News From The Oaks

—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

AVIAN NEWS

one raven on snow
caracaras soar on air
wren in cavern—
omen, or scene-noir
can sea-swans ever save us
answer: one raven, six crows

LOST AT SEA

Night. Set down here on a mountaintop
with my dog and search pack,
and half a dozen ground-pounders, searchers
in mutiny. I crawl out of my bivvy sack,
discover full moon shining on a sea of cloud
with deep purple islands—summits like this one.
A lost man’s somewhere in this white ocean.
My teammates and I off-loaded here
as sun dropped toward setting,
and our commander, in town, ordered hasty-
search in all directions down.
No good maps, radio contact questionable.
Where would we end up, each on a divergent
course? Terrain too rough
for night search. Team leader said, “we’ll start
at first light.” Adrift on our dark island,
I sit on a rock, my dog questioning
with moonlit eyes. We’ll be headed down
soon enough. searching. Right now,
so far from ocean, this seascape so beautiful.

ELEGY FOR EYES

On the lost child flyer, it’s his eyes that hold me.
Eyes blue or brown, listed on a briefing sheet, boys
I never knew, lost boys dissolved into woods
beyond neighborhood back fences, or vanished
from a holiday barbecue at the lake.

Eyes I remember, eyes deeper than their years.
A boy gazing at water-birds lifting off,
wings shattering surface tension, his eyes
a shimmer on reservoir, on river. In the moment
of a blink, a boy’s gone. Sunlight off water
blinding till it disappears behind hills.

I’ve followed my dog along shoreline
scattering birds as waves over-lap sand,
my dog seeking scent of a child become water.
For a searcher, each new drowning
brings all the lost boys back.

UNDER THE HAWK

On TV, a million-dollar question—

but it was the hawk launching from
oak woods to powerline

that made me forget the forever-
valuation by magnitudes of money.

Hunger’s nourishment
is impetus of hawk flight.

Impetuous?

Questions succumb to the beauty
of it, light in a dark night of asking.

Today, this very moment.
TV’s question is limited by numbers.

The woodlands hawk has flown.

NOTHING IN YOUR POCKET

Come to quiet of a town barely open
for business; partly shut down again. Shall we live
in fear behind our masks and our walls
lapped by a sea of contagion? Airborne droplets
of the spoken word; tiding waves of crowds,
uniforms. We see it on TV. We see
our own town boarded up. Still you’re walking,
bringing nothing in your pocket.
Come in peace, just walking. Overhead a crow
glides silence. The hills stand firm.

Today’s LittleNip:

WHITE LUNES
—Taylor Graham

Waning gibbous moon
sets late, one hunched ghost in blue sky.

White oleander
didn’t bloom
last year—just look now!

Can you see the bee
almost lost
in privet delight? 

________________________

Thank you, Taylor Graham, for talk of getting back to “normal” (as if!) and early summer blossoms and avian news which does go on, regardless. Don’t forget to listen to James Lee Jobe read tonight at 7:30pm at james-lee-jobe.blogspot.com or youtube.com/jamesleejobe/.

___________________

FORM FIDDLERS’ FRIDAY! 

It’s time for more contributions from Form Fiddlers! Each Friday for awhile, there will be poems posted here from some of our readers using forms—either ones which were mentioned on Medusa during the previous week, or whatever else floats through the Kitchen and the perpetually stoned mind of Medusa. If these instructions are vague, it's because they're meant to be. Just fiddle around with some forms and get them posted in the Kitchen. 

Taylor Graham has sent us a variety of poem forms today, including an Elegy (“Elegy for Eyes”), a Prisoner’s Constraint (“Avian News”), and Lunes poetry (“White Lunes”). For info about the Lune (the American Haiku), go to www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-lune-poetry#what-is-lune-poetry/.

Taylor has also sent a Viator (www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/viator-poetic-forms/), as follows:

AT SEA (a Viator)
—Taylor Graham

I’m lost in a sea of grasses
sailed to our shores in ships’ ballast—
Old World annual grasses, my bane

from spring into fall, weed-eating.
I’m lost in a sea of grasses
turning brown, dead, and flammable.

