I put my wishes in a box of sparkling air
send them off so you can share–
send them—there!–
to fly through star-filled skies,
scatter, fall, like meteor showers
land, bloom as luminescent flowers
of hope and joy,
on worlds restored, not destroyed.
I just put up a post about my new books, so now for something completely different–a quadrille for dVerse. De Jackson, aka Whimsy Gizmo, has asked us to use the word “box.” This is my anti-darkness quadrille. 🙂
I think of my dad today and how he admired Tony Hillerman’s novels, mysteries involving the Navajo Tribal Police. Once he wrote Mr. Hillerman a letter and received a gracious reply. It’s been twenty years now since my father died. He’d be ninety-nine today—perhaps he’d have new favorite books and authors. He was a man filled with passion—for food, women, art, history–and for his children and grandchildren. He thought we were the best and brightest, no question. Though he expected all to wait upon him–courtiers of the court of Lee–yet—he was generous with love, presents, and hundreds of restaurant meals. He was always proud of me and assigned my first book to his history classes. (Sorry). I wish my dad was still here to read my words. I love you, Dad. I miss you.
yellow-green stems grow
vivid blooms in summer’s heat—
then red-gold leaves fall
This is for open link night at dVerse, where Lillian is hosting. I’ve given a nod to National Book Lovers Day in my Haibun.
Enchanting dawn slips
silently past the night,
and with her rosy lips
scatters her light
as she kisses the world awake.
Then—I ache
remembering my dreams
of blue ponies by incandescent streams.
I’ve seen them as I danced among the stars,
but in the light of day,
their world seems much too far away–
and yet–
I know, if never truly seen, still the ponies are there. . .
prancing, shining with blueish sheen, somewhere.
Franz Marc, “Blue Horses,”(Public Domain) Wikipedia Commons
This is for dVerse, where Jilly asked us to write about “unseen.” Last week, Jane Dougherty reminded me about the blue horses. She knows they’re real, too.
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.
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.
Spring breeze bewitches,
twitches–
fills you with an itch
to stretch and grow,
to flow
with rivers
you quiver,
undulating in delight.
Fall breeze calls–
unhitch–
enthralling you,
you switch
your sights–
to fly with geese
in victory’s V,
fleeing
through gloaming’s violet light.
This is for dVerse, now celebrating its seventh anniversary. Happy Anniversary! Grace has asked us to write a quadrille (a poem of 44 words) using the word itch.
“We’ll know as children again all that we are
destined to know, that the water is cold
and deep, and the sun penetrates only so far”
~ Jim Harrison from Death Again
Torn from parents
hearts ripped apart–
how it starts–
the cycle of hate
spinning behind gates.
Business we’re told,
souls are sold
in heat or dank cold
children are taught
the rotational fear,
fraught frontiers–
till some break free
to lead us
from insanity.
This is a quadrille for dVerse, where Kim has asked us to use the word cycle, and a response to Day 18 of Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason, inspired by the poetry of Jim Harrison. Last night we saw Audra McDonald in concert. One of the songs she performed was a medley of “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” from South Pacific (Rodgers and Hammerstein) and “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods (Sondheim).
