A Random Grace
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
OCTOBER FRAGMENTS
yellow light through dark tree
spaces between black leaves
sky-blue light through dark tree
chairs in a patio
sweepers with slow brooms
murmured conversations
a woman in purple
a woman in green
patio door open to October
oh how the light leans
into the hour which moves
oh how the light leans
the yellow light through the dark trees
the thin blue light
through the thick and gathering leaves
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2011)
yellow light through dark tree
spaces between black leaves
sky-blue light through dark tree
chairs in a patio
sweepers with slow brooms
murmured conversations
a woman in purple
a woman in green
patio door open to October
oh how the light leans
into the hour which moves
oh how the light leans
the yellow light through the dark trees
the thin blue light
through the thick and gathering leaves
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2011)
_______________
SOMEWHERE, THE LONELINESS
After Corn and Poppy by Kees van Dongen
Wide sweep of wind across cloud-torn sky,
gray upon blue,
wild yellow grasses bending below,
a lone tree struggling in a nearby field—
free country,
nothing to surrender or resist,
no bird or sound but the wind.
The day is gathering the hours.
The grass is rustling. Something
must happen, else why are we here,
the only observers, a place of no
landmarks and no roads.
There are many trees like
this lone tree. The clouds turn ragged
and tear through each other, hurrying, hurrying.
Gathering Time
THE SLOW PATIENCE
OF THESE GATHERING HOURS
The curtains hang damp at my windows, heavy
as silence. I lie upon my own heaviness. Ghosts
of the room melt toward me. I float toward the
ceiling which is wavering away. I do not know
if I am sleeping or if I am awake under my sleep.
Tides of desolation wash over my dreams. Sounds
of the world drone away. I grow into the curving
shape of air—the ghosts dissolving around me in
the slow persistence of these gathering hours.
___________________
THE BLUE GATHERING
the small boats
sit on their water shadows
making quivery conversation
in blue and red voices
the water is
in love with them
it knows where they have been
and what they have come to say
oh, in all the world
there is no better thing to be
than these boats
on this water
Back to the Blues
BLUE MOAN
After Tomas Transtrőmer
It was a long row across the river, night and
its death—death and its seam. Morning was
a thin stream of light—though it was night.
Confusion always interrupts at this point—
a wide field of memory in its own beginning,
always backward—a trickle of sound—
I confess my dark wonder—long sigh
of surrender—voice familiar and loving—
urging me to never believe what is not true.
I long back to you, though you are never
there—just another flaw to overcome—
another foggy day—gray straining into blue.
___________________
BOAT WITH CROWS
Snow falls amid the plight of crows gathered on
a tethered boat that rocks itself almost under.
They hold to positions of some uncertainty—in
curious stance—using the motion to test the bal-
ance of winter.
Why can’t they fly? Is the sky too heavy with
snow? Do they think they can ride the winter out
under the wet weight of such a sky?
Fly, crows, fly—the whole world is sinking—
release your attention—send your voices out like
warnings.
But the crows are fascinated by the shudder-feel
of the sloshing water, the sound that it makes in
the filling air, the creak and shudder,
shudder and creak, of the straining boat, the reso-
lute way they balance their feet on the rim of the
boat that is up to its rim on the water.
And they are held by this. And the snow builds
around them. And the cold grows colder. And
they wait—too long, perhaps,
to be anything more than this bleak, engulfing
study of silent crows on a rocking boat that is
filling with snow.
Spaces Between
THE WHITE MEADOW
She fills her hat with flowers.
Soon the summer will be over.
Something watches and shivers,
something saying, come to me.
Her long dress stirs and makes
a rustling sound.
She turns,
and feels
a watchful shadow
flowing near that takes
her mind back to the meadow.
Maybe she is that part of time that lives
for when it was—not in the now.
She bends again and resumes
her innocent gathering of flowers
and thinks her thoughts and feels no omen.
___________________
WOMEN COMING TOWARD ME IN A DREAM
The women are coming toward me in a dream.
