For The Quiet Of Tears

  Looking At The Day
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos and Original Art by Joyce Odam

 

 

DARKEN IT  

—Robin Gale Odam

It started with high, sweet notes
and rich amber harmony, for contrast.
As I composed, the song told me
I was mistaken, told me how it
breathed in sorrow, how it was
a keeper of burdens, how its voice
was dark, how sweetness was a bane
to conceal or transpose or forget and,
although I begged it to reconsider,
it bade me to darken it. 

 

 

 

Looking At The Moon

    

DESPAIRING OF LOVE
 —Joyce Odam

A drop of love is falling
through the sky,
a perfect pearl,
still moist
from the heavenly oyster
falling in slow motion
as if falling through water—
a black sea of waiting,
tide after tide,
for the arrival.
Who will see it,
know what it is,
if not someone
mad with grieving,
never having known
the least drop of love,
someone who is somewhere
with hand outstretched in
one last supplication, in one
final prayer. If love will reach,
it will be when the distance has been
traveled between need and answer.

                                  
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/13/14; 10/13/20;
2/16/21; 9/26/23; 11/28/23)

 

 

 

One More Phrase

OLD MAN LOOKING AT FRUIT
—Joyce Odam

old man
looking at fruit

(pears and peaches and cantaloupe)

in the grocery window

(nectarines and apricots and
the sweet grapes)

the old man’s eyes are as filmy
as saliva

(strawberries, blackberries,
raspberries)

his hands shake
his pockets have no money

(oranges and tangerines
and the yellow apples)

the old man’s hunger
is on his face
like a hate

(honeydew, casaba,
Persian melon)

words he can almost
taste

(pomegranates, plums, bananas)
                              

(prev. pub. in Jeopardy, 1971;
Lemon Center for Hot Buttered Roll chapbook
by Joyce Odam, 1975;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/6//10; 12/22/15;
10/5/21; 2/25/25) 

 

 

 

 One More Stanza

WHEN IT’S NEVER ENOUGH
—Joyce Odam

I have given you my small gratitudes,
wrapped in soft handkerchiefs of praise

for your cornfield and your onions,
and for the nectarines on your heavy trees.

And I have thanked you and praised you
for your useful gifts of toil.

Oh yes, I have listened while you told me
what it took from you.

And I have murmured—over and over
my praises—my recognition for your efforts

and your giving, which is never measured
by reciprocation, for still you claim

to remain loveless and unrecognized
for your generosity and goodness.

My handkerchiefs weep with frustration
to water all your fields of anguish.

 

 

 

 The Mind

                                              

RENDITIONS
—Joyce Odam
After the poem, “Novella”, by Adrienne Rich

In the first alcove sits the resignating shadow of a mourner,
contemplating grief, rosary hands moving in mumbled prayer.

A gray bird sings outside a window with a human voice, but in
a foreign tongue, then stretches out its wings and flies away.

A woman stops at a shop window to admire her reflection.
She considers buying the red dress on the slender mannequin.

An ill child dreams of her future : she is a circus performer on
a wild white horse galloping round and around a burning ring.

In the first alcove, the figure rises and becomes visible, going
through a red velvet curtain into room after room after room.

The horse stumbles. The quick child does a beautiful somersault
off and onto its back again as the horse regains its footing.

The woman crosses the street in the rain, contemplating  
regret and weariness. She clutches a package under her arm.

The gray bird knows its reflection is false; knows there is
no sky there; knows the ill child will ask it to sing again.
                                                                          

(prev. pub. in Mud Creek, 1990; Tiger’s Eye, 2006;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/22/15; 4/20/21)

 

 

 

 One More Breath

LAVENDER
—Robin Gale Odam

She makes it at dreamtime, to pacify sorrow—
the lavender tea in her grandmother’s teapot of
iron with spikes of tall flowers cast into the
handle—she lifts it and pours at the table he
made her of what he selected from out of their
youth, from the forest beyond the far meadow.

Her tears are from winter, she holds them inside her.
She takes up the cube of white sugar for sweetness.
She sings to her children who dance with the morning
in fields deep with lavender, gathering perfume
to steep in her teapot, to braid in her dark hair,
to sip over dreamtime to sweeten the sorrow,
to soften the evening of gathering memory—
to quiet the tears . . . for the quiet of tears . . .

                                                      
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen. 4/9/24)

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

One who was love

came through my life, and left a wound for memory,
and left a love—bitter and sweet—and went away;

and left a sleep to fill with dreams that wreathed
like smoke—and turned to pleasure—and to pain;

one who was love—composite now—became unreal,
was never real, was never love.


—Joyce Odam

                                                         
(prev. pub. in Love’s Chance Journal, Summer 2002;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/21/10; 2/21/12;
2/13/18)

____________________

Ambrosia (our Seed of the Week) from the Odam Poets today, and many thanks to them for their sweet renderings in poetry and visuals!

Our new Seed of the Week is “The First Acorn”. 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

 

Aw, nuts!

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that 

Twin Lotus Thai will feature

Brad Buchanan and Jim Knowles

tonight in Sacramento at 6pm. 

Reservations strongly recommended!

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
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 . . . fields deep with lavender . . .