Doorways Full of Dreams

 

In Search Of Strange Flowers

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, 

Sacramento, CA

 

A DARK SHACK IN A WOODS

A dark shack
in a woods
edged with yellow flowers
and simple daisies
and tall green stems of
something thick and climbing.
Who lives here
among these darks and lights?
Whose little house
is huddled
in the closing shadows
that pull even deeper
into long, deep night?
No light is at the windows.
Does a face peer out?
Are we unwelcome,
passing by like this?
This seems a dream-place
of some ancient calendar
and we an unturned page
of our own travel.
Should we knock?
Should we ask
direction, or perhaps
to stay the night
now closing down upon
the last soft shining
of the flowers?


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/17/15)    

 

 

 

The Florist

      

        
ALTITUDE

It was not for lack of place,
there was enough of it,
posing all around us in the lack of air.

It was so thin here
for our breathlessness,
our excitement with each other—

the delirium of discovery—
love in its momentous power,
and we its brave young fools.

How shy we were
in the dissolving and blending
when we changed and were changed.

And this we took with us—
the memory that stayed faithful,
though we regressed,

grew cynical
and careful,
and never climbed that high again.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/14/15)

 

 

 

 With Poems All Around

HOMELAND                   

Come to the hawk land.
Bring bones.
Wear necklaces of teeth.
Watch for the slippery shadows.

You will become as one of those
who have always lived here.
When you hear wings,
climb stones
till you reach the nest.
Climb in.
Lie on the dreams.

The children you own
will thrive here.
They will be wild and hungry.
They will choose their own names.
They will live precariously
on the cliffs of your fear.

Whoever loves you
will never undo your power.
The shadow is your love.
The nest is your land.
The hawk is your mother.


(prev. pub. in The Bridge, 1998, and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/2/18)

___________________

WHERE SHADOWS PLAY WITH SUNBEAMS

After Wistman's Wood, Dartmoor, Devon, UK

In the woods, many shadows and
many sunbeams play through trees that
guide me in, and in, till I am deeper in.

The trees grow thicker. The shadows shift.
The sunlight flickers in and out of branches
that replicate their patterns on the moving ground.

Turning circles lead me deeper—hearing now,
the snaps and rustles—the loss of place—
the alien blend of peace mixed up with fear—

the feeling that I don’t belong : shadows turn into night,
unseen birds are closing up their songs, and I am in
the center of a center with no direction now.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/24/19)

 

 

 

 From Another Time

LOSS

Wearing the light now
you are illuminated and
your edges shine.

All around you
is a path
that winds softly under your feet.

You are turned
both toward me
and away from me.

I can see you are transparent.
The mist of your presence
is very fragile.

I want to touch you,
but you shudder.
I am afraid I might break you.

You become filled
with energy
and compress.

You enter shadows
that escort your darkness
into their hiding place.

Where
are
you?


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/26/19) 

 

 

 

As A Vision

 

                                
A PATH OF FADING SUNLIGHT

come to me
but come softly
as a vision

come to me through the
blue air and take
your place among my shadows

I will leave a path of
fading sunlight as I turn from you
even before                                                                                                                                                                                      
I know you are there

you will wait
like a perfection
I will feel you touch me
with your realness
but I will be veiled
in a longer sorrow
than you hear

do not listen
do not leave me
before I find you

oh, I do like
the trail of incense
between us…
ah, you are there
with your ancient perfume
growing faint with waiting

but I am frozen
before a cruel doorway
full of dreams
full of dreams
I must dream them
before I return
to your calmness and patience
                                   
I must not let you see my face
for it is harsh and weeping
it is scarred and old
you must wear gloves
you must wear
a blindfold


(prev. pub. in Community Endeavor, 1991, and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/8/22)                                       

___________________

PATHWAY

this yellow path through green woods
these pure surroundings not yet entered

the going
the arriving

the sky continuing
the world turning its timeless measuring

the way in

the way through

the way out

the entering and closing after—seamless

 

 

 

 A Guarded Woods

THE TURN
After Turn in the Road by Charles Burchfield, 1917

green trees
a woods
a gnarled tree
holding up a
lowering piece of sky
above a darkened building,

empty eyes staring at the turn
two white clouds (or headlights)
that grow larger and nearer
from the imposing distance
through the twisting trees,
an unnerving sound
in the breaking silence

almost a weeping (for the loneliness)
almost a cry (save me)
or something darker (find me)
from somewhere beyond
the unlit turn that keeps turning


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/26/17)

 

 

 

I Dream My Life

 

                           
THE WAY YOU LINGER

You float—as all things float—in distant thought,
no longer real or found in designed distance.
How can you not realize where you are?
                ~
You call me, weeping. I am closed to your voice,
cannot grant a solace to your tears, which pour
through the phone and burn my ear, my cruel mouth.
                ~
Somewhere in sleep, you dream my life again.
I cannot make out the dream from here. My mind
is a white line on a white page. It becomes a road.
                ~
You are walking toward me.

 
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/17/14 [rev.])                                                          

________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

WORD-FOREST
—Joyce Odam

what is written down the trees
flares
in last sunlight
blurs words
into messages
for
no readers
but
the
trees
that stand
in revelation
and awe
to be
so holy
the
trees
so innocent of this
to feel the light
read
and
revise
and bring
new comprehensions,
the eternal sunlight
flowing down the trees
and into the ground
there are such languages

_______________________

Fortunately for us, Joyce Odam is not lost in the woods (our Seed of the Week), but she does see them clearly and tells us all about them. Thank you, Joyce, for the woodsy poems and photos!

Our new Seed of the Week is “Ghosts”. 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

 

 

 

 —Photo Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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