Singing to the Shadows

 

Curiosity Killed the Cat

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam,

Sacramento, CA

 

OLD WOMAN OF SORROWS

I am the old woman
of sorrows.
Come hear me sing
in my church of innocence.

I am the lost way
taken by others
who also have lost me.

I have waited too long
for reverence to find me
with hands full of praise.

Now I sing to the shadows
which dance so softly
to my music.

Now I wait for the days
to lengthen to fit me
where night is an old soul
into which I will move
in comfort and submission.

                       
(prev. pub. in Haight Ashbury Literary Journal)

 

 

 

Ladybug

 

FAIRY TALE FOREST

This is Fairy Tale Forest, opening slow,
with a winding sunlit path leading into it.

The warm light dances on leaves and makes
golden-reflections on the flickering ground.

The children see the sunlit path—hear the
deep singing birds, and follow the temptation.

The children will enter because it is
their destiny to risk becoming lost.

The air is sweet with the soft singing
of the forest birds—deep in its interior.

The forest keeps expanding, no danger
at its edges, no clue to its illusion.

How long can the forest hold its shape of
innocence, the soft warmth of its seduction?

The children are enchanted.  They are curious.
They go in . . . their very own wilderness.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/5/14)

 

 

 

 Enigma

CITY CURIOSITY :
ABANDONED TRACKS

But for the tempting green woods
edging these tracks one might
long to follow the woodsy sunlit
opening where something pulls
with an old ardor.

What stirrings here, what twinge
of satisfaction for the curious to
mull. Old scattered gravel, tracks
broken off and turning into dead
ends before shutting down com-
pletely.

The old tracks gleam through
their rust. Reverberations seem to
linger. The trees close in and
chill. The day darkens. A moan
in the changing air sounds like a
faint and far away train whistle.

____________________

BENT WATER IN THE MOONLIGHT

It is the bent water in the moonlight that gets lost
where the dream ends. The sleeper still can choose.  
The small boat rocks in the moonlight and the curve

of the river pulls. But the sleeper is comfortable here,
dreaming an old dream, safe in the sturdy little boat
in the mesmerizing center of the water.  

Then the boat widens until it touches the banks,

and the dreamer steps out of it onto both shores

where two young women are walking away from him—
both are familiar, but his heart can hold only one;
they have warned him of this. Now the boat shrinks;

it can bring him back to the scale of easy dreaming
but begins to drift off and will soon be out of
reach. He is beginning to waken. He must choose.

                                                                  
(prev. pub. in The Gathering, Ina Coolbrith
Anthology, 1999, and New River Poets Anthology,
Watermarks: One)

 

 

 

Written in Stone

 

FOX, GOING EXTINCT

Looking for the words,
shy in the eyes of fox—
enclosed in a nettle of wire

in the elaboration of art.
Bronze now,
held firm for the eternity

of its look—
held sad and absolute.
Curious about

the poem it will be—Fox,
posed slender and tame
to exhibit the

illumination of its life—
out of time and condition,
one would swear its eyes

were blue—for its misery,
tamed now for the
sweet adulation of those

who love Fox—so entangled
in its fury of obedience
—the theft of its liberty.  

____________________    

HERON . FOX . TORTOISE, ETC.
After “The Swan” by Mary Oliver

Everything too beautiful
hurts :

every vanishing creature—

every vanished one—

every disappearing genus—

obliteration—

why else
such universal grieving—?

___________________

CYCLOPS

In the burrowing eye
a tear

begins
to form

a look so poignant
she echoes back

from the dream
that conjures her  

a sympathy of sorts
too late

or too false
the dreamer is innocent

of the creative eye
so yearning

in the gravity
of their existence

 

 

 

Of War And Even Love

 

THE HAND ON THE MIRROR

The hand, pressed to the mirror,
seems to fit the mood of sorrow—
the silver ring slipped sideways
from the tension of the hand
gripping at beads and tassels,

holding something more
than anger :
signs
of work,
of war, and even love.

The mirror
mocks,
reflects,
reacts,
the way eyes would rekindle life :

all its worth and wear :
wrong seasons
and lost reasons for it all.
The hand rests on the edge of strength.
The eyes study what more is there for touch.

_____________________

THE HELD NOTE

Holding one long note of music within the music,
inattention comes to irritation—is the note stuck,
holding itself in one long tremble, the other notes
probing around it—is there intention—this held
sound longer than breath-holding, like swimmer
under water—will the held-note merge back into
the lost smoothness, otherwise pleasing, except
for the annoyance of the listener.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/25/17)

 

 

 

 One More Stanza

BLACKBIRD
(Song)

Black Bird, Black Bird, flying so low
Black bird, black bird, I watch you go
Down wind, downward, into the snow.

Soft touch, soft touch, open your hand.
Some tell fortune—some make demand,
Black Bird, falling on a cold land.

Omens, omens, all over town.
Fortune cookies cover the ground
Black Bird finds them.
What has he found?

Hard truth! Hard truth, where is your lie,
now that wind chimes trouble the sky.
Every winter they learn to cry.

(Repeat 1st verse)

Black Bird, Black Bird, flying so low            
Black bird, black bird, I watch you go
Down wind, downward, into the snow.

 

 

 

 One More Refrain

GRAB BAGS

I never could resist staple-papered
grab-bags that only cost a nickel,
with one bag always costing more,

though I was reminded that one
choice was “good as the next"
and was Made in China—

some bags were tiny enough to tease
my curiosity . . . how I would dawdle
along, poking at each shape and size,

while the old, smiling, enigmatic
Corner Grocery owner would give
no clue, but watch me choose

just long enough to all but make me
late for school—minus part of my
lunch money . . . Mama might

scold but she knew how I was
never late for school, and she would
understand the worth of a nickel.


(prev. pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1997) 

 

 

 

Myth’s Reality

  

                             
BETHLEHEM
After Modern City 2 by Alexey Kondakov

In this modern city of where and when
with its trolley car
stalled
and empty
except
for an angel trio
surrounding a lone woman
holding a baby on her lap,
asleep and dreaming—

One angel draws a bow across
the quietest of violin strings
and bends her head to see
if the infant is the one—
all three angels
giving their full awareness
to the sleeping infant
who must be dreaming this—

the mother believes so,
for this broken city,
on this winter night,
seems to be held in a holy moment :
all three angels
have silenced their wings
to hold the note of stillness
that it takes for affirmation to occur
where myth and myth’s reality
still struggle to affirm what is ordained.

__________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

HALFWAY INTO THE DREAM
After Claude Monet’s Water Lilies

halfway into the dream the dreamer wakens
to a pale landscape of floating flowers . . .
swirls and swirls of monotones . . .
flowers made of sadnesses
which are the lost powers of the dreamer


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/16)

__________________________

Curiosity is our current Seed of the Week, and it’s the theme of Joyce Odam’s poems today, too. Our thanks to her for her poems and photos, as she skirts the edges of reality, exploring with her own brand of curiosity.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Here Be Dragons”. Are we talking about the edges of the earth, or the edges of your marriage? Explore the unexplored with us, then 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.

For Mary Oliver’s “The Swan”, go to www.best-poems.net/mary_oliver/the_swan.html/. For more about Ukrainian artist Alexey Kondakov, see www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/05/art-history-in-contemporary-life/.

_________________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Modern City 2
—Painting by Alexey Kondakov

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry happenings 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.

 

"The mirror mocks,
reflects, reacts…"