Watermark

2008-12-09 Snapshot Poem

Not an orphan yet, I come to you.
Snow here is heavy and wet, sky
darker than ground. The doctor
reads the future in runes of blood
and bone.

I watch the snow fall, slant, across
the streetlight. The kitten brings me
her feathered toy, like a dead bird
in her mouth, a low growly purr.
A gift.

The body sends its messages.
Mine calls out to you in dreams.
I wake stunned and languid. I wake.
The doctor casts the coins, mother's
next few months.

Or years. They lay out before us,
dark and secret paths. The kitten
pounces, stops to watch paleness
pass the window. Now is for her.
Don't leave me.

   

Dreamer

Somebody came to my door and offered
to give me a child who had been abandoned.
I declined but thought of you.

They say that in dreams, the house is the body.
Or perhaps the psyche. A house of many rooms.
But who is the child?

Who is the offerer? Who the prospective parent?
What is the car, the truck, the train? They are,
each and all, the dreamer.

This is the vehicle, the work, the task. It carries
me where I must go. Me, the child, the parent.
The dreamer. The poem.

    

  Totally Optional Prompt: Sound -- I added the sound player in response to this prompt. More of my poems with audio can be found at Audio Posts. This prompt has nudged me to add sound to more of my poems. The player above is an experiment -- please let me know if you have problems.

     

This poem is already up at Poets Corner -- Thanks, Anny!

Frost Moon

Death walks with me
but there is no scythe.
For some it's sudden, done.
For others, no swift
taking, but a slow
evaporation, a stiffening,
a brittleness, a steady
sloughing of the self.

This rain is heavy, loud.
Fallen leaves turn black
and slimy, sink into mud,
slide on pavement. The moon
is invisible, but cold. This
is not a freshening rain.
This is autumn's rain.
This is winter's rain.

Nov. 13, 1:17 a.m. EST — Full Beaver Moon. Time to set beaver traps before the swamps freeze to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Beaver Full Moon come from the fact that the beavers are now active in their preparation for winter. Also called the Frosty Moon.

Harvest Moon

I wake to a bright night, moon resting
on the swell of the mountain.

Geese pass noisily overhead, barking
like a herd of schnauzers.

A storm spins past Galveston
another spins out of Washington

and yet another from Wall Street,
each leaving loss and debris

in its wake. I listen to love songs
on the radio and try to remember how

that felt. It's time for the long nightgown,
the flannel sheets. Time to close

the windows against autumn. The stars
of my generation are dying off.

Somewhere, someone is bringing in
the crops. Long ago, I helped with that,

prepared meals for the field hands,
bacon sizzling, the women talking,

shelling peas, canning peaches. Now,
I lift my food from the shelves. It has

nothing to do with me.

   

   

UPDATE 16 September 02008: This poem has been selected for inclusion on Poet's Corner at fieralingue. Thanks, Anny!

Haircut

 

The Braid

Its weight unfelt
until absent, the
braid lies on
the hair dresser's
table. No tears
in my chair,
she said, and
there were none.
In the Twenties,
this was scandalous,
women cutting off
their hair. What's
left is grey.
Today women cut
their hair when
the divorce is
final, or when
he leaves. In
rage, or mourning,
or relief, they
take the scissors
to their own
heads; or, light-
headed, they step
out of salons,
new women. The
hair dresser sweeps
the floor, packs
away the braid
for the wig-
makers. Left behind,
a foot or
two of plaited
history. We shake
our heads, remember
that forgotten gesture,
pushing bangs from
the eyes,
running
our own
fingers
through
our own
short
fresh
curls.

Fire

09 July 02008, Missoula, Montana, USA

Mount Sentinel is on fire,
and the Constitution is burning,
ignited by leftover Independence
Day fireworks and fear-brand patriotism.

One white helicopter dips water
from the Clark Fork, carries it to the line
of orange flame. People stand on the river trail,
commiserating with one another. Our crews are thin,

sent to fight fires in Big Sur;
our Reserves are in Iraq. Red firetrucks
wait at the bottom of the mountain. Deer leap
into the gorge, then walk calmly into town. Smoke

furls down into the saddle, down
into the valley. The line crawls higher,
one line of flame meets another, a long curved
gesture of fire, grass that seemed green and strong

burning, burning. The Fourth
Amendment is smoking, curling into
ash. As the sky darkens and the mountain
grows brighter, we retreat. We stand at the windows

of our wood houses, watching
the flames climb up, climb down
the mountain. We are mere citizens, civilians;
the fire is near, but far enough, and we leave it

to the professionals. Finally,
we go to the private, inviolate embrace
of our own beds, almost secure, almost believing
that our castles are safe, that the fires won't reach us.

