I don’t need a yacht or rings–
or bling—
only enough wealth
to pay bills, to manage health,
the everyday decisions,
not star-struck visions
(think of
Richard Cory, richer than a king. . .)
but listen to the mockingbird sing—
riches the world brings
This is a quadrille for dVerse, where Kim has asked us to use the word “rich.” For some reason, the poem, “Richard Cory” popped into my mind. You can read it here.
“But it is only in epic tragedies that gloom is unrelieved. In real life tragedy and comedy are so intermingled that when one is most wretched ridiculous things happen to make one laugh in spite of oneself.”
–Georgette Heyer, Civil Contract
“Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing–
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.”
–from Sara Teasdale, “May Night”
Here the ghost eyes eternity
looking through a window
from the after
flying through fires of if
laughing at when
they embraced,
in heartbeats
measured time
****
My heart is over-brimmed
as my mother’s eyes fill
and weak are her limbs.
Days move from freezing rain
to summer heat
and I reel from pain
of seeing her so.
But nature and comedy
make me smile and laugh
and provide a remedy
both constant and temporary–
because life is full of
tragedy and joy, the extraordinary
and ordinary
of illness, broken cars, and trains delayed
–and the first strawberries
of the season
the scent alone
a reason
to celebrate life
and being here
friends, family, husband, wife—
we go through shadows
seek light,
and who knows
what will be, and if anything will be right
(the world sighs)
but there, the light
comes through the trees
and we drink coffee
savor moments, these
small joys, please–
the walks and shadow shows
pizza, wine, dogs—these
simple pleasures bring
to our hearts even in winter
feelings of spring
(briefly in my mother’s eyes)
and comedy and tragedy both fly
dancing to the tune
of the moon’s lullaby.
Thank you for all the good wishes for my mom. She has improved some from her stroke, and we were able to take her outside yesterday for a little while. We saw our son-in-law perform a stand-up routine at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia, and we saw Manual Cinema’s Ada/Ava at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. This is the second time we’ve seen one of their shows. They’re hard to describe–but combine shadow puppets, actors, and live music to create something unique. If you get a chance, see them perform. There’s a video on this Kimmel Center link.
When some brilliant star,
breathing time, flies,
no, lingers long
in after-wake of dark, bleeding sky,
it explores eternity
and I look up,
smile at it,
and this vast, dazzly universe
laugh, celebrate life,
but listen to
for the ghosts about me–
from that tree, see
on a velvet-flowered breeze?
Coloring morning with blushing voices
of secret almost-words–
and if always lives
It took some work, but the Oracle always knows.
Live, grow, through the greys
hope for, golden rays
that give
life some bright displays
and love some pathways
to live
without them and they,
without risk, some day
grow tall, through the frays,
tell a tale that sways,
outlives
hate, instead to blaze
in unforeseen ways–
forgives?
Hope for golden rays,
live, grow, through the greys.
Grace is hosting Open Link Night at dVerse. This is another attempt at a lai noveau.
I walked by the Holocaust Memorial in Philadelphia yesterday, and I was happy to see the Theresienstadt Tree has grown since the last time I saw it.
As a lead-up to the launch of their Renaissance issue on May 16, Nightingale and Sparrow has been posting a different micropoem each day on social media. Thank you to editor-in-chief Juliette Sebock for selecting my poem, “Greensleeves Replies.” You can see it here.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
And so, we ponder the mysteries
of body and soul, the medical arts,
blood pressure, pulse, the body parts
and histories
(labeled with another’s name)
We wonder, who is she
who intrudes on the charts
who lubs dubs with my mother’s heart–
the mysterious Susan C.
We speculate—
the student who once threw a roll,
or was it she on the grassy knoll?
What is or was her fate?
(Did they need to operate?)
Let’s Google her, we say.
Is it her, or her, or her?
Which woman there would we prefer?
It doesn’t matter, either way.
Why won’t her name disappear?
Is she a Russian spy?
Why? Why? Why
is her name so clear, so near
to erasing it—persevere, we will.
There! All set.
No. Sigh. Not yet.
