—Poems and Photos by Martie Odell Ingebretsen, Sacramento
MUSIC FROM THE FIRST OF SUMMER
The grasses move like feathers
in the breezes through the canyon
and the fog in soft of cover
brings the ocean’s fragrant sand in
And the sleepy peace of dawning
with only sheets for cover
softly feather heads on pillows
touch an eyelash still a-dreaming
And the buds of petals sing now
with a buzz of frantic movement
giving purpose to the beauty
that has filled the air with fragrance
And I want to dance on green grass
in a dress of yellow daisies
lay me down within the arbor
listening as the fruit is ripened
But I feel the clock is ticking
in the shadows past the hedges
caught within the dirt and drainage
of the folding fallen wildflowers
So I hold on to the questions
and I wait for the horizon
to reply with mauve of sunset
warm with dark and heavy breathing
And I know the perfect feeling
is in holding on one minute
to a look that’s filled with loving
falling into drape of silken
For the hum in dark of midnight
under canopy of stardom
singing soft the mad of midday
with a sigh within a love song
is the music from the first of coming home
THE FIRST OF SUMMER
The water caught me in its rushing
and I felt so precarious
on the wind-whipped cliff
as if the ground I stood on was blown
with the swaying tree’s arch,
I sat and let the silent dusty rock hold me
in the gathering of a lasting look.
Across the turbulent crest flowing
winged and held in steady updraft
an egret stole my thirsting
from the water and I watched
such precision tilt tipped feather
into the fray of foam in dance
I was dazzled.
And the sky was even hushed
for the sound that rivers make
is so filling that I closed my eyes
and lay against sharp rocks in the sun
to just listen to this place of symphony
with the beating sun touching me
like the heated heart of the feathered bird’s
dipping circling soundless cry.
To capture this minute of day
is like explaining the distance
that a word travels to tell
and if I could just touch this magic
with a pure and perfect thought
then I would know what the river knows,
but it flows it flows so fast
and is gone now
moving towards the sea
toward the larger answer
to a question that I don’t know
how to ask.
DRIVEWAY ROOTS
The clouds like pink cheeks watched me
in tender look at sweet old trailer from the good old days
so long nested in driveway it grew roots
and they tangled in my feelings now
Too soon gone the cozy drifting-time snuggle
against a somewhere else where fragile moon looked in
the slanted windows across the table where we sat
and talked into the lovely night of this and that
Just a step down was another place and more
the door to oceans meadows greens and pools of pearls
where just a toot and blow and turn around we found
the swerve of hitched up often scary moved along
We stored our dreams in one small space
where summer time would trace our days
across the world to fishing holes that pulled us
with their lure enclosed and trouble double hook release
an open fire and fish such feast no catch release
Too soon gone the cozy drifting-time snuggle
against a somewhere else where fragile moon looked in
the slanted windows across the table where we sat
and talked into the lovely night of this and that
Today's LittleNip:
I fancied my luck to be witnessing yet another full moon. True, I’d seen hundreds of full moons in my life, but they were not limitless. When one starts thinking of the full moon as a common sight that will come again to one’s eyes ad-infinitum, the value of life is diminished and life goes by uncherished. "This may be my last moon," I sighed, feeling a sudden sweep of sorrow; and went back to reading more of The Odyssey.
―Roman Payne
__________________________
—Medusa