Snapshot Poem 02 July 02008

Where I used to live, light
will be embracing this day
all the way around. Here,
where I live now, light
is shorter, night longer,
days waver less noticeably.

Again and again I dream
of moving. Places strange
and familiar; neighbors
oddly unknown. Today
one of the young squirrels
took bread from the feeder

and came to sit at arms-
length in the tree above me.
She turned and turned
the food in her tiny hands,
scattering crumbs, then
stretched out flat and cool

on the wide branch. I don't know
why she joins me here, morning
after morning. I see a pale bread-
crumb traveling across the stones,
and imagine the strong-backed ant,
bearing the weight, carrying the light.

This week's prompt is light.

"Why cut your hair?"

It pulls so heavy, so long
it's a hindrance to sitting.
Up, it brings headaches;
down, a tangle and no one
but me to brush it out.
No one lifts it but me,
no other hands hold it.
Braided, I'm a matron;
knotted, a librarian. Some
other woman or child, bald
from illness and its cures,
will carry it with more
grace, more gratitude.
It will grow back, thinner

and more gray. I found
blood on the garden
stones this morning.
Some songbird, caught
in the talons of a kestrel?
The garden is blooming:
yellow columbine, blue
delphinium, purple allium,
coral bells, a hundred small
white flowers on the wild
geranium. I breathe deep
the fertile air. I try to stand
up straight. I try to hold
my head high. It's heavy.

  

[revising in place...]

June Moon

Rose Moon, open.
Strawberry Moon, fill
our mouths with sweetness.

It is the month of marriage,
weddings under arches,
long dresses and dress coats.

Women marry men, men
marry men, women marry
women, inconstant humans

promising constancy, forgetting
how you fade, how you pass
from fullness to absence; from

promise to amnesia. Bless
these brides, these grooms.
Scatter your light upon them.

  

10 June 02008 Snapshot Poem

 

       Photo by Bonnie Sue Pinkerton

  

I wake this June morning to storm warnings,
white caps on the mountains, dogs curled warm
against my knees. Even with the dogs, this bed
is too wide, too cold. The sky darkens and snow
falls into the valley. I comfort myself

with cappuccino. Tomorrow is your birthday.
I braid this long hair, which I will cut off soon,
and tie it up with fake pearls. I put on rings,
a silver bracelet, a long-sleeved high-neck
sweater. I wish for blue sky, for a blond

streak of sun to melt this snow. I wish
for summer flowers, for years and seasons
to fall away, for limber, painless youth. My hair
will grow back grey. The garden will bloom,
soon. Storms will come, storms will go.

  

At Sixty

The lilac tree should have grown over the last fifteen years, but a June snow took out a third of it, and it's just now filling out again. The birches died, and have been replaced by young saplings. Spike is slipping away from me, nothing but bones and orange fur and purrs.

In this diminishing world, I hear each day of catastrophes, cyclones, earthquakes, drought and starvation; and closer to home, fires, floods, tornadoes. Extinctions, pending and past.

As a child, I knew of these only at a distance, miles away, and long ago. Now, each tragedy comes as it happens, into my living room, where I sit in comfort and watch children who are not mine buried in rubble, caught in crossfire, too starved to be afraid.

My garden stands up in the rain. The lilac is budding. Crocus and tulips decorate the neighborhood. I know this will not last. The crocus will pass, the tulips, Spike will be buried in the flowerbed. The lilac will flower and go to seed.

Now, I close my eyes and hold my cat.

stones on the ground
    the garden wall
     is falling
  

Snapshot Poem 16 April 02008

B --

When I walked along the dike tonight
there was the smell of ice in the air.
Snow brushed the foot of the mountain.
The wildlife was quiet - no gossiping
geese, no chattering ducks, no beaver
splashing into the water to keep
pace with me. Only the shushing
of the river, and a sound like wolves, 
howling.

            How different this must be
from where you are. Awake, I try
to call your face to my mind, but
it's blurred; it could be the face of any
of the men I've loved. But asleep, you
are there, complete, completely
yourself. I imagine walking the paths
you walk. The colors, the wildness,
the strangeness of you

            in that place. The slowness
of elephants, their surprising hair. Such
gentleness, such patience. Delicate,
spangled shawls on the shoulders of
great and dangerous power. Temple bells.
The calls to prayer. Fourteen years. I know
you have found demons, and faced them
down. Have you found angels? Have you
found peace?

 

Snapshot Poem 26 March 02008

It's spring again. The garden knows it. From beneath,
green and purple leaves, reaching up. Reaching out.

A winter vine climbs the fence. It separates the boards.
Strong and woody, it goes where it pleases. In all directions.

