oracle 2

Of Eden, or: Paradise Lost

Once rampant with color, its fragrance long gone,
the paint has dried into textured lines–
afternoons of melodic stillness now mourned–
decorative traces lost inside frozen time.

The paint has dried into textured lines,
ringed by the noise of questions unasked–
decorative traces lost inside frozen time
bleeding destruction we haven’t yet grasped,

Ringed by the noise of questions unasked
life is tenuous, scattered, emotions removed–
bleeding destruction we haven’t yet grasped,
as over and over we bandage the wounds.

Life is tenuous, scattered, emotions removed,
following roads that only disappear–
over and over we bandage the wounds–
the darkness rises, overwhelming with fear.

Following roads that only disappear,
like the garden once bursting with growth—
the darkness rises, overwhelming with fear–
sky is silent, empty, brittle as bones

We lived in a garden bursting with growth,
afternoons of melodic stillness, now mourned–
sky is silent now, empty, brittle as bones–
once rampant with color, its fragrance long gone.

I love pantoums, but I usually don’t rhyme them, so this proved challenging to me. It still could use some revision, but I need to let it sit for awhile. Punam asked for a pantoum on the theme of abandonment for her W3 prompt this week. I had also been thinking about Sherry’s prompt at earthweal, asking us to write about all the species vanishing around us. And Colleen’s prompt for Tanka Tuesday, a painting by Monet (below), had me thinking about what we’ve lost since Monet painted all his overflowing gardens at Giverny. Will we one day only know such beauty as a digital image?

I also started out with a lot of words from this week’s Random Word Generator, but some of them dropped out during revisions.

Soundscape

Of course I always notice the birds.

I’m waiting for the robins to begin my morning–the cardinal, the flicker, the mockingbird.  Then I will be certain spring has arrived.  But the crows are back, as opinionated as always, and the crowds of blue jays and sparrows never left.  A mourning dove croons from a nearby roof outside my kitchen window as the sun rises.

I habitually tune out the sirens, garbage trucks, helicopters, low-flying planes, motorcycles, cars and buses, construction—all the normal background noise of city living.

But the air itself has gotten louder lately.  Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I can barely hear myself think over its whisper-hum.  My head is completely emptied of dreams; I am conscious only of my body in bed, surrounded by a constant movement murmuring in my ears.

Daylight does not mute the stormy sounds that show up suddenly and randomly, demanding attention, interrupting thought.  The nonstop intersection of voices, layered in a language I don’t understand, drowns out all other discourse.

It reminds me of the ocean–unbroken, all-encompassing, alive.  A presence much larger than my own.  To be inside of it is perhaps all the translation, the guidance, that is necessary.

on the street dogs bark–
the sky darkens—lights turn on–
I breathe in, then out

I’m a little late with Sherry’s prompt from last week at earthweal of Soundscapes–I’m squeezing it in at the last minute for the weekend open link. I’ve also used some of this week’s random word generator oracle words, which you can find here.

All art is from the archives.

in plain sight

if I could
unknit, remove these
protective
layers—un
knot the tangled breach—release
all I think I know,

return to
pause—recollecting,
listening
to the air
breathing in voices, called by
the resonance of

forest songs,
expanding into
organic
wondering–
(time knows its own creations–
unburdened by clocks,

the display
of exactitude)–
instead, re
placing all
measurement with one quivered
spiraling motion—

I wish to
sing odes composed by
trees—to be
answered not
with thoughts or questions, purpose
or pondering—but

to embrace
my own ring-years—to
follow the
journey of
each tree season, entering
what only seems closed

because I
choose to remain un
asked—having
forgotten
how to merge, integrate my
elemental core

For earthweal, a shadorma chain about elements.

I’ve been taking my portfolios out of the storage room to photograph and archive all the art I’ve accumulated over the past 50 years. In my late 20s and early 30s I did a lot of collage in series, very different (as you can see) from what I do now. These are all from the Wood series. Besides the art there were also some (bad) poems written around collages. But there were phrases worth exploring.

I combined a poem from 1983 with one from 2018 using synonyms for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday words, change and grow, and some of the words from Jane’s Random Word List.

The collages are interesting, even if they mostly don’t seem very wood-like to me now.

threading the needle

the sign said
catch me if you can—
I inquired
as to who
or what, but the Universe
declined to answer

instead of
illuminating,
it withdrew–
tangled, cleft–
its secrets woven into
labyrinthine curves

it looked like
a portal—but it
was only
a loophole–
false passage, another de
lusion full of knots

For dVerse OLN, hosted by Grace, where I’ve finally gotten around to using Jane’s Random Words for the week.. I’ve also finally produced a poem with the word “loophole” which I told Sun I was going to do months ago…

windward

the bridge to night,
hushed and wakeful,
asks me questions–
the words cast spells,

hushed and wakeful,
delicate and cobwebbed, into
ice—a sudden snow

asks me questions,
but I remain cloistered–
self-contained, undreamed—

the words cast spells–
maps sailing silent
unknown boundless seas

Boughton, George Henry; The Lady of the Snows; Walker Art Gallery

I started to construct a quadrille for dVerse, using the word ice given to us by Mish, and words from the Random Generator which Merril posted on Sunday. When I saw Colleen’s Ekphrastic prompt, above, it gave me a focus for what I had begun. I used the trimeric form.

night, owl, moon

observe the owl,
illuminated with shivering shadows
cast between branches
by the moon—

is it a sign,
an initiation?
or simply a reflection
of the enormous mystery
of a journey
whose path can never be
foretold?

When I saw Jane’s Random Word Generator list this week, the first word that jumped out at me was owl, which of course reminded me of my moon and owl painting that seems to go so well with so many poems. I was thinking about it when David published the W3 prompt for this week, which invited us to respond to Denise DeVries’ poem “Generation Gap” using a computer aid, such as a Random Word Generator.

In Denise’s poem, she and her granddaughter look up in wonder at the night sky.

The words I used from Jane’s list were: observe, owl, illume (illuminated), shivering, cast, sign, initiate (initiation), reflect (reflection), enormous, foretell (foretold).

Denise wonders if using a Random Word Generator would be cheating. But words are just words, no matter the source–why would it be cheating to take any word from anywhere as inspiration for a poem? It’s the poet who must make them sing.