Frants Diderik Bøe, “Birds in the Midnight Sun,” [Public domain]
When you soar—
up through purple mist
is there beauty there?
Blue shadows lick
the red rocks
a lazy sky-spray sings,
but rain recalls dreams–
the sweet smell of peaches–
and yet the wind cries why
as a symphony, a moan
an ache in me sleeps
The Oracle sends me lyrical questions. I hit “Publish” too quickly! Re-publishing this with my screen shot.
Ilya Repin, “What Freedom!” Wikipedia Commons
No flask, no wine, no book of verse, this night,
we reach for stars and moon, seek gleams of light,
hear the silver streams from the humming moon,
time moves in pulses, like a fairy sprite
seconds and memories, here and then gone
scented by sea-mists, turned rosy at dawn
or aglow under sweeping, sparkling stars
remember we say, remember hang on–
there on the sand, waves pitch and break and roar,
while spindrift flicks in salted breeze to shore,
and you with me, now standing hand in hand
watching the sea, waiting for dreams, we soar.
This is a Rubaiyat for dVerse, where Frank is hosting a month-long challenge. This one is reworked from a previous prompt that he did. I’ve added a quatrain, keeping in mind Jilly’s challenge to appeal to the senses. I’ve obviously played upon and given tribute to Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam’s famous verse. Comments welcome.
Little girl
gambols by the seaside
the saltwater flows,
and she grows
wondering who she is,
who she’ll be
as onward flows
the sea, she knows
kisses, and soaring free
to be
herself, and shows
a world images–she knows
what dreams can be
A quadrille for dVerse, where De is asking us to use the word kiss. Sorry for all the birthday poems, but I wrote a poem for younger daughter’s birthday, so I had to write one for older daughter’s birthday today. I’m struck by how many of her paintings are of soaring figures—both people and sea creatures. You can see some of them here.
“God, how we get our fingers in each other’s clay. That’s friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of each other.”
–Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Come
“And Guy felt it again—the sense of hostility in the clump of woods east of the house. . .
What chance combination of shadow and sound and his own thoughts had created it?”
Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train
Tuesday
So now, my mother feels her age
and shadows walk on either side
both before and behind, this stage
of life, some accept, others rage.
My own walk, confident, with pride
stepping fast and firmly to ground
with thoughts in clouds and eyes now wide
to watch my mom and match her stride.
This fake spring day, a shy half-smile
timid, like a deer, before it flees
and can’t be seen, but for awhile
we’ll bask in light, as it beguiles
though my mom unaware, she sees
but doesn’t, knows winter is here
leaves dropped and then tossed in the breeze
is age a stage, or a disease?
Thursday
We go for drinks, daughter’s birthday,
we talk and laugh, I’ve baked a cake
we’ll sit awhile, no lengthy stay
work tomorrow, always the way
I value moments with my child
a beautiful woman, she’s become
with students now that she has styled
wisdom and laughter reconciled
Friday
We watch a film set in a war
where women have to hide their hair
and people flee to basements for
there is danger, bomb threats, and more.
Did djinn arrive somewhere upstairs
flying on missiles in the wind?
But look, what is real, what nightmares–
shapes in shadows, sounds on the stairs?
Saturday
A date day to play with some clay
cold outside, but it’s warm inside,
we turn the wheel, and learn the way
clay becomes bowl–or thrown away.
I say to him look at the moon
as we walk into the light of night,
city to train, and then home soon
for shadow-dreams to lunar tune.
Secret language, a potter’s wheel
spins, shaping it, and us anew
through heartache, and then all we feel
as spring to fall, to age we kneel.
I’ve attempted something different for my Monday Morning Musings—a Rubaiyat. This is part of the poetry forms series on dVerse. I’m not sure if this works.
We watched the movie, Under the Shadow, an Iranian movie set during the 1980s in Tehran. I liked it—it’s billed as a horror movie, but there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s on Netflix. Trailer here. We went to the Clay Studio in Philadelphia for a date day. There was wine, beer, food, and instruction. Each person gets to make two pieces (you can actually make more and keep your best two). I’ve never used a potter’s wheel before. We weren’t too good at it, but it was fun. On Tuesday, it was in the 60s F. Today, it’s snowing.
More than cake—
remember magic
lives long. Let
it always
surround you, a breathing cloud,
a dance in kisses
and so, this—ask if,
but explore the secret stars
in a universe
time ghost-laughs a fevered breeze
and a heart blushes, flowers
The Oracle knows everything, so she knows it is birthday month at my house. Both daughters and my husband (and mother-in-law) have birthdays in February. When the girls were little, we often had a combined Valentine’s-birthday party. So here is birthday love and wishes in a shadorma tanka combo for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday challenge. But there will also be a lot of cake and celebrations this month.
Twenty-eight years—
a lifetime—
or just a blink—
time passes that way
without regard for what
we think
of all the moments,
the tears, the joy,
together, we link
them, forming
the totality
I would not rethink
through whys
or ifs, to undo
that which is
so wondrous–you.
A quick birthday poem–posting on dVerse, where Grace is hosting Open Link Night.
“What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible.”
–Anthony Doer, All the Light We Cannot See
Philadelphia Mural Arts
Redshifting and blue,
all the colors, hues
we cannot see, and beyond
our comprehension, or will–
yet, don’t they exist still?
