Message in a Bottle

I read the news—an Alaska man finds a bottle with a fifty-year-old message inside. The Russian sailor’s note conveys friendly greetings. They drift through Cold War seas, through glasnost and perestroika to shores not yet submerged by the rising seawater of melted glaciers. The man shows the message to his sons.

Past meets the future

carried on time’s tumbling waves

ebbing and flowing

lives tide-lifted and lowered

as moon-silvered sea rolls on

 

This is a Haibun tanka (because sometimes you have to break the rules) for Colleen’s tanka Tuesday photo challenge, using the photo above.

Here is the story that was in the news.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time and Secrets

Monday Morning Musings:

“We trust that time is linear. That it proceeds eternally, uniformly. Into infinity. But the distinction between past, present and future is nothing but an illusion. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, they are connected in a never-ending circle. Everything is connected.”–Dark. Season 1

“Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.”

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

 

In dawn light

the moon whispers a secret.

It hums in the air—

shimmering–

then floats through the branches,

lifted in a bird song,

dropped with an acorn,

to rise into a tree.

***

I watch the clouds ripple,

waves in a sky-sea set aglow

by morning light,

 

I wonder to what shore they’ll flow,

and if they carry sleepers’ dreams

to come again at night.

 

In a garden,

the bees dance secrets

over flowers bright

Garden at Mormon Temple, Philadelphia

with expectation

of their visits

they invite

 

them and us

to sit and watch—

until mosquitoes bite—

 

and we go in

leaving a wedding party

to pose in the sunlight.

 

My mother tells us stories,

and time twists.

not finite

 

at all.

Not secrets,

perhaps hindsight,

 

we all reflect, no?

on our pasts,

and highlight

 

like stars

guiding us

spotlights at night,

 

but in gardens

magic happens.

delight

 

comes from simple pleasures,

wine and stories

statues in cloud-light,

or chickens pecking

squawking in a sherbet sky

magic, delight, sunsetting light.

 

William Heritage Winery, New Jersey

Then I cook to heal

to taste

to bite

 

a bit of happiness

(and heat)

insight

to share the love

to procrastinate

to fight

the doldrums

the fear,

and I write

and walk

on city streets

where time might

 

circle round

cobblestones and skyscrapers

and old sites–

Inside Curtis Building, Philadelphia

but in the movie

in an ancient land,

personal and political fight

 

old battles

fought again and again

love, lust, secrets ignite

 

a broader struggle

men with guns,

land, and right

 

or wrong,

they fight,

while in moonlight

 

we go our own way

and time flows

and twists, despite

 

our intentions

with secrets unknown

that drift into the light.

We are watching the excellent German Netflix show, Dark. Trailer here.  There are a bunch of new movies out. Of course I chose one that most will not have heard of, The Reports on Sarah and Saleem. Trailer here. We both liked it. There is a lot of complexity that is skillfully handled—personal relationships and the political situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Light Behind the Clouds

The storm rolling in

 

Charcoal clouds

sweep across the sky–

windswept shrouds

covering

summer’s blue, a magic trick

of sun, moon, and stars

 

glimmering

with secrets of time.

Watch streaking

meteor

carrying ancient glitter

scattered on the earth.

 

I’m supposed to be working on my book, but somehow my poetry brain took over, and a poem appeared instead of a chapter. Ooops! This is a shadorma sequence for  Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday–synonyms of light and dark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Promises and Dreams

 

In the dew-dappled dawn, promises fly,

rising up in murmurations, flowing

into space, tracing patterns in the sky

turning into misty clouds, then throwing

shadows back onto dreams. But then knowing

that the moon rises as the sun sets still

and the earth yet revolves–and will–and will

beyond our mortal lives. So, starlight gleams,

we watch it speckle bright the night—until

it seems, our dreams grow luminous streams.

 

I haven’t been around much lately at dVerse, and I’m sorry for being so behind in reading. I have a lot going on right now. This is my first attempt at a dizain, this month’s poetry form at dVerse.

 

 

 

 

 

Two Poems Up in Black Bough Poetry

The morning moon hummed fiercely today in the heat. I will be staying inside and taking work breaks to read Issue 2 of Black Bough Poetry, “Lux Aeterna” –Eternal Light. It is filled with tributes to Apollo 11–breathtaking poems and wonderful artwork. Please do take a look.

I am thrilled to have two poems in this issue, “Moon Landing” and “Dark Matter.” Thank you to editor Matthew M C Smith (no relation, though my husband has some Welsh ancestry. . .) for selecting my poems and for editorial suggestions on “Dark Matter.”

These are the grown puppies mentioned in “Moon Landing”–a bit blurred, like a memory.

