Sand Painting
—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
ON THE BEACH ALONE
(Long Beach, CA, 1939)
I am following the long stretch of shoreline;
the sun is going down; strips of seaweed
lie along the wet sand, left by low tide.
A few last seagulls circle in mauve twilight.
The sunbathers and swimmers have gone home.
I am on the darkening beach alone—
stumbling in heavy sand the slow mile back
to where I turn in—past the small rental cabins,
up the one small block—to 39 Mermaid Place.
I have been gone since just after breakfast.
My mother is home, scolding at the sand I track
all over the thin blue rug and the scarred linoleum.
After supper, I fall asleep on the floor,
curled up in front of the small gas heater—
too chilled to get warm.
One loud block away,
I can hear the surf—feel its power—
dream I can swim.
Poets’ Forum Magazine, Spring 2000 (Challenge: Epiphany)
Chapbook: A Sense Of Melancholy, Rattlesnake Press, 2004
Boardwalks
DREAM OF RUNNING
There is the boat lapping at the shore
softly bumping and thumping against the sand,
the small wooden boat we need to escape in.
We are running toward it as fast as we can
but the dream is heavy
and tangled with jungle vines and
there is breathing behind us, close as our ear.
And we are afraid we have lost the way,
but at once we see the beach, soft in the moonlight
suddenly before us, lying cool and deep,
with silvery light upon it, waiting for our footprint
and we know we can make it.
And there is the small boat rocking like a cradle.
We want to be in it pushing out over the water
snuggling against its round sides in the moonlight
looking up at the stars
feeling the cool night on our flushed faces
easing down into gentle breathing while we ride.
And now we are running across the sand
but so terribly slowly
a force is pushing against our chests
our arms make swimming motions through air
pulling distance toward us, pulling our bodies forward
and the small boat is patiently rocking.
(first pub. in Voices International, 1992)
Sunrise
TURN OF SEASON
I wake and find the morning not in tune,
a cold wind humming and a band of sun
fading across the east, too thin, too far,
some ragged bird-cry caught against the window
just as it flashes by, forewarned of nothing;
the winter leaf I always watch for, fallen—
done for, simply fallen, and the air
gone silent for it—just one breath of silence
before some new sound that the wind remits
decides to suffer to its farthest pitch
and in stubborn grief, give up its long-held wailing,
just like a voice I’ve heard before—my own.
Did night do this to me—no thought forgiven?
Oh, how begin another day like this!
Quick
TIDE TURNINGS
(after “Riptide” by Heidy Steidmeyer, Poetry, 1999)
All that is grim, caught here on this long and shining beach in
the warping moonlight—vague things gleaming in the distance;
a bird wing caught in the sand; the small look of something
made of string; the curve of the wet land where it goes on and
on past the following night; the old deliberate way you
glide along the water’s edge until you feel yourself disappear—
and why does it always seem at once so far away and so near—
as if time and distance can be traveled simultaneously.
__________________
CONCERNS
swimming into the mouth
of locked water
a young whale
finding the
shallow beach
at the end
and rocking itself
to death
against our helplessness
(first pub. in Parting Gifts, 1997)
__________________
TIDAL
Look what the sea has done—those shadow lines
light touched and cast into striate patterns
for the relentless winds to worry
and try to change. But the persistent sea
will return and change it all again—
will suck away the trace
of all other touchings. This is mine, claims the sea,
and it will return again and again
to wrinkle the sand with
its ebbing, for always it must draw back
into its great heaving self—
like a breathing.
(first pub. in Hidden Oak, 2005)
Desert Art
WE CATCH THE BALL OF LIGHT
We catch the ball of light
under the twelve stars
of some mysterious sky-symbol
and throw it to each other with
such skill that it shines in the air
leaving after-streaks of motion.
Blue was never this kind,
not even the soft blue of twilight,
not even the cool blue of dawn.
Auras of silver surround us,
guide us over the wet sands
by this phosphorescent ocean.
Whispers muffle around us—
those presences again.
Our hands are the
deliberate hands of dancers;
our bodies follow, and we
cannot be silent about our joy.
The hours have more measure
than the moments.
We know a moment of pure religion.
We are bodiless… Sexless…
Mindless even…
in this simplicity of movement,
this participation
in the surreality of thought…
this fanciful abandon… This play.
________________
WOMEN MOVING AMONG WOMEN
You see how it is—women moving among
women like a dance of loneliness—or like
a practice of memory when life was free and
no one guarded their secrets, which were pure,
when only the long blue sands of twilight
would remember their dance. The reaching sea
would try to belong—but it too would leave them,
pulling at them to follow, or let go. The white gulls
would turn silver and vanish, leaving their threading
shapes in the turbulent air. The women would try
to forget those cries and emulate that grace;
the sands would cover-over as the sun lowered
and erased everything but this memory of women
moving among women in a dance of loneliness.
The World Over
ENDINGS
1.
This is where we take the different ending :
the walk on the beach
in that peculiar light—
the sea immense and lonely.
“Oh,” you protest,
“we can’t say the sea is lonely.”
2.
This is where we take the delicate ending :
the walk on the particular beach
at a particular time,
approaching some object
made of dark light
that seems to be moving.
When we near it,
it is the disheveled doll
left by our childhood
that seems to remember us,
for we pick it up and hold it.
It is so cold and wet and
featureless. It gasps like a kitten, and expires.
3.
This is where we take the difficult ending :
walking the roiling beach in winter light,
leaving the doll behind.
The sea rocks and moans over the doll,
retrieving it in its foaming arms.
4.
This is where we take the desperate ending :
You look back and tell me
what you see.
I don’t look back.
I am watching a seagull swooping and crying
into the sea’s defining loneliness.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
FROM MY ALBUM OF THOUGHTS
—Joyce Odam
As far as memory’s reach . . .
strolling summer’s moon-lit beach
again.
____________________
So many thanks for this poetry and artwork today from Joyce Odam, as she explores our Seed of the Week, Quicksand—the quicksand of memories and dreams and all sorts of metaphors that can be found in her work.
Our new Seed of the Week is "Nesting". 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.
Cold River Press has released its book of poetry by the Tough Old Broads Victoria Dalkey, Kathryn Hohlwein, Viola Weinberg Spencer and Annie Menebroker. Called Tough Enough, it’s now available at the Cold River website (www.coldriverpress.com), or at the Sunday, April 28 reading which will be held from 1-4pm at Harlow’s, 2708 J St., Sac. In addition to Victoria Dalkey, Kathryn Hohlwein and Viola Weinberg Spencer, Sue Menebroker McElligott will be on hand to read some of her mother, Annie's, work—plus there are some pretty cool extras that will be announced shortly. Host: Cold River Press, with Traci Gourdine as the Emcee.
Speaking of Cold River Press, deadline to submit work to the 2019 edition of Sacramento Voices is June 30. Check the website for details (www.coldriverpress.com).
In the mood for a road trip tonight? Second Tuesday at the Barkin’ Dog will present poetry from the 16 Rivers Poetry Collective, plus open mic, beginning at 6pm at the Barkin’ Dog, 940 11th St., Modesto, sponsored by MoSt (Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, www.mostpoetry.org/event/second-tuesday-barkin-dog-4-2019). Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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