And the man, there on his rags,
sleeping on his clothes in bags–
if we walk by him unseeing
does it mean he’s not a being
worthy of a view, a thought
of what once was? Even if
only a trace of has been–wisps
that linger here–the invisible who
are all the colors, all the hues
and so,
as sunset slow shifts to indigo
and all the in-between,
there, find all the light that’s there
find it, unseen and seen.
This is for my prompt at dVerse, where we’re exploring the invisible. I was inspired by the quotation I used and also by the mural that I just happened to see on Sunday, after I had written and scheduled the prompt. Isn’t it weird how that works?
So, first I published my musings without a title
then I forgot to erase my random thoughts–
the scribbles on the metaphorical napkin–
the unpremeditated words,
that come flying from my mind,
aimless, falling like autumn leaves. . .
and now you see that first process
before other ideas came to me—
while I brushed first my teeth
and then my cat’s
(because good dental hygiene is important
but doesn’t require much brain power).
So, I’ll just leave that post up as a monument
to first and second thoughts,
and perhaps a third,
even as I took a breath,
I somehow forgot to breathe.
In today’s Monday Morning Musings there is a gap between “the real post” and the first scribbled thoughts that I forgot to delete. Now you see how I work. 🙂 I did correct the title, but I didn’t scroll down far enough to notice that gibberish. And I also misspelled “breathe.” Also, the WP Gremlins seem to be active today, so who knows what may happen to this post. BEWARE! NOW, I’m getting back to work. Really. In just a few minutes. . .
Most of Rina Bannerjee’s artwork has very long titles.
“Poverty made a sound like a wet cough in the shadows of the room.”
–Ray Bradbury (Referenced here.)
There’s ice on the river,
but it will melt,
not so some hearts
that stay ever frozen,
no warm current flows
there to thaw,
the cold. No way
to resuscitate the lifeless
zombies
feeding on the living.
Yet they proclaim
their love of life
when it’s cells
they pretend to care about–
but not the ones
into which people are thrown
not the children taken
and lost
and not their parents–
only the cells that might be,
not the violence
that affects them,
not the guns or poverty.
Power and money
their gods
though they pay lip-service
to a deity
twisted to defend
their beliefs.
It’s an age-old tale,
a universal truth that
the mighty can tumble,
but those just getting by
fall over the edge
and into a ravine
often unseen,
there to remain,
but it can happen
to almost anyone
without influence
or connections.
Perhaps—
connection
is the key,
if only to one
lock
of the many–
the librarian
who makes the homeless child
feel special,
the immigration officer,
who learns that
that law and morality
and not always the same thing.
We walk through city streets
where murals bring beauty–
and truth,
and a museum opens its doors
and galleries
to new works among the old–
social and economic inequality
consumption of people and goods
the movement of people and goods
across the globe–
a complex interaction
of thought, art, and words.
I amuse myself in imagining
my father and older daughter
walking though these rooms–
he, who wrote a dissertation
on Charles Willson Peale,
and she, an artist with a passion
for justice. What fun they would
have had here.What a discussion
they might have had—
perhaps in some alternative world,
but here, we are
and we go to a movie
immersed in a world that does exist–
It is fiction, but tells a truth
of poverty, chaos
that most of us cannot imagine.
Through it a young boy navigates
with defiance, bravery, spirit—and kindness
rising above it all
despite the example
of his parents, and many
around him blind to what is before them.
A story again of immigrants, too,
because this another universal truth
that people move and come legally and illegally
to Ethiopia, Lebanon, Iceland, the U.S.
to which my grandparents came.
And your ancestors were immigrants too
if you look back far enough.
And were they helped by someone?
Most likely.
We each walk our own paths
with tenuous connections
that sometimes mesh
or interact.
The meteorologist says
there’s freezing fog today
but the temperatures will rise,
and the ice will melt
But some hearts will stay cold
and some minds will remain frozen
screens where the cursor never moves
to write new thoughts.
We saw And Breath Normally. It’s on Netflix, trailer here. It’s a quiet movie (no music, Dale!), but well done, about a immigration officer in Iceland and the African refugee who helps her. Though it’s set in Iceland, it could have taken place in many different nations. And we saw Capernaum (trailer here), which will just rip your insides outs. That little boy AND that toddler, and the horrible parents, and the surroundings. . .yeah, just see it.
We went to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where Rina Bannerjee’s work is on display until March 31. (Free on Sundays during the exhibition). You can see and read more about her work here.
My grandmothers, both immigrants
I amuse myself by imagining my father and my older daughter walking through the gallery discussing his view of the Peales and her views on art and feminism. They would have had so much fun.
Art
Resistence spices peel never imagine without inheritance I see revealed
Sun disguises well the feather we see while home
Stop these storms
She sings of summer
While the wind urges elaborate dreams
Heaving enormous fluff
When
Her heart healed
He looked long
Letting it be less
Herself
Him
The perfume of need and want
Melting
In embrace
Timeless as the ocean
Exploring the night
Robert Vonnoh, “Lingering Rain” Public Domain, Wikipedia Commons
Recall, she says,
we watched the moon
and time stopped
as shadow mist played
above the blue forest.
What was it you wanted?
Us?
The sea?
A dream of if—
lives on for us, my love,
like the smell of spring rain
as sun shines through it.
From today’s visit to the Oracle.
