Woodcut by Franklin Booth, 1925
THE REMEMBERING WIND
—D.R. Wagner
Spring to Summer, Summer
The vernal pools with their white birds
Gathered at the edges. The gold
On the rocks. That oak tells
Everything it knows. This is
The remembering wind. This
Is its time. We will see it so
Seldom we will try to touch
Its tall choirs swirled with clover
Fields and flowers of a thousand colors.
We catch at its fine strings, shaking
Ourselves to believe. This is the
Remembering wind. It glistens
Like jewel stone glistens. We are
Learning to speak once again.
The tall ships move into our
Language, their sails full of
The Remembering wind.
It is morning.
__________________
—D.R. Wagner
Spring to Summer, Summer
The vernal pools with their white birds
Gathered at the edges. The gold
On the rocks. That oak tells
Everything it knows. This is
The remembering wind. This
Is its time. We will see it so
Seldom we will try to touch
Its tall choirs swirled with clover
Fields and flowers of a thousand colors.
We catch at its fine strings, shaking
Ourselves to believe. This is the
Remembering wind. It glistens
Like jewel stone glistens. We are
Learning to speak once again.
The tall ships move into our
Language, their sails full of
The Remembering wind.
It is morning.
__________________
Call me Ishmael, The Wanderer. My physical traveling days, not so much now, but I still suffer (like most poets) from RHS: Restless Heart Syndrome—always on the lookout for something more. Is that a good thing or a bad thing—or does it just go with the territory? Tell us about RHS for our Seed of the Week. Send your wanderings to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs.
Meanwhile, thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's poems, including his chilling "The Vanishing". D.R. writes a lot about water and the wind—maybe because they are restless, too...
__________________
THE VANISHING
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove
It began with the wind.
It always is the wind.
It is that voice that moves
Through our clothing and over
Our skin as if it has always
Known us intimately. We are
Without defenses. We wait for it.
Then the light. God, the light.
How does it do that across the
Landscape and into form even
As we look toward anything?
It just kept getting brighter
Every second until we could no
Longer see. We were part of light
At last, moving in waves within
Each other, permeable in ways
We did not understand. It was
Here that everything vanished, Everything
Vanished. Everything. We could hear
The larger animals and the insect voices,
The music of the spheres and the
Celebrations of a million children
All drawn here to watch it all
Go away. We should be as blind,
We should have known this would happen.
We would think it a spectacular part
Of life, but it was a vanishing,
Complete and surprising, unexpected
As millions of gallons of crude
Oil erupting from the sea floor,
Covering all of a large gulf of
Water with vanished life.
_________________
PRIVATE DANCES
—D.R. Wagner
Now this wind was an old one,
Gray and wandering almost
Aimlessly, disturbed at the alley,
Unwilling to find its way down there,
Barely moving the paper littered
On the ground. And that voice...
I’ve heard better sound on the desert,
On the sand dunes where the marks
Of bitter winds show their pictures,
Show their stories with fabled
Hands and private dances
Owned by the night and the hare
And the coyote and the soft-footed lizard.
Still, we will listen to it. It is all
We have now and we are no longer
Ourselves young. We pull our coats
Closer to our throats pretending
It is cold or relentless. It is only
Old and finally we must climb
The trees, discover where it
Has come to dwell in the high branches.
__________________
NORTHERN LIGHTS
—D.R. Wagner
You can’t just throw it away. It’s
Not like a morning on the water in the
West Indies, the glide of white and gray
Gulls across the small harbor, the air
Easy on the skin, a perfection of clear
Water. It is more like the night
Sky trying to hold all those stars,
Keep them in the right order and still
Convey the information of constellations,
Ancient stories and ships sharing the
Points of light to get from one place
To another. I will forget my way
Home eventually. Tracks in the snow, some
Kind of animal. Endless white
Plains. Fumbling through it looking
For a campfire, remembering a conversation
Not realizing the importance of it all,
Until the Northern Lights start up
Totally unannounced.
_________________
JULES ET JIM
—D.R. Wagner
Todd found the word near
The edge of the water. It was small.
Not more than a few syllables, hardly
Full of portent or deep meaning.
It was however a significant word.
What portent it had, it held delicately as
If in a handkerchief. It seemed to have
Suffered from too much time alone.
We stood admiring it, trying
It upon our tongues, finding sentences
Where it might open itself, exercise
Its postures and explanations.
We are in love completely, without
Knowing quite shy, but without question.
Just as quickly, it began to change.
There was nothing we could do.
We made promises to each other.
We thought perhaps we should
Never know another such word.
Words such as this are rare.
We provide them audience.
We swear we will never forget them.
We part from them realizing mystery.
*
Years later we see it again,
Rolling through a conversation,
Waltzes and gallops providing.
We realize we are still bound to it.
We attempt to find the old intimacy,
But it seems something other now,
As youth changes itself from
Year to year, to mean differently.
Once again we believe we are in love.
Once again we stand near the edge
Of the water, trying the same
Syllables in our mouths.
“I’m not sure,” Todd says.
