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Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Borrowed Wings

 —Poetry by Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA
—Visuals Courtesy of Public Domain
 
 
NOTES WRITTEN IN THE DARK

What do we read within each other
beyond what we project?

Are we gentle in probing personas,
guessing what’s behind a mask?
Are we sensitive in visiting shadows,
weakness, a less-than-noble story?
What might we need to withhold?

Whoops, dare we critique another’s
pages, before delving well into our own?

Dear people, how wondrous:
we are here on earth together,
our book’s pages turning
backward and forward
in their own time and place.


(prev. pub. in Benicia Herald)
 
 
 


DOUBLE HELIX

Within the spirals of life’s rousing ride
we carry DNA and spirit prints,
plus dramatic foibles, freedoms, talents
through every primal and transcendent fire.
Attempting to master the more tricky loops
we lean to milder turns and fewer dips—
delighted when we pause and compromise,
cast sun on polar viewpoints, clear the fog,
refining stellar acts reflecting love.

When joy bear-hugs and we hug snugly back,
we sip the tasty tea of miracles,
believe that we will challenge life forever . . .
Yet, somewhere on our helix, planets which
had circled, marked our birthplace, tumble free:
the helix starts to memorize our passage.
When we can cling no longer, spirals
loan us wings for flexing, rising higher
into our own blue hammock in the sky.
 
 
 



AT CLARA’S KITCHEN TABLE
                 from the ’60’s

Restless after lunch,
Clara and I decide to each
draw a picture of our souls,  
use paper napkins
or binder paper near.

Clara starts: draws a boomerang
beside a cloud, as if her soul
flies high through time and space . . .
My soul is a lopsided circle.
It looks and feels like my soul.

Then my bestie asks me,
is there anything inside?
Inside I scatter dots for emotions,
each with a tiny door for entrance.
We’re excited campers,
proud and visionary.

When Rod, a chemist, comes for coffee,
we ask if he will join us, draw his soul.
We wait expectantly, need company.
But Rodney tells us carefully
that he has never seen his soul.
 
 
 


REHEARSAL FOR PARADISE

We elders have a right to twirl our canes,
nibble nasturtiums in raisin pudding;
break crutches into handy kindling,
sighing expectantly when peace doves
    pick open heaven’s lock.

We overheard that straw
placed in a manger for baby Jesus
freshened into shades of grass.
And only a rare individual is born
    into a stable environment.

Although at times we don’t remember
the year, month or day of week—
even the VP’s moniker,
we keep busy planning
    fabulous adventures.

Letting scars and wrinkles lead the way,
we say it’s “oke” and quite okay
to seem quite nutty, knowing it’s no act.
Perusing Ulysses, we found the dude
   useless: we’ll write our own memoirs.

When finally we kneel before
two roaring lions and they inhale
our essence, we breathe more slowly,
deeply than lungs have ever,
    relaxing into paradise.


(Dancing Poetry Festival prizewinner)
 
 
 
 

HOWDY-DO, IMAGINATION
             for Natica Angilly

This stage of alchemy and magic
pulls open its own curtain
to whispers of expectation.

Awareness quickens in the flair
of blending poetry and dance
into artful exaltation,

while words most carefully chosen
kindle a choreography of verve
for sweet collaboration.

Fantasy and reality inspire
symbiotically entwining veils
to perky revelations.

Separately and as a company
poetic dancers are willed
a chosen poem’s interpretation.

Infused performers are
a unified body embracing
expansiveness, elation.

HOWDY-DO, IMAGINATION!
 
 
 
 

HARP MUSIC

We, the people, so often
shocked clear through
and numbed by yet another rape,
war, robbery, lethal lie, child
abduction, new pandemic—
feel anxious, tainted,
even in our home of homes.

Hey, folks,
let’s be brave,
approach with curiosity
and even learn to play
the harp strings of hope—
using, if we must,
our teeth!

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SHEET OF PAPER
—Claire J. Baker

It’s 5pm. On break from Mac
I bend to retrieve a page
fallen onto the rug—
only to realize the sheet
is sunlight slanting
through the western window.

Well at least
I do no longer try
to pick up moonlight
at midnight when I’m
forcefully drawn to (u know)
arise from my comfy sack.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Claire Baker for some more of her fine poetry today!
 
 
 

 





 
 
 
 
 
 







 
 
 
 
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