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There Is No Other
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam,
Sacramento, CA
A SENSE OF STARLINGS
Turning the corner, a flurry of starlings
blackens the dead field,
pecking at what must be something
of concern to them.
No time to count them—or why.
It’s just that there are
so many—
so busily pecking, lifting, and circling.
If I might rewrite this :
Turning the corner—the starlings,
a startled word—musical—rising and
lingering on the word.
But history abhors starlings. I wonder why.
Driving around the corner, I find the
surprise of starlings—sudden and black—
and busy of movement.
I try to count them
but they've flown . . .
Turning a corner,
I wish to always find starlings—
blent—and small—and beautiful—and
so meaningfully important to themselves.
Turning the corner, a flurry of starlings
blackens the dead field,
pecking at what must be something
of concern to them.
No time to count them—or why.
It’s just that there are
so many—
so busily pecking, lifting, and circling.
If I might rewrite this :
Turning the corner—the starlings,
a startled word—musical—rising and
lingering on the word.
But history abhors starlings. I wonder why.
Driving around the corner, I find the
surprise of starlings—sudden and black—
and busy of movement.
I try to count them
but they've flown . . .
Turning a corner,
I wish to always find starlings—
blent—and small—and beautiful—and
so meaningfully important to themselves.
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Today—Tonight
THE MAZE HOUSE
She cannot find her way through the shifting rooms,
the lock of windows, the felt presence of another—
the way her shoulders touch darkness, and darkness
yields. Year after year she can hear a nightingale
in the center,
and year after year she seems to get closer to
the brilliant singing: She imagines a golden cage,
its small door open to the solving light, and no bird
there, though she can still hear the singing.
(prev. pub. in Seattle Review, 2001)
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All That Needs Us
IN THE PERILOUS TIMES
O, my little bird of tragedy—how sweetly
you sing, and how tenderly you cling,
to the golden branch of the singing tree.
And you aim for my heart, as if you were
a nightingale—and I thrill the more, for I
come from the land of sparrows and crows,
and the murmuring doves, when I wake up
in the fairy tale—and I don't know—and I
don't care when I somehow find you there.
O, my little bird of tragedy—how sweetly
you sing, and how tenderly you cling,
to the golden branch of the singing tree.
And you aim for my heart, as if you were
a nightingale—and I thrill the more, for I
come from the land of sparrows and crows,
and the murmuring doves, when I wake up
in the fairy tale—and I don't know—and I
don't care when I somehow find you there.
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Wherever Time Finds Us
FLYING IN DREAMS
I went on a soar—
dreaming all night.
Lit the moon with my boldness.
I was made of light.
I was made of cold—
did not fear the height.
The billow-gown I wore
was my travel kite
through the luminous skies—
the darkness so bright
I knew my way through
with a vast dream-sight.
The sky was so deep I knew
it was all right
to be there—like a thought-bird—
as if I might
become winged—find word
where throat was tight
with word resistance.
The dream would invite
me again, I thought, as everything blurred.
As everything went white.
_____________________
THE NIGHT BIRD THAT IS UNREAL
The night bird that is unreal
will cry and cry
because of its unreality.
Around me the night aches with
silences.
A train pours through
on its vibrations.
The night bird has vanished
like a thought.
I almost had him memorized.
A new train comes through now
on reality’s sound.
It is the ghost of the other.
My old house sleeps.
I am on the train
leaning against my window-image,
looking out into
the passing of dark houses,
a fare-well light left on
in one window.
(prev. pub. in Steelhead Special, 1995 and
Nocturnes chapbook, 1995, Frith Press)
I went on a soar—
dreaming all night.
Lit the moon with my boldness.
I was made of light.
I was made of cold—
did not fear the height.
The billow-gown I wore
was my travel kite
through the luminous skies—
the darkness so bright
I knew my way through
with a vast dream-sight.
The sky was so deep I knew
it was all right
to be there—like a thought-bird—
as if I might
become winged—find word
where throat was tight
with word resistance.
The dream would invite
me again, I thought, as everything blurred.
As everything went white.
_____________________
THE NIGHT BIRD THAT IS UNREAL
The night bird that is unreal
will cry and cry
because of its unreality.
Around me the night aches with
silences.