Waves of seed-heads tiding in June
breeze, my time of meditation—
I’m lost in a sea of grasses.

 —Public Domain Illustration

Speaking of unusual forms, Joyce Odam sent us one this week, the Imago (eight lines in alternating syllables, 7 5 7 5 7 5 7 5):


SEVEN GULLS ON SEVEN STRINGS
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

Seven gulls on seven strings
hang in white stillness
in the doorway where no breeze
disturbs them—much less
lets them cry—nor let them cry—
nothing shall break them—
nothing shall take them from me.
They shall never fly.
                              

(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1997)

—Public Domain Illustration

Today is Juneteenth, and Michael Brownstein from Jefferson City, MO, sent us this on-the-spot poem about his experience with the recent riots:


MY TOWN’S GEORGE FLOYD PROTEST 2020
—Michael H. Brownstein

No life matters until all lives matter. Black lives matter, too.
Are we not human? Do we not love our children, eat with forks and spoons, go to school and go to work?
Give me liberty, give me justice, do I not have a right to breathe?
                    —Protest signs


We came to the protest unprepared,
expecting a few dozen at most, not the hundreds
spread across the capitol’s lawn, not the anger,
the pain, the poetry of grief, a frustration
you could wear tomorrow and never remove.
When one speaker screamed into the audience,
Why did the white people present—
and there were a great number of white people present—
do nothing to stop slavery, do nothing to stop the KKK,
do nothing to stop the lynchings of the early 1900s,
and then demanded an answer again and again, Why? Why?
I went to the middle and said I would answer.
The moderator gave me the mic and I said, We were not there,
no, we were not there during slavery, and I said my name,
and we were not there when the KKK rose up ugly,
and we were not there when the lynching began,
and, yes—and I pointed to my arm—I am of this color,
and I am here now. (I could have told of things past,
but I did not.) It is up to us to change this—this color—
and if you are here now, it is up to you—this color—
and I pointed to my arm again. You have to make the difference,
you have to make blacks your friends, you must invite them
into your home, your life, and when you see the strong black man
walking down the same sidewalk as you, know this truth,
he too can be your friend – must be your friend –
and I talked a bit more and then I got out of the way
and listened to a lot more and, finally, we took to the sidewalk,
because there was no permit, but in seconds
we swarmed into the street, too many of us,
and we, stretching over two city blocks, took over downtown,
blocked incoming cars, watched as our numbers swelled,
chanted and sang for the mile from where we began to Lafayette,
where we turned to walk to the university,
new companions, black and white, and color no matter.
When we reached the great park before the university, we stopped,
and everyone, as if we were creating a large work of art,
lay on the ground. Floyd lay like this, the organizers said,
for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. We did too,
my hands behind my back, my face in the grass,
my wife beside me, her face against my back and we chanted,
I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe.
Give me liberty and give me breath. Black lives matter.
My wife had made a speech too, talked of racism in our town,
a place I will not name – Jefferson City, Missouri –
and she spoke of the many slurs and actions thrown at her,
but no more. This was the time to make the change.
Let us come together and change it. She turned to the line of police
and said, And all of you, you are the ones who must make the change.
When the eight minutes and forty-six seconds came to its end,
everyone stood. We thought it was over and began to walk home,
but something was different now, a cloud had fallen over us,
as if the eveningsong of solution and openness had suddenly gone dark,
but it was not dark, the sky a slow concerto into nightfall,
the day’s heat more oppressive, its humidity scarring.

Why is it violence must have a skin?

