Impermanence

2013: Year of the Snake

NOT FAR
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Not far
from the clearing
of the waves burial
of the sandstorm,
yet close
to my home harbor
of beach erosion
after a wintry storm

We met new people
at a tar bar
all of us spared
after the floods
and snowy disruption
from raw winds
and ate out
on the white balcony
on the sea's green waters
with deep breaths for all.

_________________

GLANCES AT THE CAPE
—B.Z. Niditch

Watching
the now whiskey sky
under an umbrella
feeling the strangeness
of after a blizzard
which caused shore
erosion near boats
of future tourists
drinking in anticipation
on miles
of beach snow
hoping for relief
by the ocean skiffs
watching my snow
sculpture
from dark red eyes
carrying images
by waters,waves,wind
not smothering
my ideas
by unfriendly clouds
of liquid solitude.

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WAVES
—B.Z. Niditch

Waves rise
washing the sea
where boats
and my orange kayak
may have sunk below
the purple ocean

I walk along the sand
by the dark water's edge
sunshine in silhouettes
like spider webs
by a snow statue
fix their glances
as a storm passes away

Yet utterly ashen
spying my kayak
catching up to my eye
and my accurate sight
spinning around
in a miraculous mist
confounding the laws
of maturing nature,
she lives again
for another voyage.

Wisdom. Yes!

WAVE MEDITATION
(After the photograph, “tu estuve esperando” 

by bachmont)

—Lynn Hansen, Modesto

Shoreline
waves caress the sand,
watery hems of silky skirts,
moon pulling
their translucence in rhythmic dance,
a gentle cosmic embrace
daily.

___________________

WuDON, BABY DOG
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

I love you, baby pit bull,
you hind-legged baby dog,
you near-eyed familiar face,
you canine yap of a doggie.

When did you stick your
kissable lips into pink jello?
Why do you smell so baby-fresh?
You're a dog—for dog's sake!

WuDon, come.
Come sit in my lap for
half an hour and let me stroke
your short-haired collarless neck,
as if you might sit still for
an old lady in your toddler years.

How is it that you suck in
your belly and squirm to escape
my affections?  Allow me to
hoist your warm, plump body
over my shoulder as I rise
from the couch to prepare tea.

Papoose-Baby-Doggie,
I should sling you in a sling
at my breast while I do dishes.

Why do you lick my ankles
with your bubblegum tongue
before bounding away in haste,
as if a pre-teen running
from Grandma's wet kisses?

__________________

LOVED SO MUCH
—Carol Louise Moon

The trick was to keep the dog from barking
every time someone entered the house.
The old Victorian located in midtown was
made up of six studios, #6 occupied by a
lady and her dog.

People-noise would come and go, and warp
any sense of memory, always bringing in
new memory, new words, until her own
words were dismissed, her brain was on hold,
her figure a mere shadow on the bedroom wall.

A list was posted by the mirror, her image
appearing and disappearing as the dog barked
again and again.  She grew to love the sound.

The sound grew its own meaning in her half-
open heart, a pitted apricot desiring the return
of its pit—like wanting the dog to remain with
her always.

One day the barking stopped altogether…
He had figured it out:  Don't let anyone know
she is here.  Don't let anyone knock on the door.
Don't let anyone take her away… the lady
the dog loved so much.

__________________

TAIL OF THREE LAMBS
—Taylor Graham

Consider Tuesday, nubbly ram-lamb
with symmetrical black zorro-signs
below his eyes, as if his mask slipped.
His amber-eye half-sister Thursday
wags her stub of tail, already docked
sheepherder's fashion, hygiene-
chic. His other half-sis Wednesday
sports a bright green rubber-band to mark
the hem where hers will fall off
in good time. This leaves just Tuesday,
boy-lamb unwethered and undocked.
He nibbles sweet spring grass and filaree
as if his pasture were forever. As if
he could keep on slipping from
your crook, evade your banding ring;
abrade our sheep-scoured lawn to lamb's
content, never losing a ramekin
nubbin of his sweet self to the docker.

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Our thanks to today's poets for their potpourri of steaming-hot delectables! I know Chinese New Year's began February 10, but it still warrants notice, being the Year of the Snake and all. Waves in all their puns and incarnations remain the Seed of the Week; our thanks to B.Z. Niditch who lives on the hem of the waves for his poems on the subject. Lynn Hansen took her inspiration from the link I posted with beautiful photos of ocean waves; see the SOW note in the green box at the right of this. Carol Louise Moon is Editor of Sacramento's only large-print journal, DADs DESK, and there is a new issue out. Send her $2 at 537 41st St., #6, Sacramento, CA 95819 for a copy. And Taylor Graham's poem is a response to those of Tom Goff and Katy Brown (see yesterday's post); she says she hopes it's "not too raunchy—but ranchy". I personally was involved in a lambs' tails caper when I was a wee lamb myself: my family and I visited friends with newborns (I fed them bottles of milk and they are strong!) and I purloined the tail-ends which had just been cut off, smuggled them home and stashed them in a drawer—where their odors and flies soon drew my mother's horrified attention. Well, it seemed awful to just discard something so organic. My lesson in impermanence, I guess. That, and the discovery of waves...

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Today's LittleNip:

AT SECOND SIGHT
—B.Z. Niditch

Listening for a moment
blinded by rain
crushed by a hair
blown away by the poem
knocked out by a find
circled by a butterfly
rolled over by a loss
awakened by spring
waves from a sea of hands.

_________________

—Medusa