They have been arriving all afternoon.
A tone of twilight begins
as the hour gathers us together.
We are the arrival,
expected.
We are
anointed by a softness.
We stand
and look at each other.
The tone of twilight never changes
in the dream,
but there is no hurry.
We are the reason, and we are here.
She fills her hat with flowers.
Soon the summer will be over.
Something watches and shivers,
something saying, come to me.
Her long dress stirs and makes
a rustling sound.
She turns,
and feels
a watchful shadow
flowing near that takes
her mind back to the meadow.
Maybe she is that part of time that lives
for when it was—not in the now.
She bends again and resumes
her innocent gathering of flowers
and thinks her thoughts and feels no omen.
___________________
WOMEN COMING TOWARD ME IN A DREAM
The women are coming toward me in a dream.
They have been arriving all afternoon.
A tone of twilight begins
as the hour gathers us together.
We are the arrival,
expected.
We are
anointed by a softness.
We stand
and look at each other.
The tone of twilight never changes
in the dream,
but there is no hurry.
We are the reason, and we are here.
Elseward Still
DREAM SUBJECT
It is always the dream that takes me out of itself
into another dream
until dream worlds make me their stranger,
living briefly in each one
as if in further realities.
Each waking leaves me on crumbling shores of sleep
among the densities and shadows
where I—
as one of them—
pull out of the fogginess of my own remembering,
dream fragments winding backwards,
vaguely sad with dwindling importance.
Waking, I remember
being thickly held in perilous situations,
relieved and wondering
if I struggle
elseward still
in all those throes of being—
sleep always gathering under the surface—
probing for inspiration—
gathering substance of my thinking—
waiting to take me back into the inner galaxy of sleep.
__________________
TOP VIEW OF SLEEPING CHILD
The first folding is the body bent into sleep, a tangled
sheet wrapped around and crumpled against his
face and under his gracefully bent arm—
his face nuzzled deep.
What is valuable here are the old perspectives of round-
ness, how everything curves into everything else, how
light is descending, as only slow light can descend—
forming itself around the child until he shines
with the contrasting properties of light
and light stares into every crease
and shadow and repeats
his stillness.
In the smallness of sleep, he becomes the subject
of sleep and light which conspire to examine
him and hold sleep’s time in abeyance
and touch his breathing.
Something else joins the study, circling itself around
and a sigh is felt in the intense and gathering hold
of silence. He shifts a bit and pulls the blanket-
sheet tighter around him and regains the
power of his life—so precarious,
and so deliberately measured.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012;
rev. 10/15/21)
___________________
GATHERED
They stand around
in a random grace,
each silent face staring at
another face.
Some of them
fill a dark doorway,
others the harsh light
of the courtyard.
The children among them
wait to play,
but this is a day
for staring and waiting.
Someone is going to come.
Is it the one they know?
Is it the one who was once
their own?
Will his name be spoken?
Will he say to them,
“I am glad I am home?”
(prev. pub. in Poetry Depth Quarterly, 1998)
It is always the dream that takes me out of itself
into another dream
until dream worlds make me their stranger,
living briefly in each one
as if in further realities.
Each waking leaves me on crumbling shores of sleep
among the densities and shadows
where I—
as one of them—
pull out of the fogginess of my own remembering,
dream fragments winding backwards,
vaguely sad with dwindling importance.
Waking, I remember
being thickly held in perilous situations,
relieved and wondering
if I struggle
elseward still
in all those throes of being—
sleep always gathering under the surface—
probing for inspiration—
gathering substance of my thinking—
waiting to take me back into the inner galaxy of sleep.
__________________
TOP VIEW OF SLEEPING CHILD
The first folding is the body bent into sleep, a tangled
sheet wrapped around and crumpled against his
face and under his gracefully bent arm—
his face nuzzled deep.
What is valuable here are the old perspectives of round-
ness, how everything curves into everything else, how
light is descending, as only slow light can descend—
forming itself around the child until he shines
with the contrasting properties of light
and light stares into every crease
and shadow and repeats
his stillness.