“I think it might have been
A place...or something else.
Perhaps we could learn to say it again.”
*
We drove up the road using it,
Believing we would once more
Understand the word as we once had.
Without meaning at all it suddenly sank beneath
The water very delicately, so quickly neither
One of use could remember it precisely.
We did not expect this to happen.
As with all words we realized only one
Word would be faithful to us at a time.
Morning would still come. We would still speak
To one another using it. We would recall everything.
Now, when we speak it, the slightest
Conversation is full of portent, as if
The word has at last found us. It is like
Feeling our bones being ground to powder,
Like the sound of dry leaves skidding away.
The water hiding its true identity from us
Forever, even as we struggle to explain ourselves.
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
The wind, one brilliant day, called...
—Antonio Machado
__________________
—Medusa
Meanwhile, thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's poems, including his chilling "The Vanishing". D.R. writes a lot about water and the wind—maybe because they are restless, too...
__________________
THE VANISHING
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove
It began with the wind.
It always is the wind.
It is that voice that moves
Through our clothing and over
Our skin as if it has always
Known us intimately. We are
Without defenses. We wait for it.
Then the light. God, the light.
How does it do that across the
Landscape and into form even
As we look toward anything?
It just kept getting brighter
Every second until we could no
Longer see. We were part of light
At last, moving in waves within
Each other, permeable in ways
We did not understand. It was
Here that everything vanished, Everything
Vanished. Everything. We could hear
The larger animals and the insect voices,
The music of the spheres and the
Celebrations of a million children
All drawn here to watch it all
Go away. We should be as blind,
We should have known this would happen.
We would think it a spectacular part
Of life, but it was a vanishing,
Complete and surprising, unexpected
As millions of gallons of crude
Oil erupting from the sea floor,
Covering all of a large gulf of
Water with vanished life.
_________________
PRIVATE DANCES
—D.R. Wagner
Now this wind was an old one,
Gray and wandering almost
Aimlessly, disturbed at the alley,
Unwilling to find its way down there,
Barely moving the paper littered
On the ground. And that voice...
I’ve heard better sound on the desert,
On the sand dunes where the marks
Of bitter winds show their pictures,
Show their stories with fabled
Hands and private dances
Owned by the night and the hare
And the coyote and the soft-footed lizard.
Still, we will listen to it. It is all
We have now and we are no longer
Ourselves young. We pull our coats
Closer to our throats pretending
It is cold or relentless. It is only
Old and finally we must climb
The trees, discover where it
Has come to dwell in the high branches.
__________________
NORTHERN LIGHTS
—D.R. Wagner
You can’t just throw it away. It’s
Not like a morning on the water in the
West Indies, the glide of white and gray
Gulls across the small harbor, the air
Easy on the skin, a perfection of clear
Water. It is more like the night
Sky trying to hold all those stars,
Keep them in the right order and still
Convey the information of constellations,
Ancient stories and ships sharing the
Points of light to get from one place
To another. I will forget my way
Home eventually. Tracks in the snow, some
Kind of animal. Endless white
Plains. Fumbling through it looking
For a campfire, remembering a conversation
Not realizing the importance of it all,
Until the Northern Lights start up
Totally unannounced.
_________________
JULES ET JIM
—D.R. Wagner
Todd found the word near
The edge of the water. It was small.
Not more than a few syllables, hardly
Full of portent or deep meaning.
It was however a significant word.
What portent it had, it held delicately as
If in a handkerchief. It seemed to have
Suffered from too much time alone.
We stood admiring it, trying
It upon our tongues, finding sentences
Where it might open itself, exercise
Its postures and explanations.
We are in love completely, without
Knowing quite shy, but without question.
Just as quickly, it began to change.
There was nothing we could do.
We made promises to each other.
We thought perhaps we should
Never know another such word.
Words such as this are rare.
We provide them audience.
We swear we will never forget them.
We part from them realizing mystery.
*
Years later we see it again,
Rolling through a conversation,
Waltzes and gallops providing.
We realize we are still bound to it.
We attempt to find the old intimacy,
But it seems something other now,
As youth changes itself from
Year to year, to mean differently.
Once again we believe we are in love.
Once again we stand near the edge
Of the water, trying the same
Syllables in our mouths.
“I’m not sure,” Todd says.
“I think it might have been
A place...or something else.
Perhaps we could learn to say it again.”
*
We drove up the road using it,
Believing we would once more
Understand the word as we once had.
Without meaning at all it suddenly sank beneath
The water very delicately, so quickly neither
One of use could remember it precisely.
We did not expect this to happen.
As with all words we realized only one
Word would be faithful to us at a time.
Morning would still come. We would still speak
To one another using it. We would recall everything.
Now, when we speak it, the slightest
Conversation is full of portent, as if
The word has at last found us. It is like
Feeling our bones being ground to powder,
Like the sound of dry leaves skidding away.
The water hiding its true identity from us
Forever, even as we struggle to explain ourselves.
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
The wind, one brilliant day, called...
—Antonio Machado
__________________
—Medusa
The Garden
Joan Miró