(Do you think she’ll pay the bill.)
I don’t want to go into details or give the woman’s full name, but there was another woman’s name associated with some of my mom’s medical records, and we could not get rid of it. But we got a little silly with wondering who she was. If interested, you can read my more serious post here.
When we were both younger.
“Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry in the darkness.”
–Carl Sandburg, from “Poems done on a Late Night Car”
“And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
From, Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night”
Beneath the beauty–
pink, red, yellow-petaled–
nectar flows,
pollen-dusted bees
hover, their buzz
a soothing lullaby–
the sound of if, is, was,
and will be
Enter a caption
What will be?
From my mother’s body,
I came,
my earliest memory, her
(she was beautiful)
shushing me,
telling me not to wake my sister
My sister and I played,
sang the songs of Broadway
and our lives,
nonsense words became family slang
over the dinner table—
the sound of family dinners,
and playing the dictionary game.
From my body,
my daughters came.
Sisters, they played,
sang songs of Broadway
and their lives
nonsense words became family slang
over the dinner table—
the sound of family dinners,
and playing Scattergories.
They look alike,
(but they don’t)
anyone can tell they’re sisters,
the way they talk and gesture–
we look alike
(but we don’t)
anyone can tell I’m their mother,
it’s in the blood,
our souls
from bodies, the blood of
grey and green-eyed ancestors
generations stretching far back
to first hearts beating
and blood flowing
women, men,
loving, hating,
beautiful and ugly bodies
crawling, walking–
in the cold May rain
we go to see my mom
no longer young
with body failing
and mind not as sharp
(not as it was, not as she was)
but heart beating
and blood flowing,
we make her laugh
she’s in the hospital
(first docile, now demanding)
it’s the anniversary of my dad’s death
hearts beating
and hearts not beating
once my father raged,
against the dying of the light
till he raged, no more,
body and soul both gone.
I don’t believe in ghosts
and spirits
(But I do.)
There are things in the air
we can’t see, can’t hear
the songs of stars and bees,
the humming of the moon.
Can two people share the same dream?
The woman asks in the movie—
because it happens to her and a man,
It happened to me, once long ago,
to my daughter and me
a dream forgotten now– except
“someone played a flute,”
we both say, when I mention it—
years later.
Things unexplainable,
things I hear in the air,
that I wish we had more of,
I remember singing to my babies
My mom’s cousin says,
“people remember
the songs they heard
when they were children.”
Perhaps there are things
in the air–
If we stop and listen,
the sound of stars and bees,
the humming of the moon.
Yesterday was Mother’s Day, here in the U.S. My mom has been in the hospital for the past several days. My father died on May 11, 1998. I remember going to the hospital on Mother’s Day, for what would be his last night.
My husband and I watched a Hungarian movie, On Bodies and Souls on Netflix. In it, a man and a woman share the same dream every night. (Warning: there are scenes at the beginning in a meat-packing plant, but keep watching past that.) It also features a beautiful Laura Marling song.
Odilon Redon, “The Apparition,” [Public Domain] Wikipedia Commons
Could, can, we celebrate–
see the magic of fire-red sky
and perfumed ocean breeze?
Would, will, stars dazzle
or haunt the night in if?
When is always?
And how did, does,
time go like a soft laugh
from an open window–
and all the words breathe who and this
and almost were
here
remembering secret voices,
wild ghosts, joy
It’s been a strange couple of days, and I was almost afraid to– but I consulted the Oracle. I shouldn’t doubt that she always knows.
Hmmm. . .redoing the link. Hope this works.
My flash fiction piece “The Birthing” was selected as one of the responses to
Caspar David Friedrich, “Drifting Clouds,”[Public Domain], Wikipedia Commons
and watched the clouds flying
like time
on feathered wings,
I flew along,
eager for what it’d bring,
asking why–
finding when
happens then
again, and time the thing
like clouds
that drifts up, away, sighing.
Taking a work break! This is a quadrille for De’s prompt on dVerse using the word “up,” and for my dVerse prompt on theories.
And some music, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”–from her Clouds album.
