A child’s tear,
a parent’s fear
accidents, catastrophe
not vampires and ghosts
the shadows in the night,
monsters here,
(not out of sight)
urging hate, urging war—
I fear the real,
the evil here
but look for love,
and beauty in the sun above
This is a quadrille for Dverse. The prompt word is fear.
From whistling space
dust swirls and burns
glowing
singing
lighting the universe
reaching shores,
then, like tides
sweeping back to the sea
tumbling again and again
in a wave
a new formation
a new song
a new life born
an old life lived
connected
eternal
We go to the movies
a ghost in a white sheet
views his life
rooted to a place, a home,
a place always there and not
time moves differently for him
and for us, in watching him watching
beautiful, sad, but perhaps hopeful, too
(open to interpretation)
there is much for us to discuss
over coffee, of course,
and as we walk through a city
filled with old and new
A Path to the Past in Summer Bloom
observing how the seasons alters its look
summer flowers making everything bright and beautiful
the city changes over time
here was once a creek
that grew filthy with waste
a sewer
covered now by grass and trees
bucolic space in urban expanse
expansive thoughts arose here, too
made a nation
Maybe someone should write a musical about him.
bodies buried now
yet ghosts still walk among us
paths that bend in time
we hear their voices whistling in the wind
in the space around us
feel their ideas
(legacies)
ebb and flow
the things they left behind
We take my mom on an outing
away from city ghosts
though they linger in memory,
she talks of her parents
her mother sewed piecework for a time
during the Great Depression
her father was upset that his wife went to work
But she worked in their store, didn’t she?
Yes, but that was different, she says and laughs
her brother, my baby brother, I miss him, she says
he was an active child
always falling out of things—the carriage, his crib–
he fell out of my mom’s bed once
she was supposed to be watching him
he bumped his head on the radiator,
she never told her mom
but, I guess it didn’t hurt him
he lived a good life,
though it ended before my mom’s
and now we share the memory of him,
a ghost living in our hearts
We sit drinking wine, overlooking the vineyard
it’s a beautiful day
we watch families
children playing with a beach ball on the grass
hawks flying overhead
we sit discussing the past and the future
our conversation ebbs and flows
thoughts linger, pause—
and float up into space
We eat Pakistani food at my daughter and son-in-law’s house
their dog chases creatures, real and imaginary
birds whistle and sing,
echoing us,
or do we echo them?
We sit with greenery all around us
then eat cupcakes that look like flowers
My daughter’s beautiful and delicious creation.
(summertime)
I wonder about the people who used to live in this house
and what was it before them–
Field? Farm?
And before that?
Did native Americans walk here
in migrations that followed the seasons
circling round, year after year
ghosts walking among us
watching us
rooted to this spot
waiting for something or someone
waiting for a sign,
a message,
a whistle perhaps
a thought that has floated up
swept up in time
and brought back down again
lighting the universe
We saw the movie A Ghost Story. Trailer here. I think it’s a movie that people will either love or hate. It’s a definite Merril movie, but my husband loved it, too.
We drank coffee at Customs Coffee House at 2nd and Chestnut, Philadelphia,
went to Sharrott Winery
And ate Pakistani food from Mera Khana Restaurant I could eat those vegetable samosas every day!
resolute in grief
silence roaring in the heat
July marches past
without confusion time flows
history repeats itself
The Silent Parade of 1917 is the subject of today’s Google Image.
This if for Colleen Chesebro’s Weekly Poetry Challenge. The prompt words are heat and confuse.
I dream of the moon
and gossamer dancers
leaping high,
circling and swaying to the music of the stars,
sounds surrounding us in space,
(space whistlers)
music of electromagnetic waves
harmonizing like weird birds
(glowing birds)
each a phoenix
rising from ash
layered with a flood of thought,
human words,
floating upwards
growing, collecting more matter,
a massive accretion disk of drifting memories
surrounding a black hole.
Perhaps,
or not,
but haven’t you wondered where they go
when they vanish?
ideas,
joys, fears–
how easy it is to glide, slide, hover, hang
like the moon
a sliver of thought grows full
in time
humming and full of energy
released into space
I’m fascinated by space sounds. You can read about and hear the electromagnetic waves here.
I was also influenced by the moon and accretion after reading Robert Okaji’s marvelous “Letter from Austin.”
I used Secret Keeper’s Words here, but substituted “massive” for huge.
