Breathing For Us

 

 

Winter Light

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THAT SOUND

Last night, the rain.
The weatherman
was right,

and
wrong.
I said tomorrow,

you said Thursday
it would rain—perhaps
both right.

Particularity becomes
a place to start.
And end.

Let’s quarrel this through,
rain as subject—
that sound—

day that ends without its plan.
Tomorrow we will do
what this day did not manage,

unless it rains.
Look out the window,
verify, wetness all around,

everything shining—
the air—the trees,
the unfinished flight of crows.

How black they are, hidden.
How black
your eyes

with haunting—
let it go—
it rains.

 

 

 

The Rain Tree

 

MY TREE, MY BLACK BIRDS

I know these birds.
Nature’s birds.

And mine.
They live in my tree.

Mine.
And Nature’s.

____________________

THE WIND BLOWS COLOR HERE

red trees and gold
the dying green
and brown
the brilliance of the air,
and it brings
sounds—
sharper bird-song,
rustlings,
moanings,
something in the trees—
wind’s voice?
I’ve heard
that voice before
outside my window
in the house
even in the silences
that build
to something there

 

 

 

Bodings

 

THE SIGHING IN THE TREES
After “Heard Whispers” by Robert Bly

She hears what is lonely
and speaks back in a whispered voice
not to destroy the distance between them.

What never answers is love, with its caution
with its fear
which is jealous of surrender.

She hears what is lonely and sends
her loneliness in return, a whispered voice
answering, so low she cannot hear.


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

 

 

 

No Birds

 

THIN WHITE TREES AT NIGHT

—struck by light in a blue forest of
forest patterns and directions,
sunlight and moonlight and
green rain that falls when
needed, white flickers of
rain drops that make tiny
reflections on the boughs
and leaves, and even the
shadows that notice
them—there is nothing
to be sad about for no one
has ever been here—these are
but words for a mysterious memory
of a soul not yet born to this sad world
of so much damage and lament.


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

____________________

STARING AT TIME

fluttering down from the trees
the little souls of leaves
the life that death believes…

the splintering of bird-songs
the little rights and wrongs
the way it all belongs…

the mental vertigo
the things that stay and go
the tercets in a row…

the souls that wait in stones…
the music in the bones
the casual undertones…

the threes and twos and one
the endings late begun
the black glare in the sun…

 

 

 

Along The Branch

 

 

THE HEALING TREE

Once a weariness came
upon my being
and I surrendered to a yearning
and I sought a tree I knew
that had vast shade and quiet
and I brought myself to its healing
and lay on the ground
looking up through its branches
and silently moving leaves
and I slept for a long while
unwinding and renewing,
under the flickering sunlight.

 

 

 

Prayer Bird

 

COMPREHENDINGS

How many beginnings are allowed . . .
how do we sculpt air into recognition . . .

like Picasso’s wide, fast sweep of signature
caught by camera . . .
 
air is the substance for breathing.
Let’s not get technical here.

The trees breathe for us.
It’s something like that.

And the electrical impulses :
Dramatic sky.  Mind at peak.

Awareness.  Expectation.
Even a little fear—hostile and dangerous.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2013)     

 

 

 

The Wind Will Have Its Way

 

THE TRUE LEGEND
After True Legend by Eyvind Earle

The legend is that the trees stand burning from
the center with a molten glow, knowing you will
arrive, or I, with all our thoughts written in cold
and our words time-frozen and narrowing now.

Not that all the roads dwindle here. Everything
is round, even the familiar singing of the birds
that exist here where their singing is protected.

You are not to enter, nor I, though enticement
is everywhere, the soft wavering air, red clouds
that emulate.

Two white trees tower, stripped of their leaves.
They are the sacrifice untouched by your
knowing, or mine, which is still the question.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

IN SOOTHING DISTANCE
—Joyce Odam

I watched the green waves of trees for awhile—
    how, in the wind, they swayed and moved
in a single lyric pattern—so wonderfully attuned.

______________________  

Big thank-yous to Joyce Odam this Tuesday for easing us into Winter with her poems about trees, following our Seed of the Week: Secrets in the Pines. Trees are very much in my mind these days as I walk out the door into piles of them, and their colorful little silhouettes draw collages on the black roadway while I walk the dog.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Those Naughty Elves”. 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.

Another Zoom event coming up this Thursday: Sac. City College’s el gigantic presents A Poetry Reading with Albert Garcia, 7-8:30pm at cccconfer.zoom.us/j/9348057923 followed by open mic. Host: Danny Romero.

Editor Robert Paul Cesaretti writes that Issue #25 of Ginosko Literary Journal is now online at GinoskoLiteraryJournal.com/.

For Robert Bly’s “Heard Whispers”, go to www.wisdomportal.com/RobertBly/BlyReading.html and 

scroll down.

 

For more about artist Eyvind Earle, go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyvind_Earle/.

______________________

—Medusa, listening to the wind blow colors ~

 

 

 

“Mine. And Nature's.”
—Public Domain Photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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