My message this morning from the Oracle.
the thousand shadows recall life
slipping through time–
an ache sun-stormed by never
sleep sings about sealight
and the whispering goddesses
of forest-blue moondreams
we swim the music of why
like wind-stilled water
searching for the mothership
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.
I am floating face down in a horizonless body of water. My eyes are open; I seem to be balanced in the center of a giant labyrinthine sphere. Like an octopus, or a circular net with ends stretching down, down, beyond all comprehension. Somehow I can breathe.
All the rootpaths below me are in constant motion. I dive between, in the unfixed spaces that surround them. I sense that they are hollow, that they lead somewhere, but I can’t locate the wormhole. The orb turns, whorling, gathering me into its patterned dance.
I am nowhere in space in time. I sit thousands of feet above the sea, star-covered, as I swim inside the ocean’s womb. I don’t understand how to locate myself, how to divide the illusions until they reach zero. The still point of what is and is not. There. Here? Both. And…
Merril provided this quote from May Sarton this week for dVerse prosery: “In space in time I sit thousands of feet above the sea” But as she pointed out, my prose is too much like poetry to really be prosery. I had a couple requests to leave the post up anyway, so I decided to put it back up.
a misted bridge forms
across the water–
our voices dance
as if they were winged
across the water
we float airborne
touching the sky
our voices dance
uncontained
scattering the light
as if we were winged
needing no reason
playing with life itself
For dVerse, where Lisa asks us to play. Also inspired by the photo, above, by Terri Webster Schrandt, provided by Colleen for this week’s Tanka Tuesday. I’ve written another trimeric poem.
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.
Nothing
remains, except
this quickened memory–
how brief and wondrous it was, that
first love
A cinquain for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, with the photo prompt above by Terri Webster Schrandt.
Frank @ Beach Walk Reflections posted this week about love. His meditations always make me think of music and I considered all the love songs I knew, and how difficult it was to capture the essence of love in words. This morning I put on Donovan’s Fairy Tale album and the first song, “Colours”, struck all the right chords, as it had when I first heard it 50 years ago, conjuring that time and space in my life when the complexities of the future did not yet exist. Ephemeral, but nonetheless still very real, even now, from this far away country where I presently reside.
It was almost black,
the river serpentine—
everything looked like it was
coated in silver, much bigger
than he imagined, as if
the surface was somehow
a river of birds. The moon
was right there, and every
part of it, calling.
It’s an ancestral memory,
a sound he remembers
from before he hears it.
How dark the water was,
prehistoric, too loud,
flung forward
as the wave broke.
The sky slips from peach
to garnet to blood.
Who can say?
Life is long out here.
Laura at dVerse asked us to alternate lines from one page in each of two books and construct a patchwork poem. My sources were:
“The Echo Maker” by Richard Powers, page 422
“Duplex” by Kathryn Davis, page 152
body mind time
collaborations
concealing
revealing
light line shadow surface trace
inhabitation
reshaped by
fragmented motion
like shadows
like mirrors
reflecting and following
the moon caught shining
left exposed
particles disguised
by outlines
beclouded
by time by futures eclipsed
by the dance of stars
A quadrille for dVerse, where De has provided us with the word star.
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
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.
K. 