As Mysterious As Life
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
COBWEB
You’ve hung there for years.
You have become my favorite design,
the way you drape across the corner,
like an awning,
the way your spider has abandoned you.
Too much elegance for this room,
this bedroom of stuffed closet
and insomnia,
this room with its piles of clothes
and a blanket that drags
one corner to the floor.
How often I have watched you
with concentration
at just the right angle
when I lean my head back
against the wall.
You are like a shadow drawn
as an interesting detail in a painting.
I wonder why no moth has found you.
You’ve hung there for years.
You have become my favorite design,
the way you drape across the corner,
like an awning,
the way your spider has abandoned you.
Too much elegance for this room,
this bedroom of stuffed closet
and insomnia,
this room with its piles of clothes
and a blanket that drags
one corner to the floor.
How often I have watched you
with concentration
at just the right angle
when I lean my head back
against the wall.
You are like a shadow drawn
as an interesting detail in a painting.
I wonder why no moth has found you.
Memento
AS EVIDENCE
(For Ann)
Turning a corner onto your street (long ago)
close to twilight, and summer, a shade of
blue light under the sunshine—or better,
over—since what I saw was part of this :
the goats—I still don’t know how many—
kneeling their delicate white legs down
to the ground in a slow sequence
as of a single confirmation, and I felt
a chill of time in that moment—
a surge of something at my heart
to witness this, and it was
as I remember (long ago) I swear.
(For Ann)
Turning a corner onto your street (long ago)
close to twilight, and summer, a shade of
blue light under the sunshine—or better,
over—since what I saw was part of this :
the goats—I still don’t know how many—
kneeling their delicate white legs down
to the ground in a slow sequence
as of a single confirmation, and I felt
a chill of time in that moment—
a surge of something at my heart
to witness this, and it was
as I remember (long ago) I swear.
Allegory
THROUGH A CURTAIN OF THOUGHT
She is silky beautiful, like a yellow waft of
imagination posed between pillars of light,
her yellow gown blending with the quiet air,
soft as some ghost of memory. She haunts
the startled eye of a late observer, come late
to sundown with the terrible weight of heart
and mind—grown apart like love and non-
love—all somehow blended with the sheer
duplicity of want and surrender. Only the lost
redeem how this is so : the sudden emergence
of myth—no longer sought or wanted—but
exquisitely mourned for a passing moment.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3-18-2014)
__________________
ELEGANT AND EFFORTLESS
this love,
this new,
this shining,
this timid,
trusting way to feel
O how we measure the
indefinite now into round eternity
soft words on our lips
making sounds like promises.
No cynicism now.
No memory of painful resolutions.
No,
we are the only ones
love feels
with its soft
sheer tentacles
on the edge of fingertips
going over us in playful memory.
She is silky beautiful, like a yellow waft of
imagination posed between pillars of light,
her yellow gown blending with the quiet air,
soft as some ghost of memory. She haunts
the startled eye of a late observer, come late
to sundown with the terrible weight of heart
and mind—grown apart like love and non-
love—all somehow blended with the sheer
duplicity of want and surrender. Only the lost
redeem how this is so : the sudden emergence
of myth—no longer sought or wanted—but
exquisitely mourned for a passing moment.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3-18-2014)
__________________
ELEGANT AND EFFORTLESS
this love,
this new,
this shining,
this timid,
trusting way to feel
O how we measure the
indefinite now into round eternity
soft words on our lips
making sounds like promises.
No cynicism now.
No memory of painful resolutions.
No,
we are the only ones
love feels
with its soft
sheer tentacles
on the edge of fingertips
going over us in playful memory.
Breath
SOUNDS
the drone of sound,
its soft monotony,
the sound that links
that hum beyond
the folding din and
what it becomes
that almost sensory under-
tone that holds the balance
against the sway
the orange sound in the
working of the butterfly’s
strong wings
the sound made when
a brown leaf falls
on a brown day
(prev. pub. in Song of the San Joaquin)
the drone of sound,
its soft monotony,
the sound that links
that hum beyond
the folding din and
what it becomes
that almost sensory under-
tone that holds the balance
against the sway
the orange sound in the
working of the butterfly’s
strong wings
the sound made when
a brown leaf falls
on a brown day
(prev. pub. in Song of the San Joaquin)
The Torture of Why in Wonder
FOREST BIRD
Soft chirping on dark morning, barely listened,
only once, oh, sweet loss, barely owned by ear
and heart—and where is the lonely center,
entered and left, intrusive with exquisite
recognition, and why only once?
