Tender Moments

 

Wherever I Search

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam,

Sacramento, CA

THE CAPTURED MOMENT
After “Kleichen with Man”, Café Lehmitz, 

Hamburg, 1970
—Painting Series by Anders Petersen

The silent piano
in the background,

the smoke in the air,
the gray winter light,

and as if they dance
just to hold each other—

there is no music—
the bored man standing

by the closed piano watches,
and the man at the bar

sits with his back turned
and takes no notice of them—

swaying there—
still holding on to each other,

clumsy, but sincere :
never let go.     Never let go.

There is only now.
And that was forty years ago.

 

 

 

Pastel

 

OLD DIVA
After Orange Soprano by Otto Mjaanes

Her voice is gone. Her slow eyes search the room
for some old admirer, one who still calls her Diva,
tips his glass and mouths endearments.

This she believes and counts on. Music fills the
background—subdued and polite—the musicians
careful not to play something she was famous for,

to let her presence still amaze, but demand
nothing beyond the legend of her fame. Even so,
she floats through the indifferent room with a

particular air of disdain, faltering slightly before the
hallway mirror that observes her with a commiserate,
—but still flattering—returning look of sympathy.

__________________

POET OF ALL THE TENDER THINGS
THERE ARE TO HARM

The young lover of life
is more than I can suffer.
He is so passionate of all the loves
his heart can conjure.
Poet of all the tender things
there are to harm.
Gentle as gentleness
would have him be.

How can I tell him, Listen,
there is
the cruelty
and the losing
and the never becoming what you need to be;
there is the failure
and the hate to be a part of;
there is the settling for something less . . . !
when he looks at me with tangible love
and says, Yes, I know . . .
but not awhile yet . . .

Oh young imbecile,
whom I love as a sort of miracle
and dare not yet believe—
write yourself that way then.
I hope life believes you.

                                              
(prev. pub. in Nickel Review, 1970)

 

 

 

 Without Anger

THE PAIN OF DANCE

now I, old mermaid in the stages of my dance
look for the mortal whom I loved
when my hair was green
and he was shore to my lament

I submitted
to the spell that gave me legs
vowing yes
I loved enough for pain

and so, I danced till I grew old
(like this)
my legs as used to agony as I to love

I do not care for sea-sound now
or watch the limp of late birds
through the air

I make my bones obey
I dance before the mirror
while the other scarves and costumes
float around me like true smiles

I dance before the mirror
dressed in green
gold cymbals on my fingers
never thinking past the music now
for what it means

__________________

TO MEADOWLARKS, EVERYWHERE

oh, bird
oh, hidden bird
this summer night

I listen for you
with the painful joy of
lost and wanted happiness

I listen for you
with such a listening
it almost hurts

to feel what I feel
at the fullness of your singing
oh, meadowlark

 

 

 

 The Stillness

ADMISSION

Talking into a dead phone, I apologize
to the silence, confess myself
to the listening . . .
as if through a
curtain . . . imagine a
response . . . imagine a sigh of sympathy.

_________________

PORTENT

The air is darkening,
will it rain?

The air is heavy
and has a blue sensation.

And the trees are swaying,
wetly pending, pending,

and the premonitions
are filling up with pain.

 

 

 

The Twilight Birds

 

IN THE WANING

the cloudy eloquence of sky
with its boundless whispering . . .

the somnolent winds that gentle down
into welcome breezes  . . .

the long gaze
into the changing pull of distance . . .

the sudden flight of twilight birds,
releasing around me . . . .


(prev. pub. in Song of the San Joaquin, 2019)

 

 

 

As If Ordained

 

HAPPENCHANCE

We met in a mutual memory—

stranger to each, but familiar,
one of us told the other why :

as if ordained . . . there was
a sort of sadness we shared,
tears came to our faces—

we
held
each other
in mutual sympathy.

 

 

 

 And So The Night

CANDLELIGHT AND RAIN            

Sad music filled night’s rain-charged air
and faded there—blue sound
that seemed to make
the candled-brim
of light go dim
around our mood—
unhappy—unexplained—
and then it rained—
the light flared once
and sputtered out, we wept
awhile, then slept,
all night.

_________________

SPLIT SECONDS

Each tender moment
     comes in vain to violence
          anointed by pain...

Each tender moment
     professes forgiveness
          and is hurt again...

Each tender moment
     wishes for another
          with soft voice and hands...

Each tender moment
     flaunts no tear or sadness—
          it understands...

Each tender moment
     knows nothing of the clock,
          that old tick-tock, tick-tock...

Each tender moment
     offers in kind sacrifice
          all it knows of love...

Each tender moment
     each tender moment
          each tender moment.

 

 

 

Wind Change

 

 

TRUST

Hope comes to me in the guise of a weeping maiden,
stumbling toward me, face bent into her hands,
having lost her way again,

pretending not to see me
looking at her through my compassionate mirror—
how I guide her with my eyes : this way . . . this way . . .


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2020)

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

CALL TO MIND
—Joyce Odam

Fragment only of the word I lost.
Let it return, new and unused,

like a curse not uttered,
like a prayer there was no word for,

like the gift of silence
meant for the art of listening.  

____________________

Good morning from Joyce Odam and the rest of us here in the Kitchen, as we ponder the Seed of the Week, Compassion—for others and for ourselves! Our thanks to Joyce for her fine poetry and photos today. Be sure to check each Tuesday for the week’s Seed of the Week.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Curiosity”. Is curiosity a blessing? Or did it really kill the cat? Was that the cat's fault? 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. And see every Form Fiddlers’ Friday for poetry form challenges, including those of the Ekphrastic type.

For photos from Anders Petersen’s Cafe Lehmitz series, go to http://thephotodays.org/en/anders-petersen-photos-series-cafe-lehmitz/.

____________________

—Medusa

Reaching for the Rain 

—Photo Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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