Dawn of Love

Dawn’s pink petals bloom

morning’s daily ritual

banal, beautiful

through generations, endless,

 a constant like mother love

 

National Park, NJ—Merril D. Smith, 2017

Happy Mother’s Day!

Echoes Through Time

Time wasn’t, then was,

once, the universe banged,

whirred, whispered

echoing across space

melody carried by stars

(adding harmony)

and cosmic dust

(rhythm)

sound dancing through Saturn’s rings

echoes reverberating through oceans

sensed in two heartbeats joined

echoing

somewhere, someplace

time was and is

 

A quadrille for dVerse. Host De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo, asks us to use the word “echo.”

 

I was thinking about space and then listened to this, Audra McDonald singing “Somewhere” from West Side Story.  🙂

Queen of the Universe

 In the morning,

a song slips,

slides suddenly into my head

“Shall We Dance,”

a mini-movie in my mind,

Anna and the King twirl

I see her gown swirl

just that,

just for a second

the way dreams  do,

encompassing entire lives

in a flash, flame, and then disappear,

and I wonder

what just happened?

I go about my day,

but later,

in my car,

I turn on the radio,

hear a clear soprano voice sing “Shall We Dance,”

it’s an actress touring in The King and I,

coincidence, synchronicity, cosmic joke?

I wonder

just for a second

(time expands and contracts

paths diverge)

just for a second,

I wonder—

how do these things happen?

Perhaps I really am,

Queen of the Universe,

I could bring world peace,

people would sing and dance,

we’d all have

a clear understanding,

this kind of thing can happen,

can’t it?

(another path perhaps,

another road)

a truck passes me,

I keep on driving

 

Details of two dancers from the Tomb of the Triclinium in the Necropolis of Monterozzi
Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dance, Don’t Fight

The radio interview was on Here and Now .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ephemeral Beauty in the Book of My Memory

Monday Morning Musings:

In the book of my memory—the part of it before which not much is legible—there is the heading Incipit vita nova [here begins a new life].

–Dante Alihieri, Vita Nuova

“There are lovely things in the world, lovely that don’t endure, and the lovelier for that.”

–Chris Guthrie in Sunset Song

“People like films because stories are a structure, and when things turn bad it’s still part of a plan. There’s a point to it.”

–Tom Buckley in Their Finest

 

Dawn opens the book

write or draw upon the page

ephemeral life

transitory beauty, grasped,

chronicled by poet’s hand

 

Every morning, I wake and turn another page,

what will be written there that day?

Not a book, a story, a movie, a play,

our lives

we plan, we think there is a structure, a plot

reasons for our rhyme

we study the past

but put our trust in hope and beauty

 

My husband and I eat Chinese food

sitting in our living room we watch a movie,

about a woman who lived a hundred years ago in Scotland,

using technology that did not exist in that era,

and that will become outdated all too soon,

it’s a rural life of hardship and beauty,

of fighting and song,

an abusive father, a depressed mother, a brother who leaves,

she puts away her books,

but there is the land to sustain her

she falls in love and marries

but the land is still there,

glowing through the director’s vision,

though the work is hard,

her husband goes to war

(the war that was to end all wars)

it changes him

it changes the nation

and all the nations that lose so many of their young men

the poets write, the tyrants sing

dulce et decomum est pro patri mori

the old lie,

that vicious lie,

life is ephemeral,

but love,

that is true and lasting

 

In the morning, I wake and turn another page,

we see another movie

this one about the next big war

about keeping the spirits up and boosting morale,

the movie is funny and charming and sad,

I enjoy it very much,

my husband does, too,

though he says, “It’s a Merril movie.”

And I guess it is,

though I’m not sure what that means,

the movie is mainly about a woman

who gets a job writing “slops,”

the women’s dialog for war movies,

this one is about unlikely women heroes at Dunkirk

the war ministry wants it to have everything though—

even an American and a dog–

and we see the writing (the clicking of typewriters)

and the construction of the movie

location and studio

while the world around them shatters,

and we know that the world will get worse,

and women will take “men’s work,”

then be forced back into their boxes,

but there is romance and Bill Nighy

and really what else do you need in a movie?

 

After the movie,

the spring day turned fine,

we walk around the old city,

where traces of the past remain,

though much has vanished,

structures, people,

and before that

giant creatures who once walked the earth

 

American Philosophical Society

 

we drink coffee,

enjoy the view,

 

 

laugh at the booming voice of a tour guide

helpfully informing a group that

“Carpenter’s Hall was built for carpenters.”

