Fallow time, moon-dark: no power
of words nor healing much less
smiles tears or beauty-making
(feeble light flickers in clouded lantern)
You know the black river under
starless skies ever cold and silent
No remedy but surrender
touch bottom (source-love)
and resurface
Title borrowed from “We Lying by Seasand,” by Dylan Thomas.
It rained all night. Today
I dry-muse, inside, on tall roses
prolifically budded pink, yellow, red,
rising behind landscape layers
of glossy green. A blackbird thrashes
to the surface of the window-side shrub.
Ungraceful she is, faded black
with an eye duller than poets suspect:
nesting. Good mother, she must not blink,
must keep her head eternally cocked,
wary gaze on the shadowy unknown.
I wait, unmoving, not wanting to intrude.
(Ear eternally cocked, not even wanting
to listen, I hear the distant metal screech
of the city-bound train. Good-bye
for real, she said, stooping to kiss
her faded mother. She’s dressed for a party,
brilliantly plumed.)
I think this is an answer, of sorts, to the beautiful Prom night by Jenifer Cartland (Poems from in between).
From
here, onward.
Singing or silent: in beauty,
grace-full. (No boot-licking, hoop-
jumping; standing on shoulders, not crawling
on backs.) Step by step into black clouds (silver-
lined and electric,
alone-not-alone).
Listen for a still,
small voice, for
this way, written
on your heart.
There is a chasm between two souls
deeper than the deepest ocean rift
and more full of watered mystery
To have given birth is not enough
To have carried and nursed is not enough
To love with this whole fractured being is not enough
We have a deeper communion, perhaps
with Other than with each other
That knowledge is not enough
I’ve often dreamt of your drowning
torn from my arms and lost in black water
It is the deep calling to the depths in us
Shall we take the plunge? Shall we sink ourselves
to the very floor of the abyss—abandon all
claim to one another and therein find our kinship?
*9 May 2015…A year since I wrote this, I’m realizing it’s a Mother’s Day poem of sorts…
Inspired by We Drink Because We’re Poets Prompt #9: Write a poem inspired by a Latin proverb. I was interested to find that there are at least two interpretations of this one, “deep calls to deep” (taken straight from the Latin Vulgate translation of Psalm 42) and “hell calls to hell” (meaning, loosely, that one bad thing leads to another). I’ll have to prefer the first sense.
Crossing an ocean counter to the sun
has brought me forward both in space and time:
my home was long ago and far away.
From my person then and there (O frantic soul),
this journey takes me farther every day
and settles me more nearly in my rhyme.
I found it wasn’t hard to bid farewell
to places I knew I’d one day see again,
but here each sight is rich, unique and brief;
I want to linger and yet race to the next.
This will be a goodbye full of grief.
I thought I’d mess around with the NaPoWriMo Day 26 prompt: Write a curtal sonnet. I made a bit of a mess. It’s also partly about goodbyes, which is the Day 30 prompt. *sniff*
I am poured and swelled to bursting
like the brimful cup. You would say,
surface tension. You would say,
internal pressure. The molecules
at the top, not being surrounded
by the same, are pulled, irresistibly,
inwards. You would say, this contractive
tendency allows the surface to resist
external forces. It will push back.
I would say,
it makes perfect sense.
I would say,
I can even name the molecules:
failure, love, grief
wrongs, love, forgiveness
child, parent, love
Starting out in a completely different place, I found myself using lots of repetition, perhaps still pondering Quickly’s Prompt for April 22. Thanks to Wikipedia for a crash course in “surface tension.”
Spring sun, you sound of blackbirds’
piercing arias (declarations of sky-dancing love),
rustle of lancet leaves uprightly translucent
in harmony with color-spun clattering chimes,
noble bees’ never-stinting rumble-hum,
grass growing
Spring sun, you smell of ripe-bursting blossoms, moist earth
under last year’s dried debris:
newness
Spring sun, your touch is returner’s embrace
(peace), a long daydream-dozy centered in
riot of nature’s joy,
uncurling of winter soul-muscle tension,
needless of hurry or self. You give the Now,
glowing
Inspired by (my interpretation of) today’s NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem using sensory detail (at least 3 senses). Mostly I just wanted to sit outside, so my thoughts went in an obvious direction.
She sweeps with many-colored brooms
Dirt-dry sky anchored by plank walls
bare brown arms kilted skirts
She leaves the riverside window open
sun-damp dreams lured and snared
in yards upon yards of muslin curtains
Inspired by Poets Online’s monthly prompt: Begin with a line of an Emily Dickinson poem.
The attempts at perfection pile up
and I am tired of trying
for anyone’s sake
to smooth all knots away
weave yarn ends invisible
Life is not machine-made but
built one outpouring at a time
Loose ends still poke out
the seams may unravel but yet
we’ll make use of these gifts