A Japanese lantern hangs on a steel hook. At night, long
winter nights, it warms the garden. I am not like other

people. I watch them, for clues. A woman passes by
with two small dogs on a leash. She smiles. Why?   

I go to the door and look through the glass. On the fence,
at my eye level, a black cat looks back at me. I open

the door, and the cat vanishes in an arc over the fence.
A squirrel eats buds from a scrap tree. A weed, aggressive,

but harmless in its own right, it feeds the tree rats, the various
birds. I am chased by a monster. It's kill or be killed. I am so weak

I can barely lift the hammer; the blow only cracks the monster's
bald skull. Like an egg, cracking. This happens many times, many

iterations. I find a green light and shine it on the monster. I sing it
a love song, and it dies, finally, peacefully. Sitting very still, I hold

my aging cat against my aging breasts. We both purr. With my
breath, we purr. I decide to allow deep pleasure back into my life.

A snow shovel stands against the wall. Unused, unneeded, this
warm spring. Everything has a function. We all do what we must.

Snapshot Poem, Spring Equinox

Worm Moon, Crow Moon

Crow Moon, tonight you fly
at the balance of the year,
half light, half dark, tipping
your wing toward spring.

Crow Moon, caw away
this winter, gnaw the last
crusts of snow from the
frozen garden. Shine

the earthworms up to
the surface. Worm Moon,
Crow Moon, Full Sap Moon,
wake us up once more.

Mar. 21, 2:40 p.m. EDT — Full Worm Moon. In this month the ground softens and the earthworm casts reappear, inviting the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signals the end of winter, or the Full Crust Moon because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. This is also the Paschal Full Moon; the first full moon of the spring season. The first Sunday following the Paschal Moon is Easter Sunday, which indeed will be observed two days later on Sunday, March 23. This will, in fact, be the earliest Easter since 1913.

       

12 March 02008 - Snapshot Poem

Richard

A chilly overcast day. One day
unfolds into the next. My brother
visits my dreams, one night folding
into the next. I think of his long bones,
the long bones of his fingers, shards
in the ashes. I think of his passion
for opera, the depth of his voice,
his mind folding one day into

the next. Sparrows calling from
the garden, scandal in the news,
mournful music on the radio. How
he loved Mozart, opera, Sondheim;
how his long legs loped through
the streets of Manhattan; how
that hole inside him could never
be filled; how he looms

in my dreams, tall and alive;
the inconsequence of our
conversation, the dead to the living,
the living to the dead, not noticing
how one folds into the other, folding
together, dream into dream, brother
into sister. How we light each other's
smokes. How light we are, how thin.

       

05 march 02008 snapshot poem

the moon is a sliver of silver
be still, you tell me
i sit

snow comes
thick, soft, glittery
i cannot catch it

it catches me
it grows around me
a pale and quiet burial

this is the only moment
snow comes
i am a stillness in the snow

i am
this darkness in the white world
i am sitting still

sparrows in the snow
sun comes, snow goes
i sit

Snapshot Poem

Another soggy day, 
air thickly inhabited
with portents

of coming change.
There, at the edge
of the visual field,

the far distance
of the audible wave,
a motion, a whisper

just caught 
by diminishing senses.
A touch at the earlobe,

a flicker on the eyelash.
I brush it away
with my fingertip.

Snapshot Poem

Photo by uncle mike in knoxville

Lunar Eclipse

Snow Moon, Hunger Moon,
for too long, the larders
have been empty.

The dead come to us
in dreams. They speak
but we cannot hear them.

The woods are quiet.
Only the hiss of spiders
in the snow.

The fire is banked.
The children sleep.
Cold sighs at the door.

Snow Moon,
Hunger Moon,
tonight the sky

will eat you.

Snapshot Poem 13 February 02008

winter rain
unsheathing

winter rain
brown ground emerges
from its snowy scabbard

goldfish rise drowsy
to the rippling surface
of their small pond
drift back down

puddles and dirty runnels
soak the flower beds
a woodpecker searches
under the shingles

the city sends its workers 
out in white trucks
to cut back and collect
ice broken branches

mud on the fenders
mud on the hubcaps
mud on the winter boots
mud on the carpet

life is busy in the underground
it reaches up, it reaches down
it makes its little tunnels
it takes what is left over
it takes what is spit out
what is buried and denied
it takes it all, it drinks the rain

feed it ashes and snow
shit and shriveled rinds
gristle and coffee grinds
feed it blood and bone, your own
seed, your own cut nails
it takes it all, it drinks it down

crows celebrate in the bare trees
sparrows fly to the river by hundreds
the snow geese will come, they will
come back to the river, to the marshes
winter rain, winter rain, winter rain

Snapshot Poem 05 February 02008

Super Tuesday

The citizenry is aroused.
The citizenry is saying No! No! No!
But that's not all.
The citizenry is saying Yes! Yes! Yes!

