Commisseration

Where, Here

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

DECORUM

Two girls, identical as twins—but years apart by
one or two—sit posed alike and dressed the same:

long skirts and sleeves and pleated bodices—
hair pulled back tight and center-parted. They

sit up straight, demure, to show how well-behaved,
obedient and promising conformity to what society’s

norm expects of them. They almost smile to keep
the look their mother wants. You’ll note they

do not twitch, or blink, or breathe—but hold that
look to yours—a century later. You hope they fled

the pose at last, to squeal and giggle out the door
to play and rumple their dresses and muss their hair.

__________________

THE SEPARATED TWINS
After Antoon van Welie, Princesses of the Legend, 1899

Two sisters
merge into only child

each protective of the other
though they are jealous.

Each is given
the same identity.

A truthful mirror
stands between them

one to each side
of its imaging.

When they look in,
they are each other.

This comforts them.
Their eyes make claim.

They become one.

 Refuge

ALONE NOW
“There is a community of the spirit. / Join it, and feel the 
delight / of walking in the noisy street, / and being the noise.”       
                                                                    —Rumi

How infinite the consequence—how true—
how far the drift—alone in white surroundings
with your thoughts and view—so limitless
and without sound, and without shore;
where are the birds . . .
where is the sky . . .
and where
all that you thought you wanted—
all that you thought you knew . . . ?
                       ~
It is like coming out of a spiral
     changed and
         erased of
            all damage—
                 making
                    one step forward
                    into a vast whiteness.
                 No memories
               impede,
            you are the one
          made
       of particles,
     as if you have yet to
    become real.          
   You are looking for
    the other—
      the one you have
        dreamed,
          the one you love
             without knowing love,
               the one you need for a mirror.

 A Complexity

COMMISERATIONS

I’ve got to be able to not die from this. All the mercies
follow, bearing brimming vials of tears. Their hands

tremble. The mercies falter in their wailing gowns,
knowing how desolate I am. They have hidden all

my mirrors. We have never solved the sorrow, its dull
reflection. The trail is dark with blood. It is old blood.

Other tracks smear over it. The old grief brings us here,
reflected in this grove of mirror-trees, shimmering and

shattering around us with their weeping. What county
of horror is this? Grief was never this far. My feet bleed.

The mercies sacrifice into shadows where they blend
and become each other. Their commiserate patience

consoles me. It is such a long way through the promises.
I enter the shadows.

 Disenfranchised

POVERTY
After Street Art by ana9112, Brussels, Belgium

Cowering now, wings folded, she waits for the
next need to move her toward night or toward
morning in the crevice of the hallway
of the white stone building
of one more desperation;
she shivers from the
feelings she
has found 
as if one more
unworthy love
has found her in
a moment of doubt
and transpired her from
the myths of herself to
the new reality. Now she
is left on a cold staircase
with a dream that will not waken.
The old shadow has pulled away
and left her timeless. She hugs herself
and waits, but something has forsaken her.
Maybe it will come to her before the need
is beyond redemption.

__________________

SOMETIMES THE CALL IS FAINT

and from a distance unrecalled,
the first warning,
a pleasing thought that tried to hide.

But the call was there,
sifting between the silence like dust.
I strained to hear it.

It had words, muffled and tender.
It had urgency,
and made a promise too thin to hear.

Had I time enough I would have followed
the first echo. I counted on the loyalty
of love that was as fragile.

Who was it? What in this terrible moment
of loss took precedence? What did I lose
that mourns so heavily in me now?

I search the golden end of every sunset,
feeling, knowing, and remembering.
But all the sunsets glow like this . . .

 The Anonymous

GRIEF POEM       

Mother, what are your rules?
You ache to my heart like an old toy.

Where have you taken your death?
Is it mine?
Did you lead the way
with one example only?

Will I know you in the void
or will we disappear together?
Have you no message for me?

Mother, I am delirious:
I felt you stroke my hair and weep.
I felt your tears upon my face
and I was both of us.

How small we are together
in the large life,
both afraid
of the overpowering dark.


(first pub. in Piedmont Literary Review, 1990)

 Appeal

WOMAN IN ORCHARD     
After 1997 Calendar: Women by Women, The Royal
Photographic Society, “Pomegranates” by Minna Keene 
(Canadian, 1861-1943)


An unsmiling woman, bearing apples on a
dark tray, half-hidden under yellow

flecks of light through a dense tree,
on a September calendar—who does she

remind you of?  Not Eve.  Not your long-
dead mother.  Not anyone you know,

though she is familiar.  She is a trans-
figurement of green.  Her green dress

blends with the darker green of the
orchard.  Her tray is held steady,

in a serene pose of patience.  She is
green shadow.  Her apples gleam.

She lets her eyes linger upon you.
You cannot make out her features;

she has moved back one shadow
deeper.  She beckons you in.

She would never harm you.
You can trust her.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE ONLY GRIEVING CHAIR
—Joyce Odam

Death is where the sorrow is.
Death sighs in its innocent role.
Death takes up the only grieving chair.
Death is surprised that you cry.
Death hands you a dark rose
and says it had to open.


(first pub. in Piedmont Literary Review, 1990)

_____________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam for her fine poetry and photos today! Our Seed of the Week was Brotherhood; she chose to shine the light on Commisseration, providing a warm blanket for our brothers and sisters in turmoil.

Our new Seed of the Week is Loss. Loss can be devastating, uplifting, a relief, a great sorrow, new freedom, or—loss of car keys, loss of money, weight loss, loss of hair… As always, think broadly! 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 Antoon Van Welie, go to www.askart.com/artist_bio/Antoon_Van_Welie/11146803/Antoon_Van_Welie.aspx/.

—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)

Street Art by ana9112 in Brussels, Belgium

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.