Let me see dream light
whisper shadow music of red moons—
a language of aches, wind, water,
and time,
singing honey-tongued
of what was or never is
beneath a thousand whys
Embed from Getty Images
The Oracle is enigmatic today, as usual.
Silence—as the curtain falls
weighted with emotion just before applause.
Silence—just before the thunder booms,
as though the sky must first absorb the sound
before it’s released. . .breathe in, breathe out. . .
Silence—seconds before the sun awakens,
the cat stretches and yawns,
you turn over as twitters and chirps begin to fill the air,
where traces of dreams still linger—whispered sighs—
they float away, up into the rose-swept sky.
Another Silence poem for Dwight’s Sounds of Silence dVerse prompt, and it’s punctuation -filled for Björn’s dVerse prompt.
Silence comes on morning fog
shrouding life in grey and white
drifting in, an epilogue
to what has come before, at night,
the starry skies and canorous moon
hidden behind the shadowy clouds–
but listen–silence sings a tune
sometimes soft, sometimes loud,
in the susurration of wind and rain,
in the scurrying from dusk till dawn,
in hearts that beat again and again
there’s never silence till we’re gone.
Caspar David Friedrich, “Sea Beach in the Fog, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Dwight, guesting hosting the dVerse poet’s bar, has asked us to write about silence.
I dream of huge white blossoms flaming and shooting off petals into the sky, turning it dark with flowery ash. Wondrous and a bit terrifying, this puzzle of my mind.
Moon silvers the trees,
green leaves pale in midnight glow—
dreams waiting to bloom
Anonymous, Südländische Ideallandschaft bei Mondschein, [Public Domain] via Wikipedia Commons
A Haibun quadrille for dVerse. Mish has asked us to use the word “puzzle,” or some form of it, in a quadrille, a poem of 44 words.
“The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely. Meaning ensues from meaningful activity: the more we deliberately pursue it, the less likely are we to find it.”
–Irving D. Yalom quoted in Brainpickings here
My sister and I listen to the woman,
she is perfectly pleasant, if a bit harried–
it’s possible she’s double-booked her appointments.
We can only offer your mother six hours of care, she says
(that we may or may not pay for)
but we can’t let you know until you pick one of the providers.
(We stare blankly at the five-page list.)
No, I can’t recommend any of them–
can you imagine if it didn’t work out?
But you can call and ask them questions.
(That shouldn’t take much time, right?)
No, the caregivers are not permitted to give your mom medication
I guess you’ll have to work something else out.
Yes, we do offer some free meals, but only if you go with our program–
and your mother would have to pick up a week’s worth at the front desk
Well, yes, I can see she uses a walker and is nearly blind, but that’s how it’s done.
I hear these meals taste kind of nasty–
Now the dinners from that other program . . .
(the one your mother is ineligible for because her income from Social Security is slightly over the cutoff, though it’s not enough to pay her rent)
Yeah, those meals are delicious. . .Do you have any questions?
My sister and I look at each other—we have lots of questions,
but nothing she can help with.
She’s referred inexplicably a few times
to the process, program, situation
as “catch 52”—
perhaps it is all so ridiculous that “catch 22”
is no longer enough to describe it.
My sister goes home, my husband and I go home, too,
we feed the cats, and then visit a winery.
We drink wine, listen to music, and eat mac and cheese.
Decompress, not deconstruct.
Vino and Vibes,
William Heritage Winery
The next day I cook and bake,
the kitchen exorcism
being a well-known technique for
getting rid of any lingering demons.
Artisan Bread
Mandelbrot
Blueberry Peach Crumble
Our younger daughter is visiting a friend in Japan.
she sends us a photo
the two of them with a snake.
I think if anyone could charm a snake,
it would be her–
though she looks terrified.
I think of my younger self–
once I held a snake
and had a head full of dreams,
not as practical as either of my daughters,
and not as charming either,
but in those days
my mother could see and walk
and was raising another child.
I raise a glass to wish,
only suddenly I’m
uncertain what to wish for.
We watch a mystery series
there’s murder, conspiracy, and violence
yet we know that at the end
the questions will be answered,
the mystery solved.
And if it’s not completely tidy,
it’s enough to satisfy.
Maybe the answer is 42, after all
though I’m not sure
of the question anymore.
I pour another glass of wine,
toast, “L’chaim.”
Perhaps “to life” is enough.
***
We watch the storm—
rain urges moon,
and she sings,
bares away language
to let live the cool whispers
of blue shadow light
on aching skin.
Life is wanted here—
trudge, run.
(If not, when?)
Together, we soar.
The Oracle gave me this coda of hope and action. I’m sure she knows that the expression is “bear away,” but she is clever, and no doubt she enjoyed the double meaning here.
After blood moon’s
shadow rose, misted
and rust-still
with music,
a symphony urging you,
Love, to soar away.
