As Safe As Love

 

Up in the Air

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, 

Sacramento, CA

GOING TO HEALING PLACES

And when they go—down again to the
wild places where they go, the ancient
crow and the old dog, who are friends.
They smile in the moonlight.

I have tried to follow them under the wet
trees—my shoes making no sounds, but
they know I am behind them. They turn
and look at me.

Now they are going there again—half-blind
crow on the gray shoulder of the limping
dog—the crow guiding them along by the
stars in brief-lit openings.

When they return I hear them brushing the
walls with their torn shadows that mend by
morning—poor old creatures—tame and
napping—one at my feet,  the other
on the coat-rack by the door.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/16/10)

______________________

DECEMBER MOON

Crescent Moon.
A dream.
Sea stars sparkle.
The shore is far and lonely.
A beautiful fish turns into a woman.
A desire.
Frail moonlight quivers upon the dark sea.
The sea suppresses.
The beautiful woman turns into moonlight;
her long red hair pulls toward you—
fire-strands;
her luminous scales glimmer like gold—
shimmer endlessly.
A crown of sea shells holds her hair in place.
She trembles shoreward.
Still she has not reached you.
Her hair tangles away from your touch.
Maybe she is not real—
maybe she is only real to losses like this.

                                           
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen) 

 

 

 

 Day of Unbeginning

 

DRIVING THROUGH THE HILLS

these levels of hills
beyond which reach the sky
and my yen for distance—
                  
one blue upon the other,
shades of distance receding
into the pale-to-darkening sky
                   
the hills closer now with
overlapping tones and shadows—
old twilight hills that I am watching,
                  
a thin line of river flowing up the
mountain leaving behind a small lake
upon which a small island is floating


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/19/11)    

____________________

TREES IN A PERFECT MOONLIGHT
After “What Kind of Times are These”
by Adrienne Rich

the old moonlight finds them,
giving them
its protection.

Time does nothing about this.
It slides on past
with all its environmental changing.

The moonlight has soft echoes
that reverberate to those
who love the trees.

The trees sense this and rustle softly
so the winds will move them at its knowing,
winds with their powers of direction.

Those who love the trees can sense this,
think about the trees in their soft moonlight—
think about the trees and love them.

_____________________

The Old Forests,

this
is where
the
trees
thrive
that are
still alive,
ageless
trees and tall,
in a guarded
reserve
that are
very old
untouched by all
but the perfect moonlight
that shines secretly upon them.  

 

 

 

 Gray Within the Gray

 

DRIVING IN FOG

Today the fog pulls me away.
I am the gray within the gray,

detached from traffic grope,
surreal with lost direction.

I follow the first meander of my mood :
past abstract, unknown neighborhoods;

past streetlights that smear the names
of street signs at unreadable corners.

The whole world sifts around me—
the sky on my car—my feeble headlights

trying to peer-in far-enough to get us through
to where distorting time determines I should be.


(prev. pub. in Bay Area Poets Coalition POETALK, 2007
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/2/14)  

 

 

 

The World’s Path

 

 

 

THE WAY OF STONES

This is the way all stones
are laid in a path—
recognizable
or not,
belonging
where they are—
they are not there
without some intention—
stones appear by movements
not their own, coming from
as far as earth’s revisions—
or brought by some lover
of stones, to be native anew,
to become a mystery perhaps, or
merely regional to the world’s path.

 

 

 

As Late As Time

 

WE WALK OUT TO THE END
OF THE PIER

We walk out
to the end of the pier.
The sea is wild and loud.
The writhing water swells
and breaks against the pilings.

We lean out
to watch the force
and feel the vertigo,
the hampered water
loud and terrible to hear.

We chill,
the thrill repelled,
the magnitude become too much.
We shiver back
to where ground holds—
 
to where perspectives fit again
our smaller scope,
our separate selves
returned to each—
as late as time, as safe as love.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/21/12)

______________________                                               

THIS TRAIL OF NOSTALGIA

this trail of nostalgia
going into a wood
a trail of crumbs
to follow
deepness ahead
oh, blue sorrow
I see you there
I am coming
I am hungry too
and late to everything
oh, faint remembering
be patient
do not fade
I am bringing my
weeping and my love
my tears will be left
for others
to be misunderstood . . .
I must know you again,
sweet memory
nothing in life
has compared
are you there
are you true
or am I in
the land of trickery
that forever-never-world
of anywhere
but here
and any time
but now


(prev. pub. in Yarrow, 1991)

 

 

 

Ever Toward

 

The exodus goes on and on.

It takes forever.
Forever has no measure.
Only the goal
and the beginning—
a promise
and a goal.
One strives forever.
The goal is a word.
Forever is
the line upon which
the goal is written. The going
is the end toward which it hungers—
mountains and valleys under the weight
of effort, striving toward the word—ever
before you—a long line of letters—an alphabet
of going—toward—ever toward . . . .

____________________
                                           
Today’s LittleNip:

THIS SINGING
—Joyce Odam

Wanting pure song this day of unbeginning
of already winding too tight, relearning
its saddest joy from heartache and hope,

from wanting and needing,
from striving and failing, and striving again
into the hours that are draining,

how can I hope this—want this—
so much—when from a meadow of
remembered time, there is a meadowlark.

____________________

Joyce Odam has picked up our Seed of the Week (Wandering) and sent us some beautiful thoughts about it, and we thank her for that! My mind will be Wandering all day—not that it isn’t already…

For Adrienne Rich’s “What Kind of Times Are These”, see www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51092/what-kind-of-times-are-these/.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Mothers”. Surely you’ve written about mothers before, but give it another try for Mother’s Day. There’s always more to say about mothers! 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. And see every Form Fiddlers’ Friday for poetry form challenges, including those of the Ekphrastic type.

In case you missed it last week, here is that article about wandering for writers: "The Art of Wandering for Writers & Business Artists”, on Tracking Wonder, at trackingwonder.com/art-wandering-writers-business-artists/. The link is also listed on our new, recently fixed-up FORMS! OMG!!! page at the top of this column. Which gives me another excuse to advertise those shiny new links up there—check ‘em out, including the calendar on UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS.

______________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of 

Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry events in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.

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. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!