Was it a dreaming? Is it extinct, gift of nostalgia,
all else that is gone, gone like all else, a treasured
moment? I probe silence, hurt with haunting.
Once more the bird speaks, sweet return—safe
in the late summer tree—a dark green voice—
calling to itself, since there is no other.
Can it know where it reaches,
only to me, beyond its need—
it speaks and speaks through the under-
listening of other sounds, I isolate this one,
find the unknown language of its singing.
Soft chirping on dark morning, barely listened,
only once, oh, sweet loss, barely owned by ear
and heart—and where is the lonely center,
entered and left, intrusive with exquisite
recognition, and why only once?
Was it a dreaming? Is it extinct, gift of nostalgia,
all else that is gone, gone like all else, a treasured
moment? I probe silence, hurt with haunting.
Once more the bird speaks, sweet return—safe
in the late summer tree—a dark green voice—
calling to itself, since there is no other.
Can it know where it reaches,
only to me, beyond its need—
it speaks and speaks through the under-
listening of other sounds, I isolate this one,
find the unknown language of its singing.
White, Black and Gray For Instance
THE CIRCLING BIRDS
After Bald Mountain by Herbert Saslow, 1920
birds of pure light
claim two trees
on a desolate peak
____________________
sheer rock mountain
offers two trees
to the birds of light
After Bald Mountain by Herbert Saslow, 1920
birds of pure light
claim two trees
on a desolate peak
____________________
sheer rock mountain
offers two trees
to the birds of light
Life Span
TINCTURE
The wings of light
linger on the dark branch silhouette
to be seen in contrast.
◇
For lack of pigment, the white wings rest
on the edge of the
blue weed-flower—the color of the sky.
◇
At mid-day, the sheer wings
seek the road-way poppies to reflect against,
as if they yearn to be golden.
◇
The frayed wings learn to become gray
when twilight softens
their wounds with camouflage.
◇
At night, the black wings
will touch at anything for substance—feeling
for their opposite dimension.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4-8-2014)
__________________
ON DISPLAY
After “Red Dress” by Manya Shapiro
The dress is laid out
on a wire frame
in ‘fabric’ of
soft wire—
sheer
window-
screen, pinned
to body-suggestion.
Light keeps guard over
the mere thought of touch.
It must remain for the mind
only to wonder at its texture—
That the dress is red, suggests the
lifeblood of her symbolic existence,
what she would wear once, then put
aside as youth’s memory for old age.
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
PERSPECTIVE
—Joyce Odam
Here is a gift for you, oh sky, two trees
atop a mountain of sheer stone,
with many white birds circling by,
and low gray clouds, and
far away, in distant scale,
the earth.
_____________________
Gossamer poems today by Joyce Odam, with light shining right through them, after Medusa’s Seed of the Week: Gossamer—and our thanks to Joyce for that!
Our new Seed of the Week is Gathering. Squirrels and their nuts? Raking leaves? Rallies? Family gathering? 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.
_____________________
—Medusa
The wings of light
linger on the dark branch silhouette
to be seen in contrast.
◇
For lack of pigment, the white wings rest
on the edge of the
blue weed-flower—the color of the sky.
◇
At mid-day, the sheer wings
seek the road-way poppies to reflect against,
as if they yearn to be golden.
◇
The frayed wings learn to become gray
when twilight softens
their wounds with camouflage.
◇
At night, the black wings
will touch at anything for substance—feeling
for their opposite dimension.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4-8-2014)
__________________
ON DISPLAY
After “Red Dress” by Manya Shapiro
The dress is laid out
on a wire frame
in ‘fabric’ of
soft wire—
sheer
window-
screen, pinned
to body-suggestion.
Light keeps guard over
the mere thought of touch.
It must remain for the mind
only to wonder at its texture—
That the dress is red, suggests the
lifeblood of her symbolic existence,
what she would wear once, then put
aside as youth’s memory for old age.
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
PERSPECTIVE
—Joyce Odam
Here is a gift for you, oh sky, two trees
atop a mountain of sheer stone,
with many white birds circling by,
and low gray clouds, and
far away, in distant scale,
the earth.
_____________________
Gossamer poems today by Joyce Odam, with light shining right through them, after Medusa’s Seed of the Week: Gossamer—and our thanks to Joyce for that!
Our new Seed of the Week is Gathering. Squirrels and their nuts? Raking leaves? Rallies? Family gathering? 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.
_____________________
—Medusa
—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.