But time screams
a luscious pink sky,
here in day–
asks, sweet-tongued–
must and if–and so, I moan—
we trudge together
Embed from Getty Images
The Oracle must have been sky gazing last night and gave me this double Shadorma.
It was cloudy and rainy here last night.
I seek the words
to have them drop,
tumble, and
from a jumble
on the page,
rearrange, engage
the reader
with their wit,
flit and sway
to lay
and fall in time
(perfect metered rhyme?).
But. . .I don’t know,
the words come,
and then they go,
in a trickle or a flow,
like geese taking off in flight
no hesitation, wings spread, sail
toward the light,
one and then the next
absent of any pretext
(subtext?).
I seek the words–
and sometimes they come—not flying, but
slithering and sliding from a dream,
onto a scrap of paper or my computer screen.
This is for the dVerse Open Link night–or in my case, open link morning after. I woke with a poem in my head, but I couldn’t quite recapture it. I did manage to get in a line with geese. 🙂
Cooper River Park, NJ
Not a ghost, but the emanation of some past emotion. That’s what I feel in that house in Havertown—the one my mother rented after my parents divorced. Have you noticed that some houses have their own emotional atmosphere? Well, that’s my theory, and if you’ve never felt a house reeking of love, terror, or despair, then it must sound weird to you. But this whole house makes me feel welcomed; my bedroom in particular—it’s as if someone has felt joy there in the past, and the feeling now lingers. . .forever. This room, painted a golden yellow, seems to glow all the time. Every molecule in its walls, floors—even the air—releases joy and serenity—at least for me. Here I also experience first love. I wonder if my feelings will join the room’s aura, biding there for future inhabitants.
thrush sings amid buds,
trees flower, and then leaves fall—
echoes hang in air
Dock Street Creek once flowed here.
This Haibun is for dVerse, where Lillian has asked us to write a traditional Haibun—that is, a tight paragraph or two, which is a true account, not fiction, followed by a traditional haiku. The haiku should be nature-based but allude to the prose. It should have a seasonal word, and “a haiku must have two parts including a shift, an added insight. Japanese poets include a KIREJI (cutting word). BUT there’s no linguistic equivalent in the English language therefore punctuation creates the cut: a dash, comma, an ellipsis, an exclamation point. Sometimes it’s simply felt in the pacing or reading.”
Lillian has asked us to write about one of the first houses we lived in. This was not the first, but it was the first one we lived in after we moved from Dallas to Havertown, PA, when I was in 7th Grade.
This is also for Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka, using synonyms for the words beliefs and strange. I’ve used theory and weird in my prose. Colleen notes that a Haibun should be written as though it is happening now.
“I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!”–Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The House of Clouds”
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.”
–Joni Mitchell, “Both Sides Now”
Striking in their billowing shapes, watch them drift, the clouds.
Somehow relaxing, to see them shift, the clouds.
***
On a beautiful afternoon in July,
we walk, a blue bed is the sky
for puffy clouds to lay upon
transient, seen, and then they’re gone—
like the inhabitants who once held sway
on these cobblestone streets, walked each day–
in daily life and times of strife they lived in these houses
with children, relatives, with their spouses,
Elfreth Alley, Philadelphia
do their spirits yet walk here under moonlit clouds
shy, hesitant, or fierce and proud?
I must ask my friends who once lived herein
if they ever encountered such ghostly denizens.
We watch a movie about a baker of cookies and cakes
who travels under a cloud, with a life that’s fake
but ghosts and memories bring new love–
sort of—
(The pasty looks delicious, but the story hard to convey
without giving too much away.)
We eat pizza and drink wine while the weather is fine—
against more green, blue, and white, we sip and dine
taking advantage of this unusual meteorological blip
before the storm clouds roll in and the forecast flips—
Auburn Road Winery,
Salem County, NJ
which it does, the skies turn grey
the white clouds drift away
and I build cloud houses from my thoughts
turn them away from should and oughts
Raining on the Ben Franklin Bridge
but I dream of houses with stairs to nowhere
or perhaps from here to there,
if only I can find the right paths (or footwear)—
a dream with goals and friends and cats,
and if there’s unfinished business—
well, I can live with that.
His work is done. Sweet Dreams.
I’m sorry about the spacing here. I can’t quite figure out how to fix it.
People still live in the homes of Elfreth’s Alley. You can read about it here.
We saw the Israeli movie The Cakemaker. Trailer here.
We went to Auburn Road Vineyards.
We marked the spot where first we saw her walk
there the woods, and then to the meadow dark.
She seemed to drift or soar, in white, like chalk
of the cliffs, where ships below lay there stark,
old bones without life, bereft without spark.
The ghost though, from what hauntings had she fled,
did she seek love, did she know she was dead?
This is a septet for dVerse. In honor of dVerse’s seventh anniversary, Frank has asked us to write a poem of seven lines on any subject. I’m not sure that it’s quite rhyme royal, but it’s seven lines, and it rhymes. I’ve used Secret Keeper’s weekly writing challenge words: ghost/mark/woods/soar/meadow.