The prompt words were : Easy/Flood/Thought/Fear/Huge
“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
“Then, window, let day in, and let life out.”
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 5
“Unfix’d yet fix’d,
Ever shall be, ever have been and are,
Sweeping the present to the infinite future,
Eidolons, eidolons, eidolons.”–Walt Whitman, “Eidolons” from Leaves of Grass
“There’s this phenomenon called the overview effect. It’s this cognitive shift that many astronauts go through when they see Earth for the first time from space. They describe it as feeling this overwhelming sense of humanity. In space you see that we’re all in this together. Astronauts leave the Earth as technicians, but they come back as humanitarians.”
—Amanda Nguyen, Rape Survivor, Founder of Rise, Astronaut in Training
Open that vast window
time lives in our embrace
kissing ghost and angel breath
from ocean, sky, and naked dirt
giving poetry to life
for eternity
Open that vast window
we experience the world
through our senses
trying to find rhyme and reason
the ghosts flit and echo
souls and poetry intermingle
past and future merge
Here we sit in a vineyard,
drinking wine named for a poet’s verse,
watching performers speak the words of a writer long gone
his words echo through the centuries
opening windows to worlds we wouldn’t know
as Juliet opened hers to Romeo
time floats
unfix’d yet fix’d
Here in this space
the sky is an open window,
vast with promise and possibility
we hear night birds trilling and calling,
a bird
(or is it a bat?
I learn eidolon is also a genus of bats)
swoops to catch an insect
while below,
players thrust and parry with swords and wit
life and death around us
windows opening and closing
unfix’d, fix’d
eidolons
Later, I remember one of our daughters
spoke Juliet’s words,
it was an audition
for a college theater grant,
leaving home
(the overview effect occurs only then)
a window appears
she opened it,
and in a theater,
(eidolon-filled)
finds her sun,
and he burns brightly
for her,
eclipsing everything else
We see another play,
before it begins
we listen to the people near us talk,
they’re all involved in theater,
the woman sitting to my left, we learn,
is in a play in another theater that night
she plays the grandmother—again!
they all laugh
the light dims
our play begins,
one actor on the stage here in Philadelphia,
the other in London
they communicate through SKYPE–
live theater
the wonders of high-speed connections–
we see his house in London
on screens
like windows
but he looks through windows, too
seeing the present, imagining the future
The play is set in the near future
the butterflies have died,
but new ones have been created
along with other animals and plants
like chaos theory
or dominos
each extinction creates another
each creation has unknown effects
people rebel and resist
ecological warfare, starvation,
the world owned by a corporation
a better world
through gene manipulation,
what could possible go wrong?
After the show,
we walk across the street
from a story of the future
to a building of the past
on this hot, summer day
we wander
see flowers still growing
(sigh of relief)
the sixth extinction may have started
but it’s not visible here yet,
not to untrained eyes,
birds flit and sing
we stop for ice cream
see a wedding, and another, and another
(couples beginning new lives
closing doors, opening new windows)
I find openings everywhere
windows from the past
looking at the present,
I wonder if ghosts wander here
do they experience an overview effect?
seeing Earth, their lives now from a new perspective?
unfix’d, fix’d
eidolons
We head home
the sky darkening
the sun not visible through the clouds,
and the thunder rumbling–
but in the morning
it rises in the east
shining through my window
(the present)
poetry of the here and now
sweeping to the future
There was a dVerse prompt on windows last week that I missed, but I suppose I’ve been thinking about windows. The Oracle gave me the first stanza. She really is all-knowing.
We visited Auburn Roads Vineyards. We saw Tiny Dynamite’s production of Perfect Blue at the Christ Church Neighborhood House.
And after coffee
in a perfume cloud haunting
words explore the joy
like a magic voice, almost
sacred, never away long
The Oracle gave me a Sunday morning tanka. I think it describes my creative process perfectly.
I am dreaming. I stand on a beach in a wild and beautiful land. There is a woman there with burnished skin, like cherry wood, polished and glowing. She’s clothed in a gown of flowers–red, yellow, and white buds that seem to open and bloom before my eyes. As she walks, the air around her parts in song. I hear it, carried on a breeze scented by the sea and tropical blossoms. The sun shines above me, but casts no shadows. I think time has stopped, or perhaps it has no meaning in this place. The woman approaches a doorway at the edge of sand and jungle. Smiling, she turns and gestures for me to follow. I calmly take a step—then wake–but I remember.
infinite doorway
from dream-time the muse beckons
in vision of light
indigo night turns rosy
dawn trailing whispered secrets
D. Howard Hitchcock, “Waikiki Beach in Sunlight,” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I wrote a poem in my dreams about a week ago. When I woke, I couldn’t remember it. All I remembered was one of my daughters writing about the poem, “OMG, OMG—that poem!” (My subconscious gives me pep talks.) And I had an image of a woman, Caribbean perhaps, dressed in a brightly flowered dress.
