circles

Coiling

My sojourns repeat themselves, going
after relics that never existed, recapturing
the memories of ghosts.  You may ask
why I continue to tolerate a hopeless
cause, finding solace in circles—

I do not know how to define existence,
or the way to measure its boundaries.
I am lost and confused by an absence
that seems to be devouring what
might have become the future.

What can I do but shelter the things
I can’t yet see inside an identity
I do not yet possess?  Soon there will be
nothing left but the letting go. Until
what isn’t there becomes all that remains.

Here is the place I must abide.

For earthweal, where Brendan asks: Working for the best present, this shifting, dysynchronous, pre-apocalyptic now: That is your challenge this week. What does the landscape of this look like where you live and celebrate your being?

if the circle opens, will it become a line? (#2)

The Oracle’s message today reminded me of a collage I had done awhile ago. When I found it, I stole the title as well as the image. You can read the original here.

if I can remember
the color of myself
insideout

naked    foolish    magic

will my broken breath open
and ask for the air I need
to see voices
sailing on a vast listening
of oceans surrounded
with life’s slow sacred rhythm?

As usual, the answers are elusive.

centermost

become empty—o
pen yourself until the wind
fills you to zero

draw yourself in circles, hold
your essence out, listening

For the final day of NaPoWriMo, the prompt is to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place.

Thanks to Maureen Thorson for once again providing a home for poetry and for all those who read and commented on my efforts this April.

fractals (part 2)

the geography of water
parallels and reconfigures
the complexity of the heart–
light, a fissured mirror, reflects
memories in recurrent waves–
the complexity of the heart
parallels and reconfigures
the geography of water

the-silver-well-3

For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday poet’s choice this week I’ve written an octo poem which is a revision of a poem I published four years ago for Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, spring, above. You can see the original post here (a shadorma, of course). What’s interesting to me is how wildly different my painting is from the photo.

Also, though I like the way this painting looks, I never followed up and did any more with the idea. I need my gouache which is in storage, but it’s got me thinking. Perhaps to be continued.

Fractals can’t be measured in traditional ways. And so it is with springs, memories, and hearts.

Circle Game

circle game s

My first bike was a childhood gift, way too big for me, that my father lovingly assembled one Christmas Eve so it would be waiting by the tree the next morning.  No speeds, pedal brakes.  As I grew into them I turned the wheels faster and faster until I left them behind.

It took a few years before I began pedaling my way around the city, this time with 5 speeds and hand brakes.  My legs moved the wheels around and around once again, through the park, dodging traffic during transit strikes, climbing flights of stairs as the wheels bumped my body to my apartment door.

Finally I had an elevator!  And then a baby.  No space for cycles that were not attached to a carriage, a stroller, then tri and then bi accompanied by training wheels.  My legs walked beside them, watching my children turn them around and around until they too were flying on their own, faster and faster away from my slowing path.

Now all those wheels live only in remembered rotations.

These days my legs spin in a pattern that repeats itself, over and over, in the same location.  The world outside my window does the passing by.

circles
pivoting around
the still point

circle game close up s

The NaPoWriMo prompt for day 1 is “write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life”.  For all our lives these days…

napo2020button1-1

 

As I did two years ago for NaPoWriMo, I’ve been working on art to use in April for a number of months, this time inspired by the work of Matisse and Richard Diebenkorn.  The circles come via Matisse.

harvest moon 2

harvest moon 2 close up s

we are led not by
 lines, but by circles—fullness
returning, renewed

For Frank Tassone’s #Haikai Challenge #104, harvest moon.

harvest moon 2s

My internet was out for about 12 hours and there’s evidently a problem with the cable in the wall–so I can’t guarantee my presence on a day to day basis.  But it’s working for the moment, and maybe my luck will hold.