In the smallness of sleep, he becomes the subject
of sleep and light which conspire to examine
him and hold sleep’s time in abeyance
and touch his breathing.
Something else joins the study, circling itself around
and a sigh is felt in the intense and gathering hold
of silence. He shifts a bit and pulls the blanket-
sheet tighter around him and regains the
power of his life—so precarious,
and so deliberately measured.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012;
rev. 10/15/21)
___________________
GATHERED
They stand around
in a random grace,
each silent face staring at
another face.
Some of them
fill a dark doorway,
others the harsh light
of the courtyard.
The children among them
wait to play,
but this is a day
for staring and waiting.
Someone is going to come.
Is it the one they know?
Is it the one who was once
their own?
Will his name be spoken?
Will he say to them,
“I am glad I am home?”
(prev. pub. in Poetry Depth Quarterly, 1998)
A Trickle of Sound
BIRTHDAYS
It is just such a night as this that throws wind-shadows
at my winter house—those forms imagined
out of the texture of childhood fears—those gatherers
of some old debt that time declares is payable . . .
it is just such a night as this.
My gleeful ancestors swarm outside my window,
looking in where I am sleeping,
their shadows looming on the walls.
They celebrate my sleep
where I escape
into the dream
of my existence.
They’re drunk and lonely.
I think they want to know me.
They call my name in tones I half remember.
My mother is among them, telling them about me,
saying, See? See? There is my daughter. She is old
like me. Look, look, look at her sleeping. And they
crowd in, the way they did when I was born—pressing
and peering over each other’s shoulders into my cradle.
(prev. pub. in Sakano, 2005; and Tight, 1996)
_____________________
GATHERING FORGIVENESS
Gathering forgiveness as we would gather
miracles—it’s not the lack—
it’s the accumulation.
You expound and the stones listen.
Wary of each other, we drag a line between us.
Dancers edge into the light then disappear.
You name them sorrows—
none of them your own,
I embrace them
through the mirrors.
My hand goes right through you.
You laugh and the skies tremble.
Light is the first resistance—
you are made of it.
Birds fly up and out of the barren trees—
migod, we marvel—what are these.
We have forgotten such mythologies—
as surely as we do not exist for them.
_______________________
WORD BY WORD
I felt the time turn in the distance, and the glow wait to
be dawn, and I heard the drone of the first plane fly over
the day, and I felt a connection. And I stopped in the
middle of a word to say another word, and I felt a whole
scenario change in my head, and I felt a distance gather
me, and I gave up my poem to the distance. And I
thought I heard a rustle of rain, and though I listened as
hard as I could, it was not the rain, but my listening that
I heard, and I felt the moment—like a power that I had—
to know its moment. And I grew greedy, and looked a-
round for more, but I had to pay for that with a loss. And
I want to tell you about that, too, but I looked up at the
clock, and the thin scrap of paper under my pen was
coming to its own end—and I guess what I want to say
is not to be said—not now, and maybe never—but I’ll
take what I can of it and be thankful for all this awareness
that lets me grope on, word by word.
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
GATHERING UP THE OLD FRUIT
—Joyce ODam
Gathering up the old fruit of those
delicious trees . . . Scattering
the bird shadows before they form
their own starvations around us . . .
Hunger is not the only message here.
(prev. pub. in Lilliput)
________________________
Joyce Odam has taken us up on this week’s Seed of the Week: Gathering, and has sent us a great gathering of poems and photos—mighty thanks to her for these! Joyce’s tiny journal, Brevities: A Mini-Mag of Minimalist Poems, edited by Joyce and her co-editor/daughter, Robin Gale Odam, has a new issue out, packed with poets we know and love, plus new voices, too. Send $1.55 to Joyce at 2432 48th Av., Sacramento, CA 95822-3809 for a copy.
Our new Seed of the Week is Hibernation. Not just animals hibernate—we've all been doing it one way or another for the last two years. And it's not always physical—there are lots of ways of shutting down, and lots of reasons. 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.