The crowd did not disperse, it grew smaller, yes, but stronger too,
a strong that was ugly like those who oppress with knee and word,
and you smelled the change in the air, you felt the tear in the flesh.
A block later a group of whites and blacks stepped from the crowd
to curse the police and a block later the first rock exploded the air,
a second hit the police car, then a smoke bomb of some sort,
and I watched as a white boy ran past me –
I can’t bring myself to call him a man –
his hands heavy with missiles, his face contorted, hit its window,
cracking it, and as he readied for another throw
a group surrounded him. Then we heard the slap of ignorance –
a white girl – how can I call her a woman? – slapped a black woman,
and for a second everything turned cold and cruel,
not like the deaf musician who sees music as rainbows
or the blind poet who describes beauty with the rise and fall of melody,
but as the sudden surge of an earthquake or a breaking of stained glass.
This, too, was halted as soon as it began.
The crowd, much smaller, rolled down High Street to downtown,
and my wife and I turned to go home as a half-dozen police vehicles
lined up and followed them until no one was left to follow.
We watched for a while, then crossed the street,
and she talked to the white girl, who was not in tears, but smoking,
proud of herself and the indignity she bestowed on the protest,
and walked with us as we went home, night falling hard,
a litter of stars, a brightness of moon,
and she apologized to us, and began to cry.

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

In addition to some of his poems this week, Michael has sent us information on the Cherita. Check out what he says:

"Ai Li is the editor and founder of the Cherita, from the Malay word for story or tale. A cherita poem has six lines arranged in three verses, with no title. The main format of a cherita is 1‑2‑3: a 1‑line verse followed by a 2‑line verse, followed by a 3‑line verse. A cherita has five possible sequences from 1‑, 2‑, and 3‑line verses to 3, 2, and 1-line.

Ai Li read my poem, “Moon Shower,” which was published on Mediterranean Poetry (www.odyssey.pm/contributors/michael-h-brownstein/#FRAGMENTS), and thought it contained the makings of a nice cherita. Here’s my poem that she read:

MOON SHOWER
—Michael H. Brownstein

A wet blue sky,
the air heavy with rain,
and in this place where breezes blows,
no breeze blows.

Listen:
the branches of the great trees talk to each other,
their leaves folding into one another,
and the moon slips behind a clash of consonants,
a sudden lurch of lightning
and after a day of beach and sunlight,
night comes with water
and wine.

Sit outside with me a moment.
You can finish your chores tomorrow.
Tonight is a time for the movements of air,
a dialogue of branches,
the conducting of clouds,
and if we get wet, no matter,
I am in your debt.

* * *
  
"Extracting from the poem’s last stanza, Ai Li made a few revisions and wrote: “I found a Cherita Terbalik (the 3‑1‑2 variety)”:

Here is the cherita she published on her site:"

Sit outside with me a moment.
You can finish your chores tomorrow
Tonight is a time for the movements of air,

a dialogue of branches,

the conducting of clouds,
and if we get wet, no matter.


Thanks, Michael and Ai Li, for an intriguing cherita-tale!

 —Public Domain Illustration

Here’s Caschwa (Carl Schwartz), up to some more of his rhyming-shenanugans!

TEST PATTERN
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

province—Ontario
it’s very cold you know
hi-ho the derry-o
just so cold in Juneau

baking heat in Texas
melting candle waxes
cloud with rain rejects us
huge fuss death and taxes

a card game at breakfast
encourages reckless
cards drawn from the deck last
are cast aside worthless

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

And Joseph Nolan celebrates the Solstice with us this weekend with tales of Summer in the Valley: 

SUMMER IN THE VALLEY
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
 
It seems we must
Close up, now;
It’s drawing near
To noon.
To keep in cool,
Sweet morning air
Which grows
Much warmer, soon.

A fan will help to comfort,
When temperature has rose,
And you wait for cooling
Delta breeze
To take off
All your clothes.

It’s summer in the Valley;
It’s beautiful ‘til ten!
After that, it gets too hot
‘Til evening’s breeze
Returns, again.

_____________________

—Medusa, congratulating all these poets for their fine form-fiddling! Don’t hang back, now—give some of these forms a shot while your pen is hot!

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.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com.
The snakes of Medusa are always hungry!

Yes-Haw!
Saddle up. poets!