Taking Care

Oak Leaves

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

TAKE CARE

—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

“Take care,” you said.
So I took Care
with me all day,
all through the traffic
and the offices,
all through the
mind-wanderings
and aggravations.
I took Care
everywhere
like a charm
and everywhere I went
I was safe
because of your blessing.

(First published in My Legacy, Nov. 1991)

_____________________
 

The Winter 10 Issue of CONVERGENCE is online!

Look for work by Janet Shell Anderson, Myles Boisen, Marlene Burns, Josh Chesney, Tim Keane, Claudia Lamar, Sophia Pandeya, Peycho Kanev, Wendy Rivara, Allyson Seconds, and Jasmine Dreame Wagner in the Winter 2010 issue: www.convergence-journal.com/winter10

In addition, Editors' Choice pages and photos throughout the website are updated monthly, so stop by often; a link to both Convergence and its Editors' Choice is permanently posted on Medusa's bulletin board.  The site currently features new work by poet Catherine Fraga (on Linville's page) and photographers Myles Boisen, Allyson Seconds, Brent Wiggans, Baxter Jackson, Lynn Crouse, and artist Francis Raven.

_____________________

THE CLAMS
—Joyce Odam

“Do you think the clams
have diamonds in them?”

“Of course.
These are clams
brought from the river at night
when the wind came and
would not let us stay.

We shall unfold them later.
We are not yet poor enough."

                         
(From Frog Perspective, Mini-Chap by Joyce Odam)

______________________

DISCERNMENT
—Joyce Odam

(Based on Discernment, Mixed Media by Mary Burke King)

Whatever speaks. Whatever listens.
The blessing between.
Extended. Received.

There is a moment.
Reached.
Closed eyes open.

Mute voice finds word.
Gesture means.
A frail stillness is what is.

So is motion. One builds on the other.
Becomes.
Call this power.

Look through the presence you call ghost
as it flows through you.
Now you are one.

Even here, separation
will exist.
The longing toward the unobtainable.

______________________

POOR MIDAS
—Joyce Odam

I am gold. Midas has praised me.
He wanted me held to his eye.
I posed and he touched me.

He tried to hold me. I was only gold.
His eye has gotten enough of me.
To no avail—I am what he favored,
forever of this value, but he is not happy.

He weeps and he cannot wipe his tears.
They are too heavy for his sadness,
but he keeps on weeping. Poor Midas,
hating me now for his weeping.
How can I melt myself to console him?

(First Published in Whole Notes)

________________________

GRATITUDE
—Joyce Odam

I belong to you now,
you with your kindness,
saving my worthless life,

pulling me from the edge
to show me level ground—
no dreamless fall.

How can I thank you—
with my love?
Okay then,

with my love.
I will surround,
immerse,

and measure you in love.
How will you
ever be able to be rid of me?

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

IMAGE
—Joyce Odam

These trees, upside-down in a

tremble of water—drowning sky—

what has happened to this world.

______________________

—Medusa

P.S. Our Seed of the Week is Shop 'Til You Drop, by the way. What's your take on all this holiday shopping nonsense? Annoyed? Thrilled? Disgusted? Heart-warmed? Send your SOWs to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs that are not give-aways.

Palms behind Joyce Odam's house

Photo by Katy Brown