It’s another autumn of changeable skies (and weather). The Oracle is very attuned to all kinds of weather.
ask earth to see through
spirit’s colors shining deep
between the wild songroots
of moon and sun
why listens to nothing–
knowing this ancient dusk
of season and light
must be full
I started out with a long rambling poem of half formed questions but the Oracle had other ideas. She was obviously thinking about my recent nights visiting with the moon.
how is the moon here
in the secret sky above
my dark wanderings
I want to spiral with stars,
I want to breathe deeply
of the galaxies–
fly into vast silences
thrown towards the essence
of the galaxies,
the echo of silence–
I want to spiral with stars
For the Poetry Postcard Fest this year, I decided to do all moon postcards from my own photos as I had already done a series of them for one of the Kick-About prompts so I had the beginnings started. Last year I did shadormas for the poems using part of the last line of the previous poem as the first line for the next one.
But this year I decided to do a pantoum, giving me two lines for my next poem. These are the first and the last cards, the beginning and the end of the poem. I enjoyed it, but I don’t think it was as successful poetically, as I kind of got bogged down in the middle by the repetition. Too much of a good thing–41 stanzas is a lot.
Since I made 41 postcards I sent them all–to the 32 people on my list, and the rest I sent to friends. In return I got 25 from people in my Fest group, plus 2 from friends. You can see the ones I received at the top. Last year one postcard arrived in December, so more may show up. Once again I enjoyed the variety in both the postcards and the poems I received. Not to mention finding real mail in the mailbox–that’s always a treat.
I intended to post all the postcards and poems I sent last year for PoPo 2020, but I didn’t get very far. I did do 3 posts with the first 6 cards–you can see them here:
https://kblog.blog/2020/10/02/popo-2020/
https://kblog.blog/2020/10/18/popo-2020-part-2/
https://kblog.blog/2021/06/14/popo-2020-part-3/
They may still get posted at some point…and also more of this year’s moon cards. You can never have too much of either the moon or pantoums.
You can read about the Poetry Postcard Fest, and register for 2022, here.
Also linking to dVerse Open Link Night, where Lisa (who also participated in the Postcard Fest and made and sent me one of her beautiful postcards) is hosting.
The Oracle, once again, discarded all my original words and replaced them with her own. And perhaps not so strangely I found a collage I did a few weeks ago that fit perfectly.
ask the blue wind why
it cries as if nothing sails
on moonshadowed seas
we sleep in the languages
of water whispered dreams
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
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
sleepless I
reach deep skyward, wish
ing for wings
to appear–
my hand pauses, empty, catch
ing only moonlight
Colleen chose me to provide this week’s #TankaTuesday image, and I sent one of my artworks, above. I always enjoy reading what others see in what I’ve created. I haven’t done a shadorma in awhile.
I went back to the original post with this image, which was in 2016, to see what I had written (a san san based also on another poem), and used it as a starting point for what I wrote.
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.
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
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.
