Forest of Promises

The Unknown Language Of Its Singing

—Photos and Original Art by Joyce Odam
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
 

 

BRINK OF AUGUST
—Joyce Odam

Morning’s white moon hovers in the flat blue sky
—metaphor for silence, or whatever you prefer
of personification—it is what we share here.

Two crows quarrel past the window
and take my attention, leaving a scar of sound,
an empty space of staring.

What I need now is a connection—contrast
against similarity.  I reach and find only the
fading moon and the absence of the crows.

You, whom I addressed before, are no longer
a part of this—I am watching the perfect moon
and listening for another burst of crows

—which happens even as I express this thought.
                                                 

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/2/14)

 

 

 

 Happy

IN THE PERILOUS TIMES
 —Joyce Odam

O, my little bird of tragedy—how sweetly
you sing, and how tenderly you cling,
to the golden branch of the singing tree.
And you aim for my heart, as if you were
a nightingale—and I thrill the more, for I
come from the land of sparrows and crows,
and the murmuring doves, when I wake up
in the fairy tale—and I don't know—and I  
don't care when I somehow find you there.                

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/17/22; 5/24/22) 

 

 

 

 Out Of The Darkness

YOUR THOUGHTS AS FAR
—Joyce Odam

day-dreamer of the drab
and dreary world

your day existing
in window glass

where your eyes
stray for images—

your thoughts as far
as nightingales in China

                          
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/21/24) 

 

 

 

 Songbird

SPARROWS
—Robin Gale Odam

The journey to the edge of the water—
now the small boat, the churn of the river,

the pull of the current choking in the tangle
of roots—the choke of the river in the roots,
the rush of the sparrows—

wrap the blue sweater tightly—the fugue of
sorrow surrenders in the red mist of morning.

 
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/20/23; 11/5/24) 

 

 

 

 And These Night Birds

THE NIGHT BIRD THAT IS UNREAL
—Joyce Odam

The night bird that is unreal
will cry and cry
because of its unreality.

Around me the night aches with
silences.
A train pours through
on its vibrations.

The night bird has vanished
like a thought.
I almost had him memorized.

A new train comes through now
on reality’s sound.
It is the ghost of the other.
My old house sleeps.

I am on the train
leaning against my window-image,
looking out into
the passing of dark houses,
a fare-well light left on
in one window.

                                
(prev. pub. in Steelhead Special #23, 1995;
Nocturnes—Chapbook by Joyce Odam, 1995,
Frith Press; and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/24/22)

 

 

 

Dire

 

for the faint of heart
now the garden gate is locked
silver to the troll

    —Robin Gale Odam

                     
(prev. pub. in Brevities, January 2020;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/5/24)

 

 

 

 Of Mind

ANNA IN THE PUNISHMENT CHAIR
—Joyce Odam

Anna sits still on the punishment chair—
the swallowing world behind her—
and the afternoon-shadowed space of the floor

dropping away as her thoughts pull her in
to some distant, created world of her own.
Her punishment doll in the corner does the same;

its open eyes hold the same vacant look
of disappearance. The mother is nowhere.
The patient day grows thin—changes color—

and takes all sound away. Anna does not move.
She is in herself. The floor goes deep beneath
her dangling feet. The doll is in danger of

falling through. But Anna dare not make a move   
    lest
the spell she has made drop them both with a 

    cry so
mute that no one in the admonishing absence of
    the room

or in the fading map of the swallowing world
    will hear.

 

 

 

 At The Shadow’s Door

FOREBEARANCE
—Joyce Odam

when she lay in the flickering sunshine,
when she lay in the rain,
when she lay in the years
that held her,
motionless—
held her
forgotten,
against her will—
when she lay there
unimportant—
without fame,
and she became
the silent shadow
under the rustle of leaves
of the ancient tree
that sheltered her, all these years . . .


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/3/20; 5/21/24)

 

 

 

 Where Has Everything Gone?

WHO IS BREAKING IN ME
—Joyce Odam

Which of my sullen selves is in danger now;
    which one
will sleep while another cavorts and creates
    madness?

I am the Many-One; waves of minds wash over
    me, pull
me in and under, thrust me out and away.

I am Sea, and Sea-Child, with a soul of water; I
    smash
myself against breaking land.

I pray myself alive. I consult dreams and dreams of
dreams. My center self is at risk. Who will
    believe me?

                                                                  
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/14/19; 7/16/24) 

 

 

 

 The Fool’s Errand

TIME PASSING
—Joyce Odam

Life is an art of patience, like this old man
sitting on a porch chair as frame after frame
of time-film catches his non-movement.

But a closer look will show
how much higher the weed grass is,
in the last frame from the first.

See how faded his clothing has become,
how first he stares in one direction
then another.

Note that he crosses and uncrosses his leg
and how the subtle house in the background
has settled into disrepair around him.         

                                                   
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/2/18; 5/21/24)

 

 

 

 Time To Go

THE DREAMING
—Robin Gale Odam

1.
the mirror, there personified by her
questioning eyes—further and farther,
and thus and such, every morning the
wind would toss the branches

2.
every morning the wind would toss the
branches for the little birds—and she
would try to weep but the tears were in
the wind and in the pages of her books,
and in the mane of the blue horse

3.
and in the mane of the blue horse, now
stepping with measured steps in the gray
morning, its hooves pressing fine imprints
along the pathway to the waters, and in the
shades of the forest of promises

4.
and in the shades of the forest of promises,
all reflecting back, the dreaming images
of her eyes moistened by the early dew
and the sifting of the evening rains

5.
and the sifting of the evening rains
will be taken up and written into her
stanza of despair, and for the want of tears

                                    
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/30/23) 

 

 

 

 The Influence of Blue

Today’s LittleNip:

SHADES OF BLUE
—Joyce Odam

Let it all become
some other
shade
of blue,
This night
has dreams
too complex to be true,
This night has a need
of something I pursue—
something I thought I knew.
The blue was you.
                        

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/17/22)

____________________

Our thanks to the Odam Poets, Joyce and Robin Gale, for their fine work today, interpreting Vacation as “some elements of sliding away”—complete with many birds, those consummate travelers.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Ambrosia”. 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.

Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week.

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Intrepid travelers of the animal kingdom~
—Public Domain Illustration Courtesy of Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that
Angela Drew and Valentina Zeff
will read in Modesto tonight, 7pm.
For info about this and other
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