Blue Shadows on White Snow

  Winter

—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,

Sacramento, CA

—Visuals by Joyce Odam 

WITH THE SHADES DRAWN
—Joyce Odam

is it still gray out
shall I write the poem on
pink paper
shall I use a pencil or a pen

oh will the world not be sunny again
day is filled with
three moody crows
though I cannot see them

they peck at my trees with
well-fed hunger
no I shall not feed them
any more black words

soft whirls of winter are
sliding beneath the doors and over
the floors though I have
stuffed pillows here and there

I will write soft lumpy lines
with light at the edges
I will write winter till
it is sick of me and leaves my pages


(prev. pub. in View (2/3/73) WINTER;
and Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/18/11) 

 

 

 

The Calling

SILENCE TO ICE
—Robin Gale Odam

Come close,
let me speak of ice.
We answered
an old dream.
We slept
through it all.
It was long,
with flecks of contrast.
Our roots blended
like colors in water,
countless cycles,
water to mist,
rain to current,
depth to thought,
breath to heat,
vapor to love,
silence to ice.

    
(prev. pub. in Brevities, June 2011;
and Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/4/23) 

 

 

 

 Moon’s Light

BENT WATER IN THE MOONLIGHT
—Joyce Odam

It is the bent water in the moonlight that gets lost
where the dream ends. The sleeper still can choose.  
The small boat rocks in the moonlight and the curve

of the river pulls. But the sleeper is comfortable
here,
dreaming an old dream, safe in the sturdy little boat
in the mesmerizing center of the water.  

Then the boat widens until it touches the banks,

and the dreamer steps out of it onto both shores

where two young women are walking away from
him—
both are familiar, but his heart can hold only one;
they have warned him of this. Now the boat shrinks;

it can bring him back to the scale of easy dreaming
but begins to drift off and will soon be out of
reach. He is beginning to waken. He must choose.


(prev. pub. in The Gathering, Ina Coolbrith Anthology,
Oct. 1999; New River Poets Anthology,
Watermarks: One; and Medusa’s Kitchen, 01/10/17;
6/15/21; 9/27/22)

 

 

 

Treasured

LITANY
—Robin Gale Odam
After “Sea Captain’s Wife Praying”
      (Painting by Charles Wysocki)

In the great sea—the endless waves, the
long oars, the creak of wood, and my love.

In the gray and dark of winter—the gate,
the naked tree, the steeple rising above the
house, and my book—the black binding
and the parchment.

In the turning of a page—usher my beloved. 

 

 

 

 Of The Spheres

                                      

THE MOONLIGHT DANCERS
—Joyce Odam

Moonlight dancers—outside in the dark—
with the surf pounding. They are young and mad,
and I am envious, and I would join them
and be a moonlight dancer, too—I am that sad.

Pounding of the surf—light of the moon—
an old temptation; I begin to sway.
They see me, laugh and beckon, open their arms,
I go to join their dancing, but where—where are
they?

Just old moonlight dancing with shadows,
only the bright waves breaking on the shore,
and I—an old fool—dancing to no music,
caught in the veils of longing that those phantoms
wore.

    
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/20/22)

 

 

 

All’s Well

MY FOOLISH WAY OF PLEASING YOU
—Joyce Odam

Watch me dance upon the approving air,
holding me aloft
in my pose to charm you,

while you
watch secretly
from under your lashes.

The blue night is soft
with distant moonlight
and the songbirds

have remained—
singing
and out-singing each other,

Help me remember the truth of this
when time
has taken us away from each other.

Look how shadow-memories play
at the edge of our attention—
how quietly the moon goes past the horizon.

                                                  
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/02/13;
9/14/21; 5/17/22)

 

 

 

 The Influence of Blue

 

LICENSE TO LEAVE
—Joyce Odam

You have to become the door.
This house is not solid.
You may leave.

The walls will flutter down
like old rose petals.
The roof will lift off
like a hymn.

