Photo by Joyce Odam
bright as faith… quiet at last…
informed at last… the way
already paved and trod…
I’ll not inflict a rhyme
on that, too trite,
too easy:
the day, the way,
no sound that trembled
with your listening,
your quiet breathing
as you listened
to your thoughts.
All this I say to you,
to me, to any in the reach:
oh beautiful… oh perfect morning…!
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento
_____________________
LOVE PLANTING MOONLIGHT
IN THE SNOW
—Joyce Odam
cold moment ringing over us
like stars singing down to us:
be cruel, be cruel, as we are . . .
be kind, be kind, as nothing is . . .
oh, we are so judged and wanting
and the darkness is so slow
how can we but praise
love, planting moonlight
in the snow
_____________________
GLACIAL
(based on "Moving Mountains—The glacial Erratics"
CD Jacket Cover)
—Joyce Odam
Where all things
allow perfection—
however lame.
All is healed by deprivation,
which is to say, the sky, the snow.
Only the black crow
can glow with purity against
the apparition of the vertical guitar.
Music is in the mind. The sky is clear.
The snow is deep and nothing moves
but these words.
What makes the dream allow such things?
Whose mind makes all this visible?
What skill of power—older than belief?
_____________________
IN THE SNOW
—Joyce Odam
Mother and I are going for a walk.
Mother and I are standing in the snow.
Mother doesn’t really want to talk.
Mother doesn’t know which way to go.
____________________
THE RELIGION OF SNOW
“Through regions of snow.”
—Stephen Crane
—Joyce Odam
I have gone
through white winters,
calling out my loss and my questions.
Nothing answered
but the shadows of gulls
transparent on the walls of my searching.
I felt their cries
as my own. Ah, then, I am
not alone. I said, though it was snowing.
_____________________
SNOW DREAM
(based on "Banlieue sous la neige" by
Maurice de Vlaminck)
—Joyce Odam
Some lonely place as far away as snow,
long roads of travel, and longer ways to go.
Roof tops that slope, and skies that never end.
a murky figure that must ever wend and wend
across the reaches—back and forth it seems,
trying to find an exit from such dreams.
The day won’t open. Night has lost its clue.
At times like this, there’s nothing more to do
but grope toward the nothing that is there.
Only thoughts can reach. There’s silence everywhere.
If you are lost here, what else can be found,
but hope, if hope is willing to turn the dream around
and walk into a mirror made of light.
and find a way through all this blinding white
_____________________
Today's LittleNip:
BLUE SNOW
—Joyce Odam
snow under moonlight,
blue as ache
blue as longing
blue as cold fire
becoming slow translucence,
becoming blue sheen of silence
_____________________
—Medusa
Sam and I both need a new pair of shoes. As we trudge toward the new year, we all need new shoes, either metaphorically or literally. So that's our Seed of the Week: New Shoes. Tell us about the ones you got as a kid, or the ones you wore out, or the ones that didn't fit right—or go for the metaphor: tools you need to get you where you want/need to go. Send your SOWs to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadline on SOWs. Note: the Rattlesnake P.O. Box 762 in Pollock Pines is no longer functional. From now on, email your goodies.
Photo by Joyce Odam