 

 

Birth of the Muse

“The irregular galaxy NGC 4485 shows all the signs of having been involved in a hit-and-run accident with a bypassing galaxy. Rather than destroying the galaxy, the chance encounter is spawning a new generation of stars, and presumably planets.” Credit: NASA, ESA; acknowledgment: T. Roberts (Durham University, UK), D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts) and the LEGUS Team, R. Tully (University of Hawaii) and R. Chandar (University of Toledo)

 

The universe fires a brilliant cloud

of lingering secrets star-born in blushed night,

 

she wakes there, sailing cool, dark velvet seas

of poetry and picture

 

embracing you in perfumed air—

 

and you let her

fly you on ghost-kissed breezes of never and always

 

dazzling with if,

her almost-remembered eternity

 

 

I was going to call this Birth of the Oracle, but I didn’t want to presume or offend her. Some people will be happy that I included the “if,”– I almost left out it out today.  🙂

 

 

 

 

The Color of Dreams

Monday Morning Musings:

“All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.”

–Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream”

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.”

–T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” (No. 1, of “Four Quartets”)

 

 

What is the color of eternity?

All the fires of star bursts

and rainbows

in shades of never-seen, a sheen

scented with petriochor

caramel, and wisps of ozone—more–

perhaps a dream.

Summer Color at Whitall House, National Park, NJ

I am bemused, delighted

by the brilliant colors of the sky sighted

between storms,

the verdant green of almost-summer

and trees that call,

“Look at me now!”

and I’m enthralled,

with leafy boughs

that wave and wow,

Dock Creek, Old City, Philadelphia

but time is flowing in syncopated rhythms

with unexpected accents,

changing in split seconds

ascent, descend–dissent–

confused

from waltz to unsquare dance,

and I’m bemused,

how do grey storm clouds change to blue sky,

how does asleep move to wide awake,

so quickly

and we cannot stay still–

Ominous sky over Ben Franklin Bridge

over the hill

we go–

my mother goes from weak and incoherent

to mobile and lucid overnight

and back again, delight and fright,

I scarcely think of my dead father

on Father’s Day

 

when I see baby fawns,

twins napping in the sun,

their mother gone

somewhere,

Seeing them is nature’s gift to me.

I accept it gratefully.

 

I dream my mother’s apartment

has been turned into a hospital

I wake up annoyed

(Okay, Dr. Freud)

that I was not informed

of how it was transformed.

My mother tells me she has

another apartment upstairs—

it’s much nicer she says.

Perhaps it is, I think. I can’t compare.

I wonder about time,

and is it ever lost or gone?

The past exists in our memories—

like a rhyme

heard long ago–

the child me, my alive father,

my young mother

I think all still exist somewhere

like love

never gone,

but stretching back

like an endless series of mirror reflections

colors into black.

 

I watch the baby geese grow,

a new generation shows

walking by the river–

no music like its symphony

whispering of birth and earth,

singing of life, joy and strife,

keening at death in the currents

that flow to the sea

to be

again and again.

The baby geese are almost grown.

Always one photo-bomber

I watch past and future

flow and merge

like that river to the sea

dreaming of time,

dreams within dreams.  . .and then

still the sun sets and rises again.

We haven’t gone to any movies, shows, or events recently—life and work have been a bit crazy–but we did watch Everybody Knows on Netflix (good but not as good as his previous films), and we’ve been enjoying Good Omens on Amazon Prime.  It’s a lot of fun. And here’s Dave Brubeck’s Unsquare Dance. I have no idea why I thought of this today, but you’re welcome. We’ve had some beautiful days, but also a tornado warning on Thursday night, with tornados that touched down in nearby towns, and now stormy weather forecast for the next several days. I hope that’s not a life-metaphor.

 

 

 

 

The Secret Poetry of the Stars

Angel breath flowers the morning

and soft blush-clouds sail

in dancing rhythm

waking all the ifs–

 

let ghosts fly

in and out of time,

haunting universes of then—

and almost-when

 

I will laugh the secret poetry of stars,

their brilliant blue voices

celebrating eternity

with lingering dazzle-light

 

From my morning consultation with the Oracle.

In the Garden of If and When-After

Odilon Redon, Beatrice

 

Her garden lives in ifs,

it is sweet pink whispers

beating away the black.

 

Music mists a symphony of the sea,

licking rocks

to soar and spray in the wind,

 

dream shadows play

beneath a honeyed moon,

and the sky smells of summer rain.

 

So, she watches there–

not asking why–

in timeless beauty of when-after,

 

and she sings through rose petal-light,

of blood, life, love, and life.

 

I needed this bit of surrealism. The Oracle always knows. I think this could be where she lives.

No Mere Shining Rock

No mere shining rock to beat so–

she sings

of life, lust,

the language of spring-mad

and if

 

waxing there

through blue rain- shadowed mist—

 

When I cry why?

Moon says, “I am music.

Sleep sweetly

as I play

light-spray of storm and sky.”

 

Poem from my Saturday morning visit to the Oracle.