where is the center?
always moving–
I can’t locate
the pivot
always moving–
the place of stillness,
the pivot
of this labyrinth
stillness
retracing
this labyrinth
emerging
retracing
beginning
emerging
expanding
to begin,
I relocate–
expanding
the center
For Earthweal, where Ingrid asks us to consider our labyrinthine times.
I had written my own poem earlier in the week, but since the anniversary of 9/11 is on a Saturday, I also consulted the Oracle. We are both feeling the shadows and the ache.
ghosted, these
ruins—shadows left
imprinted
on this day–
each returning resurrects
the ache of absence
beneath blue skies
death shows up
raining red
the day lives raw
our dreams ache
with rust and blood
language is shadowed
as if love
will never be recalled
music whispers
on the wind
through still light
More questions from the Oracle.
stars awake fireborn
breathing vast ferocious joy
into dazzled dark
where is the door of always?
who parses the voice of time?
After I post my birds on memadtwo tomorrow, I’m taking a break from the internet for a few weeks. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
“It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.”
― Joseph Heller
“And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”
–Kurt Vonnegut
August 6 marks the 76th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, which was followed by the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9—the only time nuclear weapons have been used in war.
Between 130,000 and 230,000 people were killed, mostly civilians. Many of those who survived the bombing itself were stricken with radiation sickness and died painful and premature deaths.
The story of 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki’s attempt to make 1000 origami cranes after falling ill with leukemia turned the Japanese Crane, long a symbol of immortality, into a symbol of the wish for nuclear disarmament and world peace.
There are currently less than 1800 Japanese cranes surviving in the wild, for the usual human reasons—loss of habitat and food sources, pollution and poisioning, poaching, disease.
And so it goes…
burning floods
birds singing silent
ash and bones
For Frank’s haibun prompt at dVerse, August. I’ve written about this in August and used these images several times before.
This is our cry.
This is our prayer.
Peace in the world.
–inscription on the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima
http://www.nippon.com/en/images/k00009/
Sadako Sasaki was a toddler living in Hiroshima when it was bombed by the United States. Ten years later she died as a result of leukemia, “the atomic bomb disease.” If you don’t know the story of Sadako and the 1000 Cranes, you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_and_the_Thousand_Paper_Cranes
Another mostly sleepless night. But the Oracle sees beauty in those hours too. And how else would I have seen the sliver of the moon?
And look closely on the right–there’s Saturn too.
who is this self
sailing slowly through the dark
always away
blue with haunted oceans
flying from the ghosts of time
breathless as the dance
of skyholes
lingering in starfire
awakening the open eyes
of this goodnight
my hands drawn
into lines—tensely
embracing
escaping
furtively from fear, riddled
with hesitation
erasing
beginning again
layering
accruals
disguised by repetiton
over and over
and yet not
the same these motions
these attempts
to capture
a moment streaming tracing
the outlines of time
I’ve used the image from National Geographic provided by De at dVerse as inspiration for my watercolor/quadrille using the word stream.
Also linking to earthweal, where Sarah discuss the harvest festival of Lammas and asked us to think about how we harvest and transform in our own lives.
Why must we always quantify? 4, 3, 10. Add, subtract, multiply. Divide.
My prose poem, Aggregated, based on a painting by Hilma af Klint, was among those selected as a finalist in The Ekphrastic Review Women Artists contest. You can read the entire poem and see all the finalists here. The three winning selections are here.
also linking to dVerse OLN
The moon in her current path shines across my bed at about 2 am. She makes sure I acknowledge her gift.
And of course the moon and the Oracle are old friends…
beneath the shadow
of my dream
language sleeps
in a forest of wind
the moon sings me
into its lightship
soaring on mad tongues
without a whisper of why
I am still waiting for clarity–
sometimes I think about
the things I can’t see
and I wonder how
to place them inside my mind–
Out of the dark and still
I am dreaming of colors
liquid currents of sound
moving in all directions
between the gaps–
Do our visions swim
cataracted with refractions–
flooding the invisible
barriers of the portals
into our eyes?
As I told Phil, this week’s Kick-About prompt, fundus photography, was made for my watercolor mandalas. First, photographing the inner eye naturally makes for roundness, and the liquid state calls for watercolor to represent it.
I did 4 watercolors and embroidered on 2 of them. If I exaggerated the colors a bit, well, my eye often does the same.
