges your vulnerabilites?  What are the objects of your devotion?  When will your unknowable secrets be revealed?  Where is the entrance to the far side of the darkest extremity?

Why? and why not?

We too are ensnared, following your edges into a maze of decay.  We are unable to meet your gaze until it’s too late.  We always search for you beyond the point of no return.

All those ghoststones, weighed down by too many betrayals.  The intersection of desire and fear that paralyzes completion.  The piercing shards of the broken mirror.

The spiral grows tighter, less controlled.  The waves isolate and discard.  The horizon is lost, the voices drowned in a desperate merging of man and beast.  Which one remains after the inevitable inferno?

The distance between was always an illusion.

Last month Visual Verse had a very intriguing image, with a serpent like creature, as its ekphrastic prompt. Even before I wrote a response, I wanted to do a visual response as well. You can see the original image and the published responses here.

My prose poem wasn’t chosen for publication, but I finally made my collage and revised the text a bit for Tricia Sankey’s dVerse prompt exploring risk.

composted

always digging deeper–
roots that grow below, restore–
listening through decay beyond stillness,

a place that is neither
dark nor light, yet full, aware,
gathered germinating into witness,

distilled light casting words
that linger as counterpart–
revealing mysteries in all that is

held on the wings of birds,
circulated through the heart,
absorbed into the spiraling axis

It’s poet’s choice of form at Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, and how could I resist a syllabic form called “kerf”? I meant this also to be for the earthweal challenge this week, earthcraft, but obviously did not finish it in time.

Once again, art from the archives.

moondrunk

I found this painting/collage the other day–I know I’ve used it before, but I thought it would be useful for something else, so I saved it in my ideas space. When I read the Oracle’s message this morning, it seemed like she knew ahead of time where it belonged.

recall the dreamlight
time as a living being
shadows shining through the raw sky

did what you thought
you never needed
show you how

to still the stormcry
into moonships singing
the language of seaforests?

a thousand whispered wings

world weary

you drift along,
along and along,
without wind or sea–
can you see
yourself moving?  or is
everything drifting?  is
it all doldrums,
your mind sailing on doldrums,
on emptiness, what is
no longer there—was
anything ever there?

you long to immerse
yourself, to immerse
your body in the sea,
the primal waters of the sea–
to float and forget, to
dive and immerse
yourself in life’s womb, to
close your eyes, to
shrink, becoming
a stone waiting to
be cast and skipped rippling
back to where you belong—

where do you belong?

you drift along…

Laura at dVerse has us repeating ourselves. Not difficult for me, as my mind likes to travel back and forth and revisit what it has already said before.

oyster shell 4s

My images are also recycled.

dear moon

The prompt for the Kick-About this week is a quote from Murakami’s novel IQ84 where Aomame talks to a cold and silent moon. No one could unlock the heart of the moon, she thinks. She asks the moon some questions: The moon did not answer. But maybe she is only projecting onto the moon a reflection of herself.

keeping her motives
to herself, she likes to move
beyond the in between

going where after is before
all over again

I’m always photographing the moon. I decided to go through my archives and make some postcards from some of my pictures. The results proved to me, once again, that if you take enough photos, some are bound to look good.

I then consulted with the collage box Oracle. The Oracle knows the moon well.

what time is it inside
your dreams?  step through, not around–
inside the journey
is your destination–
no other place but right now

I didn’t plan it that way, but the sequence of photographic messages from the Oracle were easily constructed into a series of Japanese-style poems.

flow into the light
by exploring the patterns
of the universe

You can’t just ask questions; you also need to keep listening for the reply.

Oasis

It’s a robin, I think, as the melody enters my consciousness through the window.  But then it morphs into a litany of birds from cardinal to crow.  There may even have been a frog thrown in for good measure.

I can’t locate the bird to see who is gifting me with its repertoire of local wildlife sounds.  It could be a starling—I once lived in an apartment where the local starlings would sit on the roof railing next door every morning and tell me all they knew.  But there are also plenty of both mockingbirds and catbirds hanging around.

city fades
a sanctuary
feathered skies

A meditation on sanctuary for earthweal. Also linking to dVerse OLN, hosted by MsJadeLi.

Night Ride

I drift inside dream rivers open and wild with singing, flowing through unexplored dimensions into rough horizonless seas.  How will I cross?

My vessel waits, slowly filling with circular light.

in between what and
if sail the indigo night
gardens of the moon

A haibun with the theme “flower moon” for Frank at dverse.

nevertheless

The Oracle was obviously missing the birdlings.

ghosts linger as dark stars
dazzled holes of lost time

ask the angels how to remember
flying the sky
melting color like sacred fire
dancing with air

if we sail our breath
with wild naked eyes
vast and opened into listening

who will we become?

Also linking to earthweal open link weekend.