—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos by Robin Gale Odam
EUREKA
—Joyce Odam
Need is a word—we all feel loss :
I think I know the now
I think I know the how
I think ‘all’ is forever
and ‘ever’ is a vow.
We cry ‘no’ in times of woe :
Grieving is for every-thing,
especially for every-one—
I lose my way and lose your way
and we are upside down.
We feel our pity—hug our arms :
Grieving is for every-thing,
grieving is for every-one,
even for the every-thing—
now that every-thing is waiting.
Cry for the love and feel it die :
I lose my way to find myself
I lose my way and lose your way
and we are everything alone,
the wind, the waiting wind—
Time is sorry—feel it try :
You want the answer of the now,
only waiting for the vow,
the other answer is the
when—the only way is when.
THE HOUSE FILLED WITH BOOKS
—Robin Gale Odam
The dream is the house filled with books full of
dreams.
The bindings are worn and the margins are
marked
In light pencil and referenced on strips of
scrap paper
Inserted between every chapter—the bookmarks
Are old and the cases are heavy with volumes
Of whatever dreams could be captured and
written—
Chimera, the fantasy. Wraith in a trance.
The specter of hunger. The cases are heavy
With endings and bookmarks all scribbled in
shorthand
To anchor the reference to memory—scribbles of
Marks long forgotten—what is a dream after all,
Past recollection—the cases are heavy.
Chimera, the mystery scribbled in shorthand.
The specter of hunger. The wraith in a trance.
GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT
—Robin Gale Odam
We had our hair done today.
We’re all dressing up—maybe a touch of
that scent at the nape of my neck—and red
for my lips—my silk handbag, and that long
dress that falls just above my feet—I glance
into the mirror and . . . no, it’s all wrong.
I comb out my hair, blot my red lips—a quick
shower, my soft sneakers, my faded jeans
and tee-shirt . . . yes that’s it.
The girls arrive—as usual, they are all
overdressed.
____________________
PASSAGE
—Robin Gale Odam
the table is set
show-white linen, sweetest fruits
this is my new dress
father will be home today
narrow path from mountain peak
(prev. pub. in Brevities, April 2017)
MEASURED
—Robin Gale Odam
The hour is greater than its number—
composed above the waters, above
the dark, above the ice, at once both
flat and deep, filled with life and with
silence—measured just so as to hold,
and as to take, your breath.
INSOMNIA XII
—Robin Gale Odam
Maybe a dream, a ripple of wind,
a cover of thin sleep—the moon, just
past new, sterling crescent in the
night sky, in a shatter of stars through
black cellophane—it was brief, sheer.
And now the deepening hours.
(prev. pub. in Brevities, November 2016)
___________________
RICOCHET
After “Blood” by Naomi Shihab Nye
—Robin Gale Odam
Strange amnesia at the pass of a
tick of time—the lift of hairs on the
skin, the ire of longing in the ricochet
of a heartbeat—
wilderness of passion in the blood,
breath of fathers turned to wind—song
borrowed from the rustling of leaves, the
slip of water, the meadowlark, the still of
night, the shooting star—
the sail catches the wind, the wind
catches the sand, the great sea cradles
the heart of man—
life is in the blood—the memory, the
fable, the idiosyncrasy of blue, song of the
ancestor, wail of birth—the root holds fast
the one good earth.
Today’s LittleNip:
FABLE
—Joyce Odam
In the book’s forest
live the bears of harmony
who dream beneath the trees
amid the gold butterflies
and other wraiths of heaven.
(prev. pub. in Brevities, September 2018)
______________________
Gratitude as always to Joyce and Robin Gale Odam for today’s poetry, and to Robin for her photos! Today they are riffing on our Seed of the Week, Safe Haven.
Our new Seed of the Week is “Fragile”. 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.
And be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week.
______________________
—Medusa
A reminder that tonight, 5:30pm,
is an El Dorado County Book Launch
and Open Mic at Cameron Park Library,
with multiple readers and a new book,
Wildflowers, by Beverly Parayno.
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.
