A Habitation and A Name

swallowtail
—Layne Russell, Redding

a swallowtail
hangs on a
tall golden cosmos
near the giant
lemon cucumber leaves
and green swelling tomatoes

the blue dragonfly
darts by
bathed in iridescence
and lands to rest on a
purple potato blossom

I call to you—look!
as you stand in puddles of
persimmon shade
surveying three kinds of
lavender
red and yellow daisies
sunshine yarrow
oregano
tarragon
thyme
and sages

we stand so still
lost to this bright moment
of falling light
glistening silence and
wings

________________________

Thanks, Layne, for a final contribution to the Thing-a-Thon, which ended at midnight last night.

Today's Events:

•••Tonight (Wednesday, 6/21), Urban Voices presents two of Sacramento's treasures, Ann Menebroker and D.R. Wagner, who will read in a double-header to usher in the Summer Solstice at the South Natomas Library, 2901 Truxel Rd., Sac., 6:30 PM. Free. Info: 916-264-2920. (Last Sunday's Bee says Viola Weinberg, but it's D.R. Wagner.)

•••And today is the turning of the year; from now on the days grow shorter. I was mightily pleased at the last Rattle-Read to hear Gene Avery recite my favorite passage from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; to wit:

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:—
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,—
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

(Theseus, Act V, Scene I)

Hyppolyta goes on to say, of course, that apparently it takes all three to manifest the truth...

But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,
And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.

______________________

Our gratitude to Will. And may you all have a dream of a midsummer's night...

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)