Joined by a solitary heron,
I watch silently
as light begins to streak the sky.
Dawn breaks and simultaneously
this magnificent creature rises,
tucks its spindle legs
and spreads its wings to soar,
assured a new day has begun.
Photos taken this morning at dawn.
The earth moved, an aperture in time.
Tectonic plates shifted within her soul
left behind an open space,
a void within her life.
She stood above where he lie.
Moist grass licked her ankle bones,
feet planted firmly as she stared down,
eyes a spiral, boring deep and deeper still.
And when the summer storm came
she gently lowered herself,
a prostrate form upon the mound,
to protect him from the pelting rain.
She imagined his shape beneath hers,
tucked her arms close in beneath her chest.
Face resting upon the stone
she felt the granite, cool upon her cheek.
I love you always she whispered.
And lying still among the tombs
lying with him once again,
she felt his love within her heart.
They arrived in droves, valuable cargo.
Used for the well being of others
to plant and sow, shod our horses,
tend our fields and homes.
In their visibility they were anonymous.
They were bid upon and owned.
Free will shackled in irons,
inhumanity by humanity.
This is our history. Not sepia toned
nor romantically blurred by antiquity.
Not smudged as charcoal blends,
disappears into fine threads of vellum.
This is our history,
and I am ashamed.
Posted to dVerse where Bjorn is hosting OLN; opens at 3 PM Boston time.
No photo posted with this poem. Racism still lives and appears on nightly news. I crave the dream of Martin Luther King and pray for all our children, for a better, kinder, more just world.
The peacock struts slowly.
Picks up one foot
and then the other
as oglers crouch,
cameras and smart phones in hand,
waiting.
People peer through apertures,
fingers tensed to catch the shot.
And still the bird struts.
Guards its fan of iridescent blues and greens,
that myriad of non-iris eyes,
its feathered gloriosity.
The peacock stands proudly still
waiting for the peahen to appear,
not giving a whit for humanity.
Those gullible money-paying creatures
who think their presence
could be a reason for its preening.
Today, Victoria is hosting dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, and asks us to consider feathers in our poems. I’ve stood waiting, at zoos and nature parks across the U.S. and in Bermuda, waiting for a peacock to spread its glorious fan and have never, ever, seen it! Facts: the peacock is the male of the species and spreads its fan in a mating “dance/call” for the female. Only the males are peacocks. Females are peahens and quite dull colored. Peacock feathers in fan-form, emit a sound only heard by peahens. Peacocks can and do fly. And, perhaps the most fun fact: a group of peacocks is called an ostentation or a