Your anxieties will no longer
matter to you . . .
open their cages . . .
let them fly from your possession.

Your house will dissolve
in your mind
like an old repetition
finally resisted.

The world is holding out
its carpet for you.
Time is a long blue shadow
that wavers ahead of you
in the brimming moonlight. 

 

(prev. pub. in Mockingbird Number 7,
Spring 1999; and Medusa’s Kitchen, 

11/21/17; 10/22/19)

__________________

OBSESSIONS
—Joyce Odam

These are the longings I send you,
full of elaborate rages and dark pities
for myself.  I send you guilt for my

predicament—name you Savior,
letter after letter of me mailed to
your old address.  Why don’t you

answer?  I send these thoughts
so you will realize my sincerity.
I have never forgiven you

for my happiness.  I forgive you
now for my despair.  Love is
too sad for keeping; I wish to

return it to you—hardly the worse
for wear.  These love songs
are for your pillow.

You come back for me.
I am floating on a tangible shaft
of moonlight.  Slowly I turn

toward you, break into a shatter
of weeping, fall to the floor.  
You cannot repair me.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/31/15) 

 

 

 

 So Beautiful

SHIFTSONGS
—Robin Gale Odam

you cast the light of evening
under the night, into the shiftsongs
of birds—the pierce of shrill calls
through pale starlight and in the
dark of secrets


(prev. pub. in Brevities, August 2020; and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/29/23) 

 

 

 

 A Little Tenderness

 
SLOW WINTER
—Joyce Odam

This winter starts slowly—season of reluctance—
almost December. Too many days almost warm,
night almost cold in the countdown of the year.
       
A mockingbird has taken over the pear tree, watching
from the very tip. I watched him pecking at the last
stubborn pear a few days ago.
       
The leaves are mostly gone from the deciduous trees,
a pile of leaves is caught in a corner by the front door.
They rattle underfoot.
       
Two wind-storms have come through, knocking down
trees and fences. I listened to the old, familiar howling
corners of my house.

Each year’s end feels the same. A restlessness. Some
healing needed. The strange links of years—so many
different places. Where? forgotten. When? forgotten.

Stages of time like stepping stones in fog. Each year
turning into the next. The gray season will be next,  
days and days of it. Long enough to start the edges
breaking around me.

Such winters are best spent alone—in the self—
the silent,
crying self. The short days hurry. The long nights
sleep.
Either way is what you time—to follow the clock—
how it measures for you, as if you needed to know.
       
And now winter says be patient, let me work as I
work,
Summer dies into autumn; autumn slips into fall
and has no way out. Slow winter has hold.
Winter comes when it is ready.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/13/15; 11/24/20)

 

 

 

 The Children

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


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/27/24)

 

 

 

 Quiet

THE WINTER SORROW
—Joyce Odam
                           
I take the sorrow slow, like a faded rose,
its petals dropped in a basket
for the room.

I taste the dark light
of another day  
too far away from myself now.

I watch the shadows pile high
before the window.
I am in here, tragic and alone.

I call no one. I am the lost muse.
I lay words about me like atonements.
There are so many.

I wait for roses to die.
I am metaphor to myself,
dark lyric, soon to be poem.

    
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/13/16)

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE DARK BIRDS
—Joyce Odam
After Dark Birds, Dark Sea, 1959, Milton Avery
American Art Review, December 1999

Midnight birds in a dark blue river,
held by a spreading path of moonlight,
their gold beaks shining
in the shimmer-silence of the hour.

They seem too shadowy
to be real—as if painted
by a midnight child
in love with midnight’s deep blue color.


(prev. pub. in Brevities, Summer 1969;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/24/12; 3/13/12;

1/24/16)

___________________

This week’s Seed of the Week, “Midwinter Moonlight”, shimmers under the deft hands of Joyce and Robin Gale Odam today (with Joyce’s graphics), and we thank them for that! Our new Seed of the Week is “Down the Back Staircase”. 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

 

 

 

 —Artwork Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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