The Oracle’s message today called for the birdlings.
between night
and the hour that fills
the spirit
with wingsong,
be as if joined together–
skydancing the light
midvein
poetry
in the midst
My message this morning from the Oracle. I woke once again to clouds, but the sun is shining now.
spring winters
deep beneath the riverpath–
a dark season
thicker than dusk
did you fall moonwandering
into the long night?
or were you too bird-rooted
and windwild to see? that
earth also breathes light–
full of treesong, growing in-between
The art is from NaPoWriMo 2018, when all my accompanying artwork was inspired by painter Joan Mitchell. I haven’t thought that far ahead this year; this April, I’ll just be visiting the archives for art I think.
Star Children
stardust embodied–
matter merely a vessel
for luminous spirit–
did you find what was lost?
the spiraling center
returned to elemental form–
in life but not of it–
stardust embodied
opening into dreamtime,
orbiting the moon,
spinning to the farthest away–
matter merely a vessel
empty spaces crossing
infinite galaxies–
wings sailing oceans
of luminous spirit
a welcoming heart, a gentle touch,
warm arms to enclose you
in peaceful sleep–
did you find what was lost?
I did these embroidered watercolors and accompanying poem for the Kick-About prompt that asked us to look at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. My response was inspired by the Jewish Children’s Memorial, below.
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In memory of all our lost children, all those without homes. The numbers grow larger every day.
Miss Wilms
There were three Wilms sisters.
Long after that generation was gone,
I discovered they had a brother
who served with my grandfather in WWI.
They never told my grandmother she had cancer.
She was in the hospital for months,
but the grandchildren were not allowed to visit,
because we might tell.
I was only eight years old
when my grandmother died.
I remember most of all
the delicious smells of her kitchen.
My mother adored her mother-in-law. She told us
how much my grandmother loved us, the children
of her son, her only child. My grandmother’s sister,
unmarried, childless, became her surrogate.
When we lived in Baltimore, Aunt Lil
came to dinner almost every Sunday.
She taught us to play poker,
and called my father “Chickie”.
I cried on the the train from New York on the way
to my great-aunt’s funeral. I was allowed to take
a jade vase from her apartment. I still have it,
along with the ashtray we gave her that says “Miss Wilms”.
For the dVerse prompt from Sarah where she asks us to write about grandmothers.
Aunt Lil made this vase, trying to capture the color in a Van Gogh painting that she loved. The painting on the shelf behind it is one of Nina’s.
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
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.
harbinger
I had a long and complicated dream about Sue Vincent last night. I’m still trying to disentangle and figure it out. But the Oracle always knows what’s on my mind. After I visited Her, I looked for some art I had done for one of Sue’s prompts to accompany it. I knew immediately this was the one to use.
above
the rain do dreams
swim on light? is that how
moon music recalls the language
of sea shadows
singing?
the blue of
darkness is
a blank canvas
from translucent music
comes
the shadow
of hope
moonbird rising
toward
the center of deep
light
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.
cloudsong
The last time I saw the moon was a rare bluish dawn about a week ago. The sky has been a relentless damp grey ever since.
But I know it’s there.
moon murmurs seed secrets
that shine through
the shaded blanket
of night season
like the poetry of bird dawn
I follow between,
waiting, watching
for wind
to uncover and open
the light
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.
K. 