Shadows Burning
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
SUMMER SKIES
What kind of courage paves the way
for those who pray
their way
through life—unwinding . . .
The forests keep burning
the fires continue,
the sky pollutes
with self-aversion . . .
The hopeless wonderment of rage
is also burning—
skies scream
with terrible release . . .
Even the guilty matches burn,
finding
their innocence in the ashes—
having made such a beautiful sunset . . .
What kind of courage paves the way
for those who pray
their way
through life—unwinding . . .
The forests keep burning
the fires continue,
the sky pollutes
with self-aversion . . .
The hopeless wonderment of rage
is also burning—
skies scream
with terrible release . . .
Even the guilty matches burn,
finding
their innocence in the ashes—
having made such a beautiful sunset . . .
A Suspicion of Blue
THE DRY SUMMER
I crave the blue rain in this dry summer—
I yearn for the falling of the leaves.
I pull to the force of shadows
that remain on the lake of darkness.
I pray to the gods of beauty where
they preen into their melting mirrors.
Wherever the light has lingered
with its radiance—I long for the blue rain.
I crave the blue rain in this dry summer—
I yearn for the falling of the leaves.
I pull to the force of shadows
that remain on the lake of darkness.
I pray to the gods of beauty where
they preen into their melting mirrors.
Wherever the light has lingered
with its radiance—I long for the blue rain.
Light Through Water
RAVEL
Light—and the power
within light—
lingers past the season.
She flows under time
in her dress of wilting roses.
She will become unreal.
She will not be held by dull formality.
She can feel a tone of weeping.
She moves away from it.
It follows and waits. Every love
has its sadness, hers is given back now
to the old enmity and need. It is
the music under everything,
far away and merciless.
She finds herself humming
and it makes her throat ache,
and her heart—grief, useless grief—
and the way grief tries to hold her
against life like an accusation.
Why does grief still want her?
Time has slipped beyond her, bringing
her back, through the moment, into the hour—
into the year, and she is back at the beginning.
She picks up the thread of conversation and smiles.
___________________
THE BROKEN SELF
After Untitled Ink Drawing by Kathi Vaned Kieft
Is she suffering brokenness,
opening up all her emotions
like that—an explosion of all she is.
Intact. Then broken?
_________
She must cry to restore.
There is too much space. The loss
of one fragment means loss of the whole.
The parts drift inward.
_________
She must examine the accusation of the mirror.
sharp-edged and dangerous : broken glass
without the protection of silver.
What must it do to find the sharded center?
_________
All the scars of love are examined now :
in pieces, enlarged by the examining heart,
the one to blame—the self—within all
this mending, condemning and consoling.
The Scars of Love
A MOURN FOR MUSIC
TOO BEAUTIFUL TO HEAR
It is the music—
torn shreds of it,
its fragments
remembering back into whole pieces;
or maybe it is the lack of it,
the wish for music
as perfect
as that . . .
indifferent music, joyous for itself,
forgetting its composer,
its poorest listener,
filling other ears with perfection,
destruction, its cost for the envy:
the torn joy
of listening—
for the ache of it,
emotions
too
small
to hold it,
so, free it,
tear its pages and
mingle them into something larger—
a cacophony to fit the tears.
_________________
DREAM INTRUSION
After "Once There Were Glaciers"
by May Swenson
Slowly unwinding around each other
each turns to silk in the dream,
floating upward and downward
and outwardly yearning,
voiceless in the tangible silence—
a mutation of silver
and dark sensation,
constantly writhing
apart and together—
darkening and brightening
like the underside of music.
How lyrical to move like that—
to feel like that—
to watch from one’s own dreamlessness
Gray-Blue Sky and Black Tree Leaves
GRAY WINDOW
I cannot tend to violets or the
glass frog in the water glass on
top of rocks and out of water now.
The gray scum world surrounds him
like a drought. The violets bend their
gray leaves down around the rim of
the mundane flower pot while I
stare out the filmy window at
the world, my life in doubt.
___________________
TIME IS A QUESTION MARK
After "The Alarm Clock," 1940 (Dora Maar)
Time leans on its shadow
on a shadow-dial, measures
nothing but the time we give it.
Time is a question mark—
a yellow rule—a dot in a circle
—a shark-fin circling the mind.
Time, we call it, and it keeps
unwinding—this nothing that
we give so much credence to.
We give it clocks and clocks
and clocks of hurry but
it stays—or moves—
which, is not known.
Nor of relevance. We fear it,
mostly—waste it, always.
I cannot tend to violets or the
glass frog in the water glass on
top of rocks and out of water now.
The gray scum world surrounds him
like a drought. The violets bend their
gray leaves down around the rim of
the mundane flower pot while I
stare out the filmy window at
the world, my life in doubt.
___________________
TIME IS A QUESTION MARK
After "The Alarm Clock," 1940 (Dora Maar)
Time leans on its shadow
on a shadow-dial, measures
nothing but the time we give it.
Time is a question mark—
a yellow rule—a dot in a circle
—a shark-fin circling the mind.
Time, we call it, and it keeps
unwinding—this nothing that
we give so much credence to.
We give it clocks and clocks
and clocks of hurry but
it stays—or moves—
which, is not known.
Nor of relevance. We fear it,
mostly—waste it, always.
Beautiful Dandelion Flower
THE HEALING TREE
Once a weariness came
upon my being
and I surrendered to a yearning
and I sought a tree I knew
that had vast shade and quiet
and I brought myself to its healing
and lay on the ground
looking up through its branches
and silently moving leaves
and I slept for a long while
unwinding and renewing,
under the flickering sunlight.
Layout: Shape and Color
HEART IN FIRST DRAFT…
If I am
the heart of love,
why do I pain, why do I suffer—
I who am old and young,
in myself,
in my heart,
what is my memory
that I ask these questions.
I who am lonely and complete.
My heart beats, and I live.
I am all metaphor now—
of my distance, my body is there
where my heart is,
near me, near me, in me,
like a river.
I do not know the truth of this.
I ask, and I answer,
but I do not know.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
THERAPY
—Joyce Odam
When I was broken, I saved
all the pieces. Now I re-
arrange them. Look—
I am not broken.
.
Not a seam—
not a scar—not a
single place to mend.
Put your sewing box away.
_____________________
Joyce Odam is talking to us today about the mysteries of unraveling, and many thanks to her for addressing our Seed of the Week! It does, indeed, seem like we’re unraveling these days, both inside and out.
Our new Seed of the Week is “Smoke”, in all its manifestations. (I always say, where there’s smoke, there’s politics…) 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.
A note from Mary McGrath that the SPEAK UP! reading scheduled for this weekend at the Avid Reader has been cancelled in deference to health issues. It will be rescheduled somewhere down the line, when COVID is no longer such a looming problem.
_____________________
—Medusa
Smoky Skies over N. Okanagan, B.C.
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of
Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
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.
