The Mirrors of Years

 Bare Trees, Full Moon

 

* * *

—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos by Joyce Odam

 

 

 

WINTER MOONLIGHT
—Joyce Odam

Where are you in the moonlight
now—the residue of light—
the dark, incorporating?

I know this light, how it flares,
how it dwindles,
candle-like.
       
Whoever leads the way through this
is burdened, going ever deeper,
into the thoroughness.

Here, there are answers.
Never opened.
There is no light.

That was long ago,
in your imagination,
ever holy—

ever
wounded
by the difference

and the myth of knowing—
enduring still
where hope still promises.

 

(prev. pub. in Rattlesnake Review, 2005)

 

 

 

 Winter Moonlight

WHAT IS WRITTEN, WHAT IS REAL
—Joyce Odam

It is first a thought.
It becomes a love. It becomes a word.

It is a word.
It is an utterance. It is a poem.

It is a mute utterance.
It is read by the eyes. It is read by the mind.

It is now the poem.
It is now the ash. It is now the wind.

___________________

WHITE SHADOW OF LONELINESS
—Joyce Odam

Tonight the white shadow of loneliness
flows down upon the silent room

where someone sits in reminiscence
in the quiet hour—

something mentioned
long ago, or

only sits and looks at the white chairs
caught in similar emptiness, or
 
simply drifts away
from any meaning.

Beam by beam
the white shadow stretches

into moonlight
and the hour thickens.

The walls take on the brightness
that searches the room for some connection.

Tonight, the white shadow of loneliness
flows down.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/11/17; 8/10/21)

_________________

WHITE UMBRELLAS IN THE SNOW
—Joyce Odam
After Kennin-ji Temple, Kyoto, Japan
—Photo by Modi Galili

What kind of winter needs a white umbrella,
except for the thrill of snow,
silently falling—

except
for the trail of shoes
making long white traces in the snow.

Three walkers,
costumed blue, appear under
the relevance of the white umbrellas.

Maybe
a dance—a ritual—
a planned performance, wrong season.

The world is wide—the stage a
landscape of pure white distance—the
white umbrellas vanishing into more white.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/24/20) 

 

 

 

 Tree Line

AT THE PERIPHERY
—Robin Gale Odam
After Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River

I’m certain I was here before—
the deep lush of green shade at the
periphery, the bouquet at my breast,
the perfume—

fragile sunlight on my parasol,
the earth dry and soft—my gown
dusted the blue shadows on the path-
way, the dust of the earth. The dust,

the marker, the granite bench, the
linen kerchief—the bowl of fruit and the
plate of bread, the table set for guests.
I loved the blue shadows.

My mother prayed, she said, for the sorrows.
I tried to tell her they are called sparrows—

we came to gather at the valley, the one
you have to cross alone—not to pass like
an arid breeze, but just to dip into the
stream, and to die the death into the
holy grail.

I loved the blue shadows.

 

 

 

 I Thought It Was A Dream

UNTETHERED
—Robin Gale Odam

a strand of fragile string in my fingers,
the cold moon low in the sky—only a few
years have gone by 

 

 

 

 The Eyes

WHO IS THIS CHILD
—Joyce Odam

Who is this child of the haunted eyes
hidden beyond the look.

If I should enter
such eyes, what would I know.

I cannot be mother to this child,
he is already too old—

years are mirrors, the haunted eyes
already formed.

Dark tears swim,
waiting to burn.

What can I do
but look past the burning eyes—

no book of love
to read there. 

 

 

 

 The Calling

WINTER SOLILOQUY
—Joyce Odam

What is left but the terrible ash
sifting on gray air . . .

I feel a twinge of emotion, unnamed
and unremembered. Where does it center?

I track the season by its loss, knowing
it goes too fast. The season slips by, and I

am left in its slow wake as if I did not
belong here,    questioning,    and lingering.

What is life that I carry it in me so singularly,
praising it,    and damning it.

I mourn the mystery of myself,
unfinished,    and unsorted.

I feel like an unfolding,
but I cannot open, and I cannot close.

The sight of a single resting heron
leaves me with such a mourning.     


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/11/22)

___________________

WIDOW DANCE
—Joyce Odam

Precarious,
on the high wall,
the low sun
blazing the stones
to fiery shadow,
loneliness
will not have her;
even the moon
must leave her there,
not knowing why
she grieves
or for how long
or with what loyalties
due to widows; her cries
are the harsh cries
of stolen time.
Her dance
is sacrificial;
she dances till
the hem of her dress
is thoroughly ruined and
the evening crows fluster around her.

                               
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/17/15)

 

 

 

 The Way Home

WINDOW AND SEA
—Joyce Odam

And the tides—as they pull again
at the moon’s urging
and the earth’s response,

the slow motion of time,
the gray window that lets in light,
yet holds the darkness.

Such is the compromise :
subtleties of shadow,
the way the cold walls shift,

or seem to.
How near the sea—
the old admonishing sea,

claiming what it claims,
whispering,
come near . . .   stay back . . .

And the sea breathes in and out
with its glimmers of sunlight—
the sea’s reflection.

And the tiny window
glints out over the bay
and the day fills with strangers

changing the mood and rhythm
between window and sea
and breaking the connection.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/19/16)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

WRUNG
—Joyce Odam

your cry
on the soft darkness

your tears
in a tight handkerchief

making the rain
such sorrow

 
(prev. pub. in Paisley Moon, Winter 1991
and Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/10/19)

_____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam for today’s fine, wintery poetry and photos! Our new Seed of the Week is “Jewels”. 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

 

 

A reminder that Mario Ellis Hill,
Ann Michaels, and Frank Graham
will be reading at Twin Lotus Thai
in Sacramento tonight, 6pm—
reservations strongly advised!
For info about this and other
future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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