The Castle's Moon
—Poems and Original Art by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
LANDSCAPES LIKE THIS ARE NEVER EASY
These trees stand burning from the center
with a molten glow,
we arrive, time-frozen,
from roads that dwindle here.
The legend is that one has to approach
from myth or superstition—
everything is circular—even
the familiar singing of the fire-birds
that exist here.
We are not to enter, though enticement
is everywhere—the soft wavering—
the clouds that emulate,
as if to argue this, two white trees
stand at the entrance,
stripped of their leaves;
they are the sacrifice—
untouched by any knowing :
that must remain a question.
The Door Locks
THE ENTRANCE
Through a bramble of desire
the life enters and absorbs
the shape and color of the need.
The distance through, lengthens.
Space separates and closes.
The air breathes through.
There is more to be. The question forms.
The bramble feels the passage of the other.
Force against force.
There is a parting as something yields
and something resists. From the outside,
all is the same and feels no effect from
this common tableau . . .
where a bramble of desire enters
and absorbs the shape and color of the need.
The Escape of the Dream
THE NEW WORLD
It was the hollow world we entered
with our dream of entering,
with our knowledge of being there
It was the far room at the end
with its wavering wall
that held firm for our entrance
It was the vast potential—:
we could paint everything with our minds
mountains, sky, earth, our own seas,
we could invent eternity.
How eager we were,
pouring over imagined blueprints.
Oh, the birds we created,
the marvelous jungles and cities,
children of no cruelty
The weather was divided into seasons
with no extremes.
We balanced everything
to perfection . . . and then,
we left it there . . . slipped out
of our world before it knew of us.
___________________
BEING
The Being is here at the entrance
of the promise of the dream
that repeats me again and again
when I ask my question.
The need is large,
then narrow—
I am waking
into the same old words
I cannot get right—
My poor soul is so tired
of my burrowing—
old and less than a shadow.
My dream dreams without me.
I know this—for I look through
the two mirrors
and see myself everywhere.
The Old Maps
Back in some beginning,
so far away—the dignity of the word—
the departing into some unknown factor,
the felicity to love and its arguments—
the one staying, feeling the same meaning
of the word—with its forever—its never,
or its someday. The wave, the wave back.
What need provides is a language to use,
or misuse, albeit foreign to someone—
somewhere—some other being of place,
a round far place—or nowhere
but in mind, in curiosity. There is always
somewhere else, or here, that is meant
to protect—for the love—for the known,
which begins another word.
(After “Going” by W.S. Merwin)
___________________
THE EDICT
Parodied after Animal Farm by George Orwell
Another image on another city wall,
huge and gray
and slightly breathing there,
as if alive—not advertised.
Who or what is there?
Is it a she? A he?
A beast or robot
from somewhere mythical?
Lights flash it back and forth—
almost alive—almost real—almost
what we need now to believe in.
And now it covers
wall after wall of the city—
bearing the same public notice,
in our heads now—even the sky—
even the sky—and all of everywhere.
The Exit
DRIVING THROUGH THE HILLS
these levels of hills
beyond which reach the sky
and my yen for distance
.
one blue upon the other
shades of distance recede into the
pale-to-darkening sky
.
the hills come to me now with their
overlapping tones and shadows
old twilight hills that I am watching
.
a thin line of river flows up the mountain
leaving behind a small lake
upon which a small island is floating
The Wooden Door
THE RELIABILITY OF DOORWAYS
Through doorway after doorway
life enters—lingers—continues—
the sunlight slanting over the floor
like a path inviting you through,
here and there a chair on the way—
empty, or filled with someone reading,
or sewing, or only resting—testing
an impulse to simply let time pass
while the hours change the look
of time, and the slow dust
settles, and a clock ticks softly
to assert its dependability.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
BLUE CORAL
—Joyce Odam
Leave us alone.
We are delicate and alive.
We mean only to survive.
We are many, as we are one.
Together, we are reef.
We make the sea beautiful.
Divers may admire us,
but not to touch.
We are fragile and alive.
Leave us alone.
___________________
Thank you, Joyce Odam, for your artwork and your talk of doorways and where they might—or might not—lead, a conversation about our Seed of the Week: Through the Back Door of the Castle.
Our new Seed of the Week is Peach. It’s a fruit, a color, many foods (jam, syrup, pie, cobbler, ice cream), a make-up color (and fashions) and a stage in life ("peach fuzz"). Also a label (“she’s a peach”, "peachy-keen”), a name (“Peaches”), a book title (“James and the Giant Peach”), and of course that good ol’ Georgia Peach. 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. Well, isn’t that just peachy? (Hey—you wanna peach of me?)
For up-coming poetry events in our area, scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa, wishing you a peachy-keen day!
—Anonymous
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.