A train pours through
on its vibrations.
The night bird has vanished
like a thought.
I almost had him memorized.
A new train comes through now
on reality’s sound.
It is the ghost of the other.
My old house sleeps.
I am on the train
leaning against my window-image,
looking out into
the passing of dark houses,
a fare-well light left on
in one window.
(prev. pub. in Steelhead Special, 1995 and
Nocturnes chapbook, 1995, Frith Press)
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The Lonely Center
THE AURA OF DARKNESS
After "Bird in silhouette against flare of light"
(Photo by James Ballard as seen in
Reflections on the Gift of a Watermelon Pickle)
O bird, in bird outline
O bird, in bird silhouette
O bird, in stark relief—
that old thieved line
Around you, a rim of flared light
Behind you, a swirl of energy
Inside of you, the dark threat
Unreal or real, what
has decided you?
Sharp beak and quiet eye—at rest,
what has arrested you?
…against swirl of energy
…all light has suppressed in you
…self darkened to mere silhouette
A shadow-child might see you
and think you tame.
A shadow-world might free you
and release your name.
And I might rearrange the gathered
instance of you to exclaim :
…reality is not true
…imagination has its own view
…no shape of fear is darker than you
O bird, in bird outline
O bird, in bird silhouette
O bird, in stark relief—
that old thieved line
Around you, a rim of flared light
Behind you, a swirl of energy
Inside of you, the dark threat
Unreal or real, what
has decided you?
Sharp beak and quiet eye—at rest,
what has arrested you?
…against swirl of energy
…all light has suppressed in you
…self darkened to mere silhouette
A shadow-child might see you
and think you tame.
A shadow-world might free you
and release your name.
And I might rearrange the gathered
instance of you to exclaim :
…reality is not true
…imagination has its own view
…no shape of fear is darker than you
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Returning
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.
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The Unknown Language Of Its Singing
PICTORIAL
a flurry of birds
a white fence
a house
an old road stretching by with no one on it
a time of day
not noted for this verse
. . . all that motion . . . all that stillness . . .
a wide play of sky to hold the birds
a frame of land to hold the house
a boundary to hold the fence
an isolation so severe the birds break free to
a flurry of birds
a white fence
a house
an old road stretching by with no one on it
a time of day
not noted for this verse
. . . all that motion . . . all that stillness . . .
a wide play of sky to hold the birds
a frame of land to hold the house
a boundary to hold the fence
an isolation so severe the birds break free to
escape it
a house
a fence
a lack of birds
two disappearing ends for the road that stretches by
with no one on it
a house
a fence
a lack of birds
two disappearing ends for the road that stretches by
with no one on it
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Time To Go
THIS POEM ABOUT LOSS
Now I feel distance settle between us.
I have won the drift. Birds enumerate,
their dark gold eyes struck by light.
Wires hold their shadows and extensions
of shadows that loom into evening.
The day’s length is over and night begins.
We have taken another path from each other.
The word I am after
still eludes me.
I cannot put it in this poem about loss.
Perhaps you are saying it to yourself.
Somehow we still receive light
from a flurry of birds
that take to the gray air from the high trees
and thrum over the house to dot the field
with their complexities—
enough diversion for us to leave our quarrel
and exclaim our marveling at this.
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
ALIENATIONS
—Joyce Odam
Come, birds,
come, words,
the world needs us—
we are special—
today—tonight—
wherever time finds us—
holding our lives at length,
even finding what we look for—
needing, avoiding, all that needs us :
Fly. Fail. Ease into sorrow—
like love into love that can never find us.
______________________
The bird is the word with Joyce Odam today, as she soars through our Seed of the Week: First Flight. Birds are a perfect chance to write concrete poems, letting your words fly along the page in the shape of birds in flight, and Joyce has given us a couple of examples of that. Thank you, Joyce, for poems and pix! (And see the photo below.)
Our new Seed of the Week is “Narrow Escapes”. 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.
______________________
—Medusa
celebrated her 100th birthday last week.
Here is a photo of Joyce (center right)
and Norma (center left) at Norma’s
birthday party; long-time buddies, they are.
Joyce isn’t far from that milestone herself.
(Olga Browne posted this on Facebook.)
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.
