cento

Remembering 2022

This house has
time–
it wanted mountains,
morning songs, shadows,
happy screams.

We are all sailing
another grey sky,
clinging to tattered
margins.  Move, expand–
you can hear the universe–

Sing.  Ask the wind
if the moon cried
when the universe was young.

Laura at dVerse asked us to take the first lines of the first poems we published each month in 2022 and make a new poem. Three of mine were haibuns, so I used the first line of the haiku part. I’ve also included art from some of those posts. If it sounds Oracle-like, several of the poems were from that source. She always bleeds into the rest of my writing as well.

Asylum
gifts
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Living  
Conjunction
Beach Haiku 2022
this long night
Darkness Darkness
The Gravity of Home
Year of the Tiger
multitudes of changing colour, condensed motion, thoughts full
to sail or to swim
be the asking

I choose a place that is unfrequented by men

The moon has risen on the last remnants of night–
floating she brushes the heavenly stars.
The lake has widened till it almost joins the sky
and the mist rising from the water has hidden the hills.
Far off the Dipper lowers toward the river.
You’d think you’d left the earth–
body and spirit for a while have changed place
and open, open–
the world’s affairs, just waves.

A cento poem for NaPoWriMo Day 30. Thanks to Maureen Thorson for once again hosting this wonderful month of verse.

poets in order of appearance
Po Chü-i (title)
Po Chü-i
Li Po
Po Chü-i
Ou Yang Hsiu
Tu Fu
Ch’in Kuan
Po Chü-i
Li-Young Lee
Li Po

are we not what we are

magic-is-afoot-s

my dream is magic rising
my dream calls spirits
cosmic bridges
wishes joined to starry wings
wings singing songs into the air

the spirits dance their circles through the portals of the clouds

we are but voices sailing
the ancient shores of secret galaxies

A quadrille for dVerse where Linda asks us to think about magic.  My quadrille is a cento, composed of lines from poems that pop up at my blog with my friend Nina, MethodTwoMadness, when I search “magic”.  I did have to add one word to bring the total number of words to 44, but otherwise the art, the title, and all the lines are taken from my old poems.

magic-is-afoot-close-up-s

Obviously it’s a subject I consider frequently.