Imagination's Boat

 

Mandala for the Child

—Poetry and Original Art by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

ART AS TEMPTATION

Here is the little vessel
made of paper, wax, and wire—
imagination’s boat.

Let’s take a ride—
steal it—
find a gentle river
made of air.

There we will float on the sunbeams
that are so golden—
streaming down,
and can we climb them?

Oh,
let us try—
so tangible—
and to be had,
these things of creation.

Take the water from the doorway,
all is open to such play
as we imagine.

___________________

DESPAIRING OF LOVE

A drop of love is falling
through the sky—
a golden pearl,
still moist
from the heavenly oyster,
the sacrifice
in slow motion,
as if falling through water—
a black sea of waiting,       
tide after tide,
allowing for the arrival.  
Who will see it, know what it is,
if not someone bereft and
mad with grieving—
never having attained
the least drop of love;
someone who is somewhere
with hand outstretched
in one last supplication,
one final prayer.               
If love will reach,
it will be when the distance
has been traveled
between need and answer.

 

 

 

The Gold Standard

 

THE GOLDEN RAGES
 
What do they mean,
we who are in
the glowing dark

must seem
too insignificant
to please—

but we are pleased.
We feel the fragrant rain
begin to fall upon the fires

our eyes have claimed—
the fires of joy
and love.
 
The jealous rain
consumes and quenches
and never leaves a stain.

______________________

THE GLOW

It was always the rain
it was always the late wet gray
it was always this time of day—
the way it all combined
to draw them shadowing back
through the figment to the real
of this ancient swirling atmosphere,
to almost know why they came.

It was always the sound
that carried through the air
it was always the thin damp smell
and the feel of the night
and the way their faces would lift
with a signature of tears
into the vanished, offered years.

Oh, where did it go . . . ? they
would say when the scene was gone,
when the streets were empty again,
except for them . . .
Oh, where is the power of yesterday,
they would mourn,
with its pace,
with its charm,
with the who we were
and the who we might have been…
oh, where.

And the rain was only rain again.
And the gray was only gray
and the hour was only the hour
that was there
when the wisp of yesterday withdrew,
when the shining glimpse of memory
faded back into its simpler time
and the mind’s sweet pain.

 

 

 

On the Perfection of Memory

 

LIGHT SHARDS

It was not for the real,
melting as two reflections

in the tall
unwavering glass

of a dark street
window

where we connected
as real and unreal—

one of us safe,
one of us in danger—

our eyes in dark receiving
of the glance.

You almost touched my shoulder.
I almost brushed your sleeve.

How can we ever forget each other now,

we who, for a moment, were so intimate? 

 

 

 

Fate's Mandala

 

THE STILLNESS HERE

Beware the stillness here,
the lack of shadow,
the false sound
that follows where you speak.

Beware the golden bird
that floats down
on a shaft of sunlight
through these dark trees.

It is all illusion;
it is all wish;
it is never memory,
though you think it is.


(prev. pub. in Piedmont Literary Review)

__________________

TINCTURE

The wings of light
linger on the dark branch silhouette
to be seen in contrast.

                   ◇

For lack of pigment, the white wings rest
on the edge of the
blue weed-flower—the color of the sky.

                   ◇

At mid-day, the sheer wings
seek the road-way poppies to reflect against,
as if they yearn to be golden.

                   ◇

The frayed wings learn to become gray
when twilight softens
their wounds with camouflage.

                   ◇

At night, the black wings
will touch at anything for substance—feeling
for their opposite dimension.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2014)

 

 

 

Whimsy

 

 

 

UNMOORED

all night the small rowboat drifts on the golden stream
of moonlight, pulling its blue shadow silently along
as the land stretches into horizon after horizon . . .
perhaps the boat is dreaming of the sea
which it has never seen . . .
      it winds and winds
            where the moon’s light winds
                    under the fast-moving clouds
                            pulling their wet shadows
                                      over the shimmering ground


          and from a shrinking window of a lonely house a
                dream-child is floating out into the full moon
                      night and following the boat in the stream
                          of light and going wherever it goes . . . .

 

 

 

World Games

 

WHERE ALL MERGES
“Goldfinches shine as they float through the air.”
                                                     —Mary Oliver

Think of the air illuminated by a float of
goldfinches : the gold air, slowed down
by this devotion—time-caught,
as if the air has memory—
will not let go this golden image.

Now think of the gold float of fish
just below the surface of sunlit water
where sky and water connect :
the shimmering water-clouds, the
golden birds and fish—all merging
in the last glowing moments of sunset.

                                             
(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 2015)

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

GOLDEN SUNLIGHT ON THE STAIRS
—Joyce Odam

line by line
the steps align

and the Ballerina
dances

on her
toes

and flings
her joyous arms about

and knows
and does not know

how the steps align
to keep her

in rhyme
in perfect pantomime

_______________________

Grand thanks to Joyce Odam this morning for her elegant poems about our ekphrastic Seed of the Week photo (below) and her original artwork!

 

 

 

Last Week's Seed of the Week

 

Our new Seed of the Week is "Time Misspent". 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

 

 

 

—Public Domain Illustration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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