I am still crazy-busy writing a final entry for another one that didn’t come through from a contributor. I apologize for being so behind in reading so many wonderful posts and missing challenges and prompts. I’m trying to catch up as I can.
I am unsettled, unmoored
between light and shadow
but the shadows grow
the winds blow
I ponder as the pressure drops
watch the sky’s darkling mood
watch it brood
upon the future,
and darken more
(blacker than before)
it weeps,
perhaps remembering light
the song of birds
the hum of bees
thundering its sorrow,
growling like an angry drunk,
sunk in sorrow and pain
throwing punches in the rain
lightning flashes
charged particles, clashes
of hot air
in sound and fury
power displayed
but going nowhere
Far away,
on another world
a storm of swirling crimson, unfurls
sending out a song
in crashing waves
volatile and unpredictable
dazzling
ancient
larger than our earth
a spot forever turning
churning
over a world of gas
without firm ground
with nothing to stand upon
unsettled
NASA: This enhanced-color image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was created by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
But here I stand
feet firmly planted
(head in the clouds)
as I look up at the sky
catching a melody in the wind
storms may rage
night may fall
on firm ground,
I wait for the light
The sun rises, my spirits do, too,
I hear the mockingbird sing in a sky of blue.
We go out to hear about wine
to learn from a man passionate about the science
and his craft
educated in universities in California and France
but there is art, skill, perhaps a bit of magic involved,
a master craftsman, a master craft
In the barrel room with Larry Sharrott of Sharrott Winery.
We taste wine from barrels
(settling)
sitting there for ten months or a bit more
not ready yet to go to tanks,
raised above the floor
kept cool by solar power
(to keep the wine from going bad and sour)
I think of the skill and craft of making barrels,
here, some are made from American oak
some from French or Hungarian oak
I learn the wine in American oak tastes different from that in the European
I like the symmetry of fruit of the vine kept in barrels from trees
my mind goes to the economy of colonial America
built with the help of barrels
though not of wine
barrel makers—coopers—found in every town
large barrels, hogsheads, terms of measurement
but we talk of wine here,
admire its color
swirl it to let in air,
smell it and taste it,
the barrel wine drier, more astringent,
the bottled wine, rounder and fuller,
I’m fascinated–
the knowledge, the skill, the passion
wonder how people first picked grapes
and learned to make wine
centuries ago
refining the process over time
though the science remains the same.
We drink Chambourcin
a glass at the winery, overlooking acres of grapes,
and birds in flight,
then more at our daughter’s house
we missed the Bastille Day celebration this year
but we have French-named wine
French cheese, a baguette
and chocolate cake
(yes, let us eat cake).
It is a beautiful evening
their dog plays
their cat watches
the shadows grow
but the summer light lingers
as do we
the storms but a memory in the blue sky
and I’m feeling moored, settled
my family and love,
the port in stormy and fair weather,
I hear the songs of the universe surround me.
We visited Sharrott Winery in Hammonton, NJ.
Casting off her sleek brown pelt (but holding it close), she rises from the surf. No goddess, though men will be drawn to her, despite–or perhaps because of–her otherworldliness. Through the waves, she walks, clumsily at first, as she adjusts to two legs and to being upright. The world looks different to her now. It feels different, too. The air is cool against her skin; the breeze dances across the new womanly curves of her body. She steps onto the beach, eager to embrace this life, if only temporarily, leaving footprints in the sand. The sea covers and takes them, keeping a trace of her to hold in its depths till she returns to it. And she will.
I’m late, but this is for Frank’s Footprints in the Sand challenge.
Another selkie story–because, well, selkies.
glimmer-green dancers
flow in Sarabande rhythm
beneath the footbridge
music travels through space, time
captured by the artist’s brush
Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny, 1899
The Mr. and Mrs. Carroll S. Tyson, Jr., Collection, 1963
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Claude Debussy, Sarabande pour le Piano, L95
This is a tanka for Colleen Chesebro’s Weekly Poetry Challenge.
The prompt words were music and art.