•••This coming Friday (Oct. 22) from 7-8:30pm, El Gigante presents An Evening with Maceo Montoya plus open mic on Zoom: cccconfer.zoom.us/j/9348057923/. Host: Danny Romero. A Sac. City College program in collaboration with the Center on Race, Immigration and Social Justice at CSUS, and Sacramento Poetry Alliance.
________________________
—Medusa
It is just such a night as this that throws wind-shadows
at my winter house—those forms imagined
out of the texture of childhood fears—those gatherers
of some old debt that time declares is payable . . .
it is just such a night as this.
My gleeful ancestors swarm outside my window,
looking in where I am sleeping,
their shadows looming on the walls.
They celebrate my sleep
where I escape
into the dream
of my existence.
They’re drunk and lonely.
I think they want to know me.
They call my name in tones I half remember.
My mother is among them, telling them about me,
saying, See? See? There is my daughter. She is old
like me. Look, look, look at her sleeping. And they
crowd in, the way they did when I was born—pressing
and peering over each other’s shoulders into my cradle.
(prev. pub. in Sakano, 2005; and Tight, 1996)
_____________________
GATHERING FORGIVENESS
Gathering forgiveness as we would gather
miracles—it’s not the lack—
it’s the accumulation.
You expound and the stones listen.
Wary of each other, we drag a line between us.
Dancers edge into the light then disappear.
You name them sorrows—
none of them your own,
I embrace them
through the mirrors.
My hand goes right through you.
You laugh and the skies tremble.
Light is the first resistance—
you are made of it.
Birds fly up and out of the barren trees—
migod, we marvel—what are these.
We have forgotten such mythologies—
as surely as we do not exist for them.
_______________________
WORD BY WORD
I felt the time turn in the distance, and the glow wait to
be dawn, and I heard the drone of the first plane fly over
the day, and I felt a connection. And I stopped in the
middle of a word to say another word, and I felt a whole
scenario change in my head, and I felt a distance gather
me, and I gave up my poem to the distance. And I
thought I heard a rustle of rain, and though I listened as
hard as I could, it was not the rain, but my listening that
I heard, and I felt the moment—like a power that I had—
to know its moment. And I grew greedy, and looked a-
round for more, but I had to pay for that with a loss. And
I want to tell you about that, too, but I looked up at the
clock, and the thin scrap of paper under my pen was
coming to its own end—and I guess what I want to say
is not to be said—not now, and maybe never—but I’ll
take what I can of it and be thankful for all this awareness
that lets me grope on, word by word.
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
GATHERING UP THE OLD FRUIT
—Joyce ODam
Gathering up the old fruit of those
delicious trees . . . Scattering
the bird shadows before they form
their own starvations around us . . .
Hunger is not the only message here.
(prev. pub. in Lilliput)
________________________
Joyce Odam has taken us up on this week’s Seed of the Week: Gathering, and has sent us a great gathering of poems and photos—mighty thanks to her for these! Joyce’s tiny journal, Brevities: A Mini-Mag of Minimalist Poems, edited by Joyce and her co-editor/daughter, Robin Gale Odam, has a new issue out, packed with poets we know and love, plus new voices, too. Send $1.55 to Joyce at 2432 48th Av., Sacramento, CA 95822-3809 for a copy.
Our new Seed of the Week is Hibernation. Not just animals hibernate—we've all been doing it one way or another for the last two years. And it's not always physical—there are lots of ways of shutting down, and lots of reasons. 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.
•••This coming Friday (Oct. 22) from 7-8:30pm, El Gigante presents An Evening with Maceo Montoya plus open mic on Zoom: cccconfer.zoom.us/j/9348057923/. Host: Danny Romero. A Sac. City College program in collaboration with the Center on Race, Immigration and Social Justice at CSUS, and Sacramento Poetry Alliance.
________________________
—Medusa
Corn and Poppy by Kees van Dongen
For more about Kees van Dongen, see
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.
LittleSnake with Corn and Poppies