Courage Among Sparrows

Affinity

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

 

 

CROW AS OBJECT OF AFFECTION
—Joyce Odam

Crow, you are so eloquent. I love your sweet voice.
I admire the sheen of your feathers—the way
your deliberate gold eye fixes me with
cold appraisal.

I fling bits of food to you from my generous hand,
note how delicately you peck at the sidewalk.
I admire your courage among sparrows.

I love the way you steal light from the harsh wings
of the sun, how fences hold you in wide arms of
patience and how you tolerate my lingering
admiration from a distance.


(prev. pub. in Nanny Fanny, Final Memorial Issue,
Spring 2005; and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/22/09)

____________________

SKY PUDDLE : A PERSPECTIVE
—Joyce Odam

In a puddle of water—the sky—
clouds confined to this small rain lake,

the brief flight of gulls
that do not stir the surface,

that do not seem displaced or strange
though they fly upside down;

and vertigo is not the point of this—
that such a shifting vastness

can be caught—fragmentary—
and deep, if one looks down to see,

and does not break
the image with their own reflected feet.


(In slight revision from publication in
Poets' Forum Magazine, 6/96)

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/16/14;
3/29/16; 6/28/16; 6/22/21; 6/29/21) 

 

 

 

In Harmony

 

SKY-JUGGLER
—Joyce Odam
After Circus Memories by Michael Parkes

She watches him
from her distance,

her juggler
and the swan

the crescent moon
and no star.

Oh, how he loves to juggle
the golden spheres of

secret after secret.
He knows she’s there.

 
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/16/14)

________________________

THE TOILETTE
—Joyce Odam

what is precious here in this tray
of things :
her rings,
the tray itself,
the old array of bracelets and pins . . .
her face in the mirror,
imprinted by
the same old memory of herself,
the way it appears
and disappears,
like a glance,
the crumpled tissue for daubing
at makeup and tears
as if they burned—  
how scented here :
the spilled powder
her favorite colognes—
the thick waft of hairspray
aimed at her hair,
and floating down like virga,
as she leaves the room
to itself in pampered waiting
for when next she enters for repair


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/4/18)

 

 

 

 Contrast

 

FORBEARANCE

—Joyce Odam

when she lay in the flickering sunshine,
when she lay in the rain,
when she lay in the years
that held her,
motionless—
held her
forgotten,
against her will—
when she lay there
unimportant—
without fame,
and she became
the silent shadow
under the rustle of leaves
of the ancient tree
that sheltered her, all these years . . .

                                
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/3/20)

____________________

INSOMNIA XLIII
—Robin Gale Odam

If I should sleep I would
cry myself awake

I move through the house,
through an artifice of thin light from
window glass, into a darkened room

Incense and books    a waver of
candle light    the old straight-back
wooden chair    the weathered sketch-
pad    the vase of colored pencils

I select orange


(prev. pub. in Brevities, June 2020)

 

 

 

The Following

INSOMNIA XV
—Robin Gale Odam

I trace the dimensions of this night,
counting its measures and choosing

its name. Simile is christened after
something in my soul—it calls for me

now as it did a time before—and it
names me Once Again.

                            
(prev. pub. in Brevities, February 2017)

______________________

THE QUIET LOBBY
—Joyce Odam
After Pieces of Map, Pieces of Music
by Robert Bringhurst
(p. 39) NÁNUÁN PUYÜÀN

In the lobby, a few old men sit around and stare
out the sidewalk window, or read old newspapers,
or doze and dream their unsolved dreams. Time is
a carpet between them and the worn distance to  
the outside world.

The clerk at the desk is a manikin of boredom and
surly patience, barely noticing what passes by the
window or who wanders in and slips up the stairs.

The hour is unimportant. It stays the same. No one
asks the time. Rain comes and patterns the un-
washed lobby window with streaks of intricate
design.

The old men watch the rain for diversion as the
desk clerk answers the harsh ring of the telephone
that breaks the boredom of the place.

He listens a long time with no expression, then
motions one of the men to the phone who asks
who it is and gives a long shudder of tears, as if
he can’t believe what he hears.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/1/20) 

 

 

 

The Rocks

 

TIME PASSING
—Joyce Odam

Life is an art of patience, like this old man
sitting on a porch chair as frame after frame
of time-film catches his non-movement.

But a closer look will show
how much higher the weed grass is,
in the last frame from the first.

See how faded his clothing has become,
how first he stares in one direction
then another.

Note that he crosses and uncrosses his leg
and how the subtle house in the background
has settled into disrepair around him.         
                                                  

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/2/18)

 

 

 

A Broken Sense of Beauty

 

SCRIBBLE
—Robin Gale Odam

above a thunderous rinse cycle
in the laundry room

over the din of commercials pleading
inside the television

a short distance from breakfast in peril
on the stove

the fracture of poetry
                          

(prev. pub. in Brevities, June 2020)

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

YOUR THOUGHTS AS FAR
—Joyce Odam

day-dreamer of the drab
and dreary world

your day existing
in window glass

where your eyes
stray for images—

your thoughts as far
as nightingales in China

___________________

Our thanks to Joyce and Robin Gale Odam for today’s fine poetry and visuals, as we gallop toward the Summer Solstice headed our way just one month from now. It's nearly Memorial Day already!

Our new Seed of the Week is “Memories Worth Keeping”. 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.

Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week.

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Circus Memories
—Painting by Michael Parkes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For future poetry happenings in
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