Linda is hosting the Live Open Link Night for dVerse today. I’m sharing this poem that I wrote in December. It’s a poem inspired by the Magnetic Poetry Oracle. I don’t think too many people here have read it because it was posted on December 26. I missed Sarah’s Poetics prompt this week to write a poem of blue, but it appears that I’ve written many poems about blue!
“The dead don’t go anywhere. They’re all here. Each man is a cemetery. An actual cemetery, in which lie all our grandmothers and grandfathers, the father and mother, the wife, the child. Everyone is here all the time.” -Isaac Bashevis Singer (quoted in Shtisel), Season3)
In ancient times, we named the sky— saw Apollo in his flaming chariot fly as his sister Diana of the woods and moon bounded with deer and hound, and soon the stars were storied, and tunes gloried creation, emotion, and the cessation of wind and tides, the slide
April Sunrise
Moonrise over a South Jersey field, November.
of seasons from one to next, as the gods are first jolly, then are vexed. But Persephone comes and goes– snow falls, then flower flows, and we cry and sigh as people die– but the seeds remain, though not the same, each generation evolves, and solves
new problems, and old ones we revive. But if we could fly in hyperdrive to other worlds, or visit holodecks to greet and meet dear loved ones in an annex to another world, an alternate timeline, future, past, present combined—we’d drink wine with family and heroes, toast the divine
Wine Down Summer Wine Festival, Riverwinds, NJ
My mom and I–wine glasses in hand!
in fantasy. And yet—we recall, in memories of sight, scent, sound—however small– within us all the time, sharing space with those who came before—the interface of body and mind. Stardust to genes, renamed things in seasons reborn on hopeful wings Cycles, seasons, the stories again–real or imaginings?
Merril’s Movie/TV Club: We finished Season 3 (most likely the final season) of Shtisel (Netflix). I highly recommend it. My husband and I both got so caught up in this show. We had Chinese food over the weekend, and so watch two Chinese movies. Us and Them (Netflix)—a romance of a young man and woman meeting on a train and trying to become successful in Beijing. I liked it, but I’m not sure if I loved it. I think I would have enjoyed it more in the theater. We had some phone calls and other distractions. Better Days (Amazon Prime rental)—is Hong Kong’s entry for the Academy Awards. It’s about school bullying, and also the high stakes competition/pressure of getting into a good college in China. My husband and I both enjoyed this one more—despite the subject matter of school bullying. There is also a romance. The actress Dongyu Zhou is the female lead in both movies. Watch the end credits for both movies.
Warp and weft, life weaves through tides, sun-sparkled, moon-bedewed, blue-waved and bleached white, patterns form again and go
in dream worlds, she sees. Star-gathered, the crows come, dark to light, now, never, always—this is what might be. Time is
an ocean layered with rippling currents, not constant, but ever-changing. Dark to light, warp and weft. Again.
A Shadorma chain for Paul Brookes’ Ekphrastic Challenge. You can see all the art and poems here. I don’t have time today to write a poem based on the photos in the site mentioned into today’s NaPoWriMo prompt, but–as in this poem–I often write about liminal spaces.
The moon sighs and sings, a luscious silver spray in blue, the fiddler plays along, repeating feather trills, the universe’s secret smiles–
now watch the ghosts dance, bird-winged, eternal– or almost–
and ask what they see, and if they dream, or revel in argent glow,
their hearts recalling when and never, before shadows and the afterlight of a thousand stars in song.
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt asks us to create a “Personal Universal Deck,” a card deck of words. I like the idea of creating my own word deck, but today I’m basing my poem on words from the Magnetic Poetry Oracle. We have a standing Saturday date to collaborate, and I wouldn’t want to upset her. 😏
Time has no edge, no borders fence its undiscovered frontiers, the shadowy seas of before merge into the ocean of after. The currents carry us, voyagers on a ship of life, knowledge, and memory as we sail in-between, barely noticing,
the spindrift carried by the wind, drifting,
barely remembering how a month was forever at five years old, then understanding that an entire lifetime can be lived in a minute’s dream, and realizing that a glance, a smile, a laugh, a kiss can last forever—and beyond, timeless.
For dVerse, where Lisa has asked us to write a poem about edges or fringes. Work in progress. 😀
How does the Earth begin its spin each day? With constancy it turns to seek the light of sun, then sister stars dance in their way sparkling the darkling, glimmering the night. And with these sights, so constant and so true, the physics of space, the motions that trace the course of years, our course, being with you through sorrow, more joy, a smile on your face, even as lines delve deeper, gray grows hair, the trees once green are dusted with the snow, fledglings feather-wing themselves in the air catching the currents, soaring through wind-blow— and I watch the river glow as it flows reflecting dreams, life, us, endures and goes.
My attempt at a Shakespearean sonnet for Ingrid’s EIF Sonnet Sunday for Valentine’s Day. I don’t quite have the meter right, but it’s a first draft and written at 6 AM. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day!
“As if we could hear music inside the words” –Gail Newman, “Trust”
I hear, but cannot stop the chirp of time, it travels in waves with the flap of wings,
and in flowing light it sings, celestial harmonies pulsing in shimmers–
even caged, it chitters and cheeps, dives and circles, soars and sweeps past to future, a never-ending story
of bangs and fury, prismed glory that curves and repeats—again and again
I become my mother and my daughters, all the before and ever-after, my words are carried on a glittering song, the essence of my universe, music and laughter.
This is for dVerse, where on Tuesday, Laura asked us to “begin at the end” by using one of the final lines she supplied to influence our own poem. She asks us to think about our own ending lines. Today, Peter asks us to consider our beginning lines.
Ever since I read this article about a Blackfoot woman who translated astrophysics terms into the Blackfoot language, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about chirping stars.
Breath in—blue fire, the universe’s secrets, the champagne clouds, the blush born in ferocious fever-dances, the aching beauty of after the light-singing stars.
What was so is still the moon whispers, listen and recall the ghost rhythms of time–
and if, the breeze explores, it urges the sky toward spring through the black beneath the storm,
where sea-ships, dream-carriers, sail under a spray of diamonds toward tomorrow.
Happy day after Christmas! Here’s my message from the Oracle. She made me work for this one.
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