Smoky rooms are in disarray.
Pundits have much to say.
Conservatives are thumbing through the dictionary.
The left weighs liberal versus progressive.

Boomers wax nostalgic.
The young dance in the streets.
Thin blonds are sharpening their knives.
Soldiers stand at attention.

Men in suits hustle through doorways.
The religious fall to their knees.
The rich change the combinations on their safes.
Stockbrokers wear out the minus sign.

Around the world, people are watching.
The huddled mass holds its breath.
Bankers pace in boardrooms.
People are watching around the world.

What is happening? Who will it be?
White men check their zippers.
Women lift their children, they straighten
their shoulders. Who will it be?

 

This week's prompt was Mystery Thriller.

snapshot poem 30 january 02008

i ask for a dream to answer the question
i dream of a seal    an affectionate seal
it wants to be in the house with the women

it slips through the door like water

the seal is blue . . . mottled . . . purple and gold
it's the swimming colors of oil on water

one of the women who lives in the house
does not want the seal inside with the women

the seal stands up in the room like a woman
like a woman    she walks on the shore

the seal is innocent  the seal is a blessing
the seal is unguarded and fearless but shy

she drifts through my dream like water

she can swim    in the depths    she can surface

her fur is thick and sleek and dense
her fur is her skin of oil and colors
the deep black-blue and purple of ink
and the gold foil of secrets and vows

the seal glides through my mind like water

the seal is a sylph    a cipher    a bond
the seal is a veil       consummation

the seal is an answer to every question
she circles my dream like water
   

This week's prompt was to say why you think you're alive, why you were born, and why you're still around: What are your reasons?

So, just after agreeing that a poem needs to be intelligible and accessible. A poem should be capable of meaning something (Jim Murdock), I write this. But kasper reminds me:

A poem should not mean
But be

Later, I found this:

My Message
Cecil Rajendra

And now you ask
what is my message
I say with Nabokov
I am a poet
not a postman
I have no message.

but I want the cadences
of my verse to crack
the carapace of indifference . . .

 

Go to 3 Quarks Daily to read the rest.

And later still, thanks (again) to Ron Sipherd at The Well, here's the word I sought and could not find: SELKIE

And from Anne:  The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry

Snapshot Poem 23 January 02008

Wolf
Originally uploaded by IJsendoorn
   
 

     Wolf Moon

Wolf Moon, is that you
howling through the courtyard,
banging at our windows,
stripping shingles from the roof,
demanding to be let in? You,

hungry, in your winter coat,
fur tipped with frost and snow?
I hear you prowling, your breath
puffs coldness under the door.
Wolf Moon, I cannot see you,

but I know you're there.

   
 

Jan. 22, 8:35 a.m. EST — Full Wolf Moon. Amid the zero cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. It was also known as the Old Moon or the moon after Yule. In some tribes this was the Full Snow Moon; most applied that name to the next moon.

IJsendoorn has quite wonderful photos on flickr. Here is his Animal Photoset.

Snapshot Poem 16 January 2008

 

How does one come to believe in the moon?
What it actually is, I mean; not what it appears
to be. It is not a lantern, held up in the sky
by some invisible god. It is not an illuminated,
disembodied head, floating in the ether.

And Saturn, with its glowing, colored rings.
You pull back from the lens, startled, dis-
believing. You look around you at what is real,
what can be touched, what can be believed in.
And fog, what is that? Only water, they tell me,

mere vapor. Thick, cushioned, its own universe.
And there you are, within it. Alone. Sound moves
toward, away from you. The very air has become
visible, it touches your face, it wraps itself around
your solid body. In this blind universe, what are you?

This week's prompt: The Magician

Whisper | Snapshot Poem

 

Listen. It's a new moon night. There is no light to be heard
falling on fresh snow. Snow drifting down so quietly you hear
nothing. Listen. Distant electric humming under the evening
silence. A fountain trickles beneath the ice. Far away, geese
call to one another across the slow river. Listen harder. Do you
hear it? The crackling of stars, colliding starlight, high, higher,
in the dimming, snow-speckled night. That hiss. That whisper.

 

This week's prompt: In the Ear

 

Snapshot Poem

 

the moon is dark
the ground is ice
i shall let my hair grow
out in a tangle
i shall dance in my rags
on the high street
the moon is dark
the ice is black
on the boulevards
i shall cut the fingers
from my tattered gloves
i shall pull at my hair
its knots and its tangles
the moon is dark, the stars hide
i will let my hair grow out in tangles
i will cut the fingers from my gloves
i shall dance in the snow on the boulevards

This week's prompt is Resolutions.