Yellow Broom, With Ant

Troubles

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE STAND-OFF
After Turkeys in the Snow by Liz Hawkes deNiord

1.

We know how the turkeys connect their voices
when we gobble out to them and they gobble
back in a racket-challenge of sound, just milling
around and waiting for us to challenge them again/
and again/ and again/ till we grow tired of losing
the game—and just stand there—and they just
stand there—sizing each other up . . .

2.

Again the turkeys, in the snow, not straw. I wonder
what they think about : which follows, which leads,
so aimless, so unlovable, though they bobble in close-
ness and tremble apart by turn, playing look-out,
bobbing their heads up at any disturbance. Curious
fellows. So innocent of treachery. In the snow, in the
season of the winter . . .

3.

To make this a triptych, I hear they run wild in cer-
tain neighborhoods where they have built up their
courage—still gobbling in unison to frighten any-
thing that startles them. Never engage them in any
sort of discourse if this bothers you. They are like
clumsy pets, annoyances, unapproachable. Just
ignore them. Maybe they’ll go away.

 Silhouette

PURPLE COWS

I never got to see one, either. No field or
barn we passed revealed a single one. Cows
just stood and looked at me. Cows of ordi-
nary hues.

And none jumped over the moon, no matter
how I tried to conjure such a scene. Cows
were only cows. Pleasant on hillsides, and
tame though I was afraid of them up close.

But Elsie kept my fears in line. One child-
hood, summer time, I saw a domestic cow—
on a can of milk—standing on her hind legs,
dressed like a housewife, and talking. What
was one to believe? A purple cow, indeed!

_________________

I CONSIDER MY BROOM

1. 
Focus : This broom :
Unusual. Archaic pattern. 
Simple design. Functional.
I take it up, sweep the floor,
the cobwebs from the wall,
feel the task, aware of it,
devotional.

2. 
Women swept dirt before
there were floors, with a
branch of leaves, perhaps.
I consider the hems of
their long dresses…on
dirt streets, on board walks,
their houses. Long dresses
must have frayed out
and never washed clean.

3.  
I took a picture of my broom
once— full-frame, up close,
to show the coarse straw, the
red string binding—the ant—
and called the enlargement :
Yellow Broom, With Ant.


(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1997)

 Burning Clouds

THREESOME
After First Steps by Vincent Van Gogh

Work set aside
the wheelbarrow full
the spade dropped to the ground

the farmer
bends to one knee
and holds his arms wide

toward the bending
mother—her arms curved
down behind the first steps of the child.
   
_________________                

THE FOG-SWIRL

Everything disappeared as in a gray dream. We became
particles of light, broken by dark—a jealousy of forces,
and though we were whole within it, we felt part of a
texture that was both form and formlessness. Sounds got
lost within sounds. We groped and could not feel. There
was no color. No time. No sense of destination. We
moved as though suspended; as though on a distant moor;
as though transported to a place of old tales told by sur-
vivors—but only their voices, we could not see them.
And after centuries of effort we found our way through
by second-sense and perseverance. The fog-swirl lifted
and dispersed, and we were on the other side—as of
having come through a gauntlet of fear. And through
the thinning mist, haunting voices wailed behind us,
begging our return.

 It's the Blues

THE LONG BLOCK

It is a long block—longer than a
city block, slightly uphill—winding
through the streets piously named
for their special people. Shade trees
overlap and a meadowlark trills—
the one that left our neighborhood
so long ago. My shadow hurries
before me—my other shadow
follows behind. I am at the corner.
A hand-made sign says “HERE”.
I turn and find a place untouched
by the fear and violence of the world.


(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine)

_________________

THE SILENT GARDEN

I seek the comfort of the flowers where
the garden is the darkest and the glare
of sunlight has not yet become aware.

It does not reach beyond the dappled wall
where songbirds used to sing and so enthrall
—as though you ever needed song at all.

Your flowers are allowed to flaunt themselves,
and scent the air, but birds must hush themselves.

But here is where I go, to listen still,
to where the meadowlark would trill and trill
—and memory of this can thrill and thrill.

Your deafness will not let itself allow
the echoed singing that remembers how
it filled your happy heart that hates it now.


(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine)

 November

STRAW LINES

Thinking past the now of the never,
dreaming through sleep and waking
into more and more of it—
the time left—and the time used,

I will believe what I can of it—
the old mystery and the new
finding—half an answer.

I go to the great bareness
I try to fill with anything
and everything—as though I can.

I still yearn for the unfound
and the lost—none of it myth
or reality—sometimes I want
to wish everything away from me.

 Silver Edges

THIS SINGING

Wanting pure song this day of unbeginning,
of already winding too tight—relearning
its saddest joy from heartache and hope,

from wanting and needing—
from striving and failing, and striving again
into the hours that are draining,

how can I hope this—want this—
so much, when from a meadow
of remembered time, there is a meadowlark.

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

LIKE THE SINGING OF MEADOWLARKS
—Joyce Odam

Where we are rich is where some happiness
fills a particular moment without reason or
specialty—only its little change of light
that makes its point at some lift of darkness—
and allows the blessing of gratitude . . . .

_________________

A big thank-you to Joyce Odam for her meadowlarks today, nestled in her fine poems, and for her timely artwork, so like these glowering skies of smoke and November. And even a turkey poem to help us transition into Thanksgiving! As Joyce says , ",,, the blessing of gratitude . . . .”

Our new Seed of the Week is Turkeys. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.

—Medusa, spending her week in gratitude for poets and the poems and artwork they share around the Kitchen table . . .

 —Anonymous Photo
To watch the video, “The Turkeys Got Out Again!” 

from Liz Zorab of Byther Farm in the UK, go to 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Y_oVIE5YI/.
And, of course, celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.