(though the term carpenters is misleading)

 

Nearby stood the house of a bodice-maker

now house and man, long gone—along with the fashion

all fleeting moments in time

Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia

 

In a garden, we see tulips

but many of the early spring flowers are already gone,

the petals of the flowering trees float to the ground

joining piles of catkins

(leaving pollen to blow everywhere)

the fleeting life of a butterfly,

helping to create beauty in the world,

ephemeral beauty

the beauty of spring, fading into summer

lovely things that don’t endure

and are they lovelier for that,

and is that the point?

What will I remember,

what will be retained in the book of my memory?

These moments of beauty, I hope.

We go home

feed our cats and ourselves,

the mundane tasks of life

that have their own beauty and joy,

we sleep,

and in the morning

I wake and turn another page,

hoping for beauty, though it may not endure,

wondering if there’s a plan

wondering and hoping

holding love close

 

We watched the movie, Sunset Song, on Netflix. Here’s a review. I haven’t read the book, which I know is a classic in Scotland. We saw Their Finest in a theater. Here’s a trailer.

 

 

 

 

 

Time’s Glow: NaPoWriMo

 

We sojourn on between the moons

climbing full and white and bright and clear

but still the dark I feel is near

though here there is more luminous light

where comes the song of ancient sprites

wandering through shade, illuminating sight,

nearby, a diamond girl shimmers and glows,

ensorcelling face, radiant clothes,

her tongue sings music of forest and glen

urging spring and summer, again, again,

and time is endless here and always

with shadows splashed by sun-shining blazes

and roses bloom with sweet perfume

like golden apples of the sun, yet unconsumed

and gleaming, Earth seesaws now between beginning and done,

we’re dreaming, spindrift from slipstream, time’s run

 

Odilon Redon, Beatrice,” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Day 29, WaPoWriMo. The penultimate day.  The prompt was to take a word or phrase from a favorite poem, free associate, and then write a poem. I took some words and phrases from the Magnetic Poetry Oracle and went from there.

I’ve borrowed an image idea–using one that is similar to the one Jane Dougherty used in her dreamy vision–because I thought this golden Beatrice fit the poem. So thanks, Jane. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time Paradox: NaPoWriMo

 

The portal door opens, and I am here. Before. I look out at this beautiful sun-splashed world. What did they do to it, this planet they called Earth? There is magic here in this moment. I feel it in the sun-steamed breeze. I taste it in the flower-blossomed air. I close my eyes and make a wish. Hoping it works better this time, I spread my wings, pause for one more second to watch the iridescent feathers gleam in the sunlight. Then, I take flight to make first contact—again.

paradox of time,

space bending, moments flowing,

slip-rippling along

ends become beginning points

with magic, wishes, and hope

 

Today is Day 19 of NaPoWriMo. The prompt was to write a creation myth. I suppose this haibun is a sort of re-creation myth, based on some microfiction I wrote a while ago. It’s also possible that I had time paradoxes on my mind from watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager a few nights ago.

This haibun is also for Colleen Chesebro’s weekly poetry challenge. The prompt words for her birthday week are wish and magic, and I wish her heaps of birthday magic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joy Smiles: NaPoWriMo

 

 

Window to a secret universe,

perfume of coffee & caramel

brilliant colors, velvet words, day & night,

heart & desire remembered,

it is here time

it is eternity

breathing magic,

joy smiles

 

This is Day 15 of NaPoWriMo. We’re halfway through, so the prompt was to write about something in the middle. This is more of in-between than middle, but I love the ideas that the Magnetic Poetry Oracle gave me today, and I won’t have time to write another one today.

Rocks, Rivers, and Stars: NaPoWriMo

 

 

Delaware River, National Park, NJ 

I stand at the river and watch the small waves break against the rocks, feel the ancient tidal rhythm. Hear its’ call. You dwelled here once, it says. I pick up a stone from the beach, rolling it about in my hand. Its’ hard surface is worn smooth by the water that has kissed it softly, repeatedly over time. Created thousands of years ago by heat, water, and air, this stone has journeyed along the river, till I, born of heat, too, and composed of water and minerals, worn by time, softened by kisses, pick it up.

 

World born in fire,

stellar dust swirls, drifts, and falls,

carried in our genes

speckles of cosmic magic

in my eyes gazing at you

 

This is Day 14 of NaPoWriMo. I’m off prompt today. I’ve written a haibun for Colleen Chesebro’s Weekly Poetry Challenge instead. The prompt words were hard and soft.

