Opening the Sky
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
THIS DARK-SKY MORNING
wobble-voiced again—
old morning rooster
what does he crow about
—ruling the silence
with his unmelodic and
somehow plaintive crowing
wobble-voiced again—
old morning rooster
what does he crow about
—ruling the silence
with his unmelodic and
somehow plaintive crowing
Life And Its Memory
BLUE FIRE AND RED SKY
As trees through blue fire sputter
and moan, their branches tangling,
their roots in a lessening hold—
grasping for blue
which may be sky
or dream—
blue fire
and red sky—
oh, fiery love and loss,
held together through all
destruction, what have you got
to lose but life and its memory—
wild music rushing through like wings
beating in sudden joy and madness—
balance in all its harmony and discord,
like all that music never written . . .
(prev. pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 2020)
Time is Broken
ONCE THERE WERE STARS IN THE NIGHT SKY
There are angers in the world now. The starless nights are
full of them. I remember the vast sky filled with stars that
dazzled—nothing lost yet of the wish-filled heavens, touch-
ing everywhere.
Only the mind touched. Only the eyes remember. Olden
time is broken. Splinters of dust clog the breathing. The
old known stars are not read or consulted. There are mind-
numbing angers now—full of world.
Etheria
THE EMPTINESS
dark moon
lost in
the night
of missing stars
sky-winds
that threaten
to tear the sky
with its harmony
of sounds that wail
and tear until there is
nothing left but fury of
regret, everything dying
at last—heaven's last bird.
To Name This Darkness
NAMING THE DARKNESS
After Stanbury Moor —Photograph by Fay Godwin,
from Remains of Elmet —Poems by Ted Hughes
What shall I name this darkness with its torn black sky,
its shadows that sweep the distances.
I know this night is strange but it has brought me here
to mourn, so I mourn. I fasten to the horizon
with bleak unwilling eyes—it is too far.
I am where I am, at another beginning, no strength
and no provisions. One silver path cuts through
the land, one curve of hill outlining land from sky.
A last thin rim of light hangs low enough to sharpen—
I’ll aim to that—still bright enough to beckon.
____________________
SOMETIMES THE PAIN
Sometimes the pain is made of beauty—bearable
because it hurts with tenderness and sweet lament,
because it stores your radiance, untarnished as with
memory, perfected by mere want, called out of time,
to once again be what it was.
Sometimes the pain is made of pain itself and takes
so long and leaves such marks of endurance only,
which is cruel and never—oh never fair—and
this kind hurts inside, impossible to get at
with medicinal or love.
Sometime the pain is only of the mind—vague and
unfindable, a ghost, an apprehension, superstition
of itself, and is like a cancer spreading through
itself—you are absorbed—your countenance
and heart are changed—and no one loves
you soon enough to save you from it.
What shall I name this darkness with its torn black sky,
its shadows that sweep the distances.
I know this night is strange but it has brought me here
to mourn, so I mourn. I fasten to the horizon
with bleak unwilling eyes—it is too far.
I am where I am, at another beginning, no strength
and no provisions. One silver path cuts through
the land, one curve of hill outlining land from sky.
A last thin rim of light hangs low enough to sharpen—
I’ll aim to that—still bright enough to beckon.
____________________
SOMETIMES THE PAIN
Sometimes the pain is made of beauty—bearable
because it hurts with tenderness and sweet lament,
because it stores your radiance, untarnished as with
memory, perfected by mere want, called out of time,
to once again be what it was.
Sometimes the pain is made of pain itself and takes
so long and leaves such marks of endurance only,
which is cruel and never—oh never fair—and
this kind hurts inside, impossible to get at
with medicinal or love.
Sometime the pain is only of the mind—vague and
unfindable, a ghost, an apprehension, superstition
of itself, and is like a cancer spreading through
itself—you are absorbed—your countenance
and heart are changed—and no one loves
you soon enough to save you from it.
The Inner Mind
NIGHT EASE
The black oyster of night opens
to release a white moon . . .
—Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni
The countless stars spill freely from the sky. The
white moon stares after them. The cold darkness
pulsates as the sea accepts the stars that pulsate
with sensation as the stars touch the water. There
is nothing lost from the sky—nothing to prove
of this.
Children at bedroom windows recite their prayers,
then sleep under the restive sky. The sea makes
a hollow singing that sounds like the wind. The
moon is a luxury tonight—a white wish for those
who used to be sailors.
The sky takes back the moon with a slow gathering
of dark clouds. In city trees, nightingales are easing
the hours of the sleepless.
NOTE : After an excerpt from a poem published in Poets' Forum
Magazine (or how I finally found Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni, a poet
admired since my childhood) . . . Joyce
The black oyster of night opens
to release a white moon . . .
—Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni
The countless stars spill freely from the sky. The
white moon stares after them. The cold darkness
pulsates as the sea accepts the stars that pulsate
with sensation as the stars touch the water. There
is nothing lost from the sky—nothing to prove
of this.
Children at bedroom windows recite their prayers,
then sleep under the restive sky. The sea makes
a hollow singing that sounds like the wind. The
moon is a luxury tonight—a white wish for those
who used to be sailors.
The sky takes back the moon with a slow gathering
of dark clouds. In city trees, nightingales are easing
the hours of the sleepless.
NOTE : After an excerpt from a poem published in Poets' Forum
Magazine (or how I finally found Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni, a poet
admired since my childhood) . . . Joyce
Another Beginning
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 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.
_____________________
NOW THE WORLD
is split
it is tearing in half at the long seam of the ocean
and beneath the waterfall of the mountain
I hear it crack in the silence of
inattention
something like a soft cry
or a low
moan
somewhere
between—
a width
children can still jump across
I see the shadow
widening and how deep it goes
deeper by the years
and decades
sunsets echo it—
strange clue—
formations cross the sky—
sky-song asking, too
After Ice Splitting, Baikal Lake
(prev. pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 2020)
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
THE SKY INVISIBLE
—Joyce Odam
seagulls drift in the white sky
and are not amazed that it is night
and my dream of them
they cry their white cries
and search for themselves
in the translucent dark
all night they make the sky invisible
and my sleep that harbors them
I am held in dreams’ white soaring
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/26/12)
________________________
“…in dreams’ white soaring…” just like those lovely clouds that persist in hanging over the West Coast while the rest of the country shivers and scuttles around in snow boots and dark grey skies. Joyce Odam is writing so skillfully, of course, about our Seed of the Week, “Opening Skies”. Thank you, Joyce!
Our new Seed of the Week is “Impatience”. 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 (if you already looked at the Kitchen this a.m. and saw a posting of Claire Baker and Katy Brown, and now you're looking and it's not there, that's because I put up the wrong post, thinking today is Weds., not Tuesday! Oh well, what can I say? S*** happens... Claire and Katy will magically re-appear tomorrow.)
—Public Domain Photo
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.
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
