Monday, November 30, 2015

Undoing the Dark

Borage Officinalis
—Anonymous Photo



UP EARLY
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

I made the mistake of closing my
drapes at bedtime. I shut out

the full moon light, its imagination
wild-lovely as creatures of all outdoors
learning to howl moon-high.

My dreams grew
upside-down, leaves rooted
in cement. And worse, I dreamed
the dreams were true.

At 5:30 a.m. my dog saved me,
pushing her cold nose against my face
waking me to moonlit

earth. Trees rustled to meet dawn,
a dance undoing dark, loosing it to color.

______________________

SHADOWS
—Taylor Graham

A puzzle you had me solve—such a gift to give—
jigsaw pieces fit together to a song of praise,
light-dark fragments revealing sun on grass with
a split-rail shadow across rutty dirt road; the
three horses grazing in a field under immense
sky, its cloud-shadows; a stringer of oaks, and
unbridged creek. Puzzling almost as peaceful
as silence. Earth spirits with the winds’ sigh.


(a Golden Shovel poem on Anne Porter’s “A List of Praises”)



 Star of India Seed
—Anonymous Photo


YELLOW POST-ITS
—Charles Mariano, Sacramento

what’s interesting
to me
when writing
about a particular topic
is how something else
totally unrelated
pops up
in the middle
of frantic scribbling
and i think,

here,
there’s a story here too

so i jot side notes
on a post-it
just in case

of course
there can’t be
a story
in everything
that’s just crazy

but that’s how it feels
rambling, tingling, everything

then again
this line
here
feels like…

another story

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Before the sun goes down

I'll lay my wildflower hand
in your hand's white wicker basket

and bold—tender—shy I'll encircle you
as day and night would encircle
the trees of the day and night

and my kisses will live like birds on your shoulder


 —Astrid Hjertenaes Andersen (trans. from the Norwegian by Nadia Christensen)

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's fine contributors, including our shy photographer. For more info about the Golden Shovel poetic form, see www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/golden-shovel-poetic-form or ivyrun.com/golden-shovel-poems



Tomatillo
—Anonymous Photo