Black Eyes
—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento
First I dance with you.
And then I dance alone.
Then I dance with the man,
and then
another man.
Then I dance with the woman.
And then I dance
with the other two women together
as we whirl the child.
Then I dance alone again;
I dance
with the dying moon;
I dance
with the whirling ground
and with the spinning trees.
Then I dance with
the men, and the men, and the men
who dance me again
until I fall. And the moon falls
with me. And the trees
dance on with the shadows.
___________________
SNOW WALTZ
—Joyce Odam
They are the perfect followers
of each other. It is a waltz.
Outside it is snowing.
They leave the doors open.
They praise the music
for its permission.
Even their cats
share an old preferred opinion.
They whirl and catch
smug glances of themselves
in the heavy mirror
with its gold veins.
And never are they breathless.
Winter has a long way to go.
Their cats waltz with moths
in dreams of their own.
____________________
AROUND ME THE LIGHT EXPANDS
—Joyce Odam
Around me the light expands,
a rainbow of dream—
a nebula of creation—
my own thought.
The walls hold it in—
suffocate it—
let it splay and recreate
into spreading pattern:
blue upon gray, roseate yellow,
softening like a bruise;
and now the travel of dark,
wiping the corners, flattening away.
A whirling sun of energy
hangs in the room like a daze—
my hypnotized eye, staring into my
centermost self—stunned at the power.
____________________
THE VERY SOFTEST OF RAINFALL
—Joyce Odam
The very softest of rain-fall.
One of the last mornings of winter.
The waters of the world rise in the night
and drought danger lessens.
The streetlight shines through the green curtain.
It is the quietest hour.
It is the insomniac hour, the reading hour,
when solitude is possible.
A swift sadness plucks at everything.
Vague body-aches assert themselves.
The disorderly room is heavy with obligations.
The clock is crowding the peacefulness away.
Preference and ambition are not in tune.
Music is not the answer.
Sleep is the only way back, sleep which returns
when everything becomes too much.
I drift back into the very softest of rain-fall.
One of the last mornings of winter.
____________________
Today's LittleNip:
KERFUFFLE CINQUAIN
—Joyce Odam
My mind
is kerfuffled—
in rebellion, in blame—
a ruffle of consternation.
Oh, Woe.
____________________
—Medusa
Poker
—Photo by Katy Brown