Small Mercies

 

Night As Part Glass and Part River
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

SUBJECT MATTER

water
is glass,
imaged by night

night
is part glass
and part river

each night a small boat
drifts dreamward,
carrying its sole passenger

each night
the passenger
is prison to the dream

each night the depth
pulls the dream
downward

each night
the boat
is prison to the river

 

 

 

Voices Haunt Back

 

THE WHITE PALLOR OF THE SKY

What of the white pallor of the sky
this day—this day without mercy, this
dimensionless day, this white-fog morning.

I test the skies with my gray look. How thin.
They could not hold me. I shall not fly
nor lift a dreary wing in agitation.

I may just sift against this day until I fit—
somewhere near or far—it does not matter.
I am in a drift.

Some wet bird lets a cry cut through.
I feel it reach
and offer back my silence.

Nowhere does sensation end; I am
all of it, the pale gray light, monotonous,
the few shapes wavering through.

The same bird calls. I open myself.
I let it through.

 

 

 

The Birds Fly Over

 

THE MERCY BIRDS

The birds fly over this disconnected world.   
There is a map in the air
but no candles for the windows.

Time represents our confusion :
how can the birds save us?
Symbols are failing to be truth.

We watch with hope and fear
we are ever at the mercy of . . .
what will become of us . . .

              ***

oh, what will become of us :
time represents our confusion
that we are ever at the mercy of.

Still, we watch—with hope—and fear,
with no candles for the windows.
There is a map in the air

and birds fly over this disconnected world,
but how can the birds save us
when symbols are failing to be truth—
 
               ***

symbols—failing to be truth—
yet we watch, with hope and fear.
Time represents our confusion :

how can the birds save us?
There is a map in the air,
but no candles for the windows.

We are ever ‘at-the-mercy-of’ . . .
and birds fly over this disconnected world.
What will become of us?

 

 

 

A Soundless Poem

 

COMPLEXITY
After Threading Light, 1942 by Mark Tobey

I, being abstract of expression, come to you with
riddles—complicate the darkness with the light—
talk of a distant year and place—run my thoughts

over language and beg you listen to the hum and
flow of words that skim the surface—like gull
to sea then back to sky, but all in white.  I ask you

for detail, to close your eyes and see, describe, define,
reclaim from blank space all that you remember of
nothing.  Out of my vagueness I plagiarize the light,

threading it…threading it…threading it…while you
watch—while I create patterns of thought and silence
between us, the way you do when you look at me.


(prev. pub. in Mobius, 2003)

___________________

The patio tree

The
small
patient tree
grows
up
through
the narrow openness
of the lattice work
wending its way
up
and
through—
its
trunk
growing
sturdy—
its leaves
taking in the light and
fluttering in old happiness.

 

 

 

Something Is Quieter Now

 

PACING

While you are dying, I do a dance of mercy.  It is slow;
it is a dance that barely moves.  I hold myself in the cold
waiting.  I beat my thighs.  I curse you, for you are cruel.
           
While you are dying, I think up a silence to share.
It is not what you want.  I think up an answer for you.
It is not what you want.
           
While you are dying, I tie a rope around our house.
We are bound by its meaning.  The house slips through,
shudders the rope loose, as if it were a noose.
                                                            

(prev. pub in ZamBomba, 2002)

 

 

 

Somewhere Near Or Far

 

 

 

A SHADOW PASSES

What I have never seen flaps like a small blue bird
across my windowpane. I feel its shadow pass in af-
termath of color, a streak I felt at the corner of my eye,
my window startled by it—how did I really know it
was there.  It was falling, too amazed to catch itself,
I heard its shadow hit the ground, and I would not look
—thus am I saddened by loss that was never mine.
How can I bear this?

 

 

 

Mercy

 

PIT FALLS

Mercy, Child, don't you know there are dangers
in all sheer distances no matter how lovely
the illusion—fog,
for example,  
and mist
on some famous moor,
and the mirage of light ahead of you
on long roads of imagination,
centers and edges
all roiling with curiosity's
cold allure, how one
can just enter
and disappear and their voices haunt back forever . . .  

 

 

 

The Urgent Poem Is Written

 

THE PRIVACY

The imaginary man of this poem is reading
in a far blue room, one window
showing through another blue window.

It is a soundless poem, being written
for the truth of this lie,
the man all but lost
in the dimension of the house
which is sinking into the landscape
now that we are aware of him.

He feels our presence
but wants to
write us
out of
the poem,
though we are
connected now.
It is the way of us—
ever lonely for what we push away.

The scenery enlarges, making the house
smaller and the man indistinguishable now . . .
how did we end up here on this scribbling page
to discover these meanings?

The roof goes white against the sky.
The blue drenched windows create a private sea of
the same color, holding the house from the horizon.
The earth becomes so much wet sand, and the quiet
grows quieter now that the urgent poem is written.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SMALL DIRGE
—Joyce Odam

be black night
no stars

cloud cover
low and deep

cross my windows
cross my sleep

____________________

Tuesday-morning thanks to Joyce Odam for writing to us about Small Mercies, our Seed of the Week! Joyce always presents different angles to the same subject—a skill that is very helpful to a poet.

Our new Seed of the Week is “The Launch”. Leaving the nest? Leaving home? Leaving school? Leaving the earth? 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.

For more about Mark Tobey’s book, Threading Light, go to www.amazon.com/Mark-Tobey-Debra-Bricker-Balken/dp/0847859045/ref=asc_df_0847859045?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80608001419667&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584207577686361&psc=1/.

____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 “Some wet bird lets a cry cut through.”
—Public Domain Photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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