Dirge
—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
AUGUST BLUES
dead house blues
in the dead of summer
a wail in the distance smell of fire
façade of love in the linger of a face
no place to sing or dance
but the mirror
you smile at that
and open the house
to whatever breeze might want to enter
and you listen
for any sound that threatens
and the night birds sing delirium
__________________
THOUGHTS FROM THE SEVENTH
DAY OF AUGUST
This I have done:
stared at the sun too long.
Thought the wind in my hair
was mine.
Ached
to be bird.
Welcomed and given the pain
of love.
Looked through the golden eyes
of the summer lion.
Turned into leaves
soon after.
Belonged to nature
as no human should.
Walked through the souls
of the dead.
Worshipped
weeds and flowers.
Practiced the sorcery
of thought.
Knocked
wood.
Destroyed myself
with seven sins.
Danced in the arms
of a shadow.
Disparity
HOT SUMMER VS. YOUNG MAPLE
What do I see of the red-leafed tree
but curling leaves as it grieves and grieves
in the summer sun—turning every leaf
to a tiny fist that cannot resist—
so they hang there dead,
red and red and red,
while the base of the tree
struggles on
with a tiny clutch
of soft red leaves
I can barely see.
_________________
THE AUGUST TREES
After The Trees by André Derain, 1906
The trees seem to dance in summer glade
as though wishing to end
the season of leaves.
The trees and the shadows
conspire to make motion:
Motion and stillness. Shadow and light.
An every-which-way of trees—
dancing with their branches,
with their shadows,
while hanging into the ground
that hangs onto them—
these trees that are painted for their dance.
I see them thusly—flung and graceful—
in winds I cannot see—in contortions of my
imagination, because I want the trees to dance.
Choral
THE AUGUST CALENDAR
(from the photosynthesis photography
of Jerry Uelsmann)
here in the room of gray water—
those sea-shadows,
wall shadows,
here where the boat rocks
gently on the floor
and the clouds float softly
on the ceiling
and someone you love
is walking away—
or maybe it is yourself
and you look to see
and the sky turns to night
and the walls move closer
and the boat with its one oar
is unseaworthy and abandoned
and you must swim for your life
before the room fills
with the tide of morning
Choral
BETWEEN
Tag-end of summer, with its wilt and drag.
Then rain. Soft. Brief. With its relief to see
the sky fill with clouds, a few inland gulls—
sense the renewal of energy—sweet.
Then back to summer, with its wilt and drag.
___________________
I DREAM OF RAIN
There is a glass of rain
at your elbow. I have saved it
for you. All night. Under the rain.
Holding the glass out in your name.
Now you lie under such a
great weeping your face drowns
and your eyes cannot stop.
What is the matter with you?
Now you lie quiet. You are
your own dream at last. The glass
of rain knows you will reach for it.
You are its thirst.
I lie beside you on a small, narrow bed.
We are far away from each other.
As if in different times. I sleep.
You lie awake. I dream of rain.
Dulcet
A ROOM FILLED WITH RAIN
In a room filled with rain the windows are bleared
where the wind can’t follow. The curtains make no
movement. The bed is smoothed and the mirror is
dark, without a reflection. The room is filled with
rain and it is not a weeping, it is a soft warm rain.
The walls stream with rain-light and are pulled
back to a feeling of lost dimension. The floor be-
comes a soft mud. In an old wet picture on a wall,
two staring people are looking back into the room,
for the room is filled with such an archaic perfection
they long to return to it.
Evensong
RAIN-SWELL
I may be the dream. In this light
I think I am inside of curtains, lost.
I feel as flimsy as the breeze
caught in white threads.
All my effort grieves to be remembered.
If I try I might be pulled
through windows full of night.
I have thought of rain in times like this,
soft-falling, warm from summer,
streaming upon my shadow, which is old,
which is frail and broken, which is long
as any longest hour held to life.
(first pub. in Voices International, l989)
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
RAIN LIMERICK
—Joyce Odam
when the force of the rain fills the night
and the streets turn to rivers of light
and the path of the cars
makes a splash through the stars
and the moon turns to shards, over-bright
______________________
Many thanks to Joyce Odam today for her thoughts about summer and rain and summer rain, our Seed of the Week. Our new Seed of the Week is the opposite of summer rain: Parched. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.
For more about the photosynthesis photography of Jerry Uelsmann, see www.uelsmann.net/.
—Medusa
The Trees
—Painting by André Derain
www.wikiart.org/en/andre-derain/the-trees
www.wikiart.org/en/andre-derain/the-trees
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