 

 

 

 

The Between Time

Monday Morning Musings:

“A Light exists in spring

Not present on the year

At any other period

When March is scarcely here.”

—Emily Dickinson, “A Light exists in spring,”Full Text Here

 

In the between-time, dinosaurs dreamt,

their breathe swirled in the misty air

floating to mingle with ours

their feathers bright

with gaping jaws and thunder cries

amidst the fern-like leaves,

always summer

 

we dreamt their dreams

and they dreamt ours

warm blood flowing through our veins

(uniting heart and mind)

we sat on their backs as they flew

large wings outspread

feeling their power and grace

and they listened to our stories

of love

of kings and queens

raptors enraptured,

always summer in our dreams

 

But now

in this between-time of winter-spring

the flowers bloomed, they danced and sang

(we heard their songs)

then felt their pain

(tears fell from the sky)

as winter touched them with cold fingers

covering them in an icy blanket

yet the days grow lighter

brighter

and yet still whiter

 

 

In this between-time world,

this in-between season,

forces of good and evil fight

but most of us, dinosaurs and humans,

remain in-between,

compliant, complacent,

lost in dreams,

thinking of summer

 

This weekend, we ate Hamantaschen

(a lot of Hamantaschen),

 

Lemon, Prune, and Berry Hamantaschen

Shakshuka Hamantaschen

Cannoli Hamantaschen

we drank wine,

 

I read about Queen Esther,

who may or may not have existed,

(an in-between world)

she married King Ahasuerus

who ordered his first wife, Queen Vashti,

to stand naked before his male guests at a banquet,

displaying what he owned

(what he could touch with his small hands)

she refused,

and he banished her–

magnanimously did not executed her–

but made a new law—

men would have complete authority over their wives.

Esther, plucked from his harem,

became his new wife,

a new trophy.

This king ruled a vast empire,

but he was petty,

thin skinned

(orange tinted)

easily influenced,

as for Esther,

fourteen years old

did she have a choice?

She was Jewish,

a secret descendent of exiles,

in palace full of secrets and intrigue,

she and her uncle Mordecai foiled a plan to kill the king,

winning his trust,

but the eunuchs involved were killed,

collateral damage,

And Esther skillfully manipulated the king,

outwitted his prime minister Haman

(the evil man behind the throne

disseminator of alternative facts)

and prevented the mass slaughter of the Jews

(though they still had to fight)

She is honored now,

Haman is reviled,

but still I wonder,

she remained with the king,

bore him a son,

a woman caught between men,

and I wonder about her

what did she give up

what did she give in to

Credit Line: Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, “Esther before Ahasuerus, (1738-1740)
Purchased with funds contributed by the Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in honor of their 100th anniversary, 1982

 

I wonder about being complicit,

collaborating with the enemy,

we watched a TV show about Earth after aliens have taken over

letting humans do the work of enforcing their decrees

those who work for the aliens get good homes and other perks

resisters are sent to work camps or to “the factory,”

from which they never return,

a spin on WWII and Nazi-occupied countries,

or any country under a dictator,

complicity

collaboration

(What would you do to save your family?)

though the air feels warm

sometimes, it’s always winter

 

But I know spring is coming

sense it from the light,

different from other times of the year,

brighter, losing the gloom of winter,

a signal,

a beacon of hope

I drink more wine,

eat some sweets,

ignore false honeyed words

take a break

deep breaths

relax

because

we value love

and art

and beauty

and joy

we tell stories

of dinosaurs and ghosts

of ancient worlds

and kings and queens

and believe in people

we hope, but resist

and do not become complacent

even as the days grow longer

and we are lulled by spring’s sweet siren song

and dream our dreams,

ours and the dinosaurs,

in the in-between time

 

My conceit about dreams mingling with that of dinosaurs was inspired by Kerfe and Jane’s discussion on this post. 

The recipe for Shakshuka Hamantaschen can be found here on What Jew Wanna Eat.  I used part whole wheat flour for the pita. The recipe for the Cannoli Hamantaschen can be found here.

We’re expecting a big snowstorm tomorrow. Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Moon and the Sea: Magnetic Poetry

 

 

Moon needs music,

recalling in honey’d language

like smooth chocolate

the sea symphony she wants still,

watching with sweet crush

shining beauty from above,

over dreams–

there–

in purple shadow time

 

Guillermo Gómez Gil, “Moonrise,” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

A poem for the full moon. The Oracle was not in the mood for poetry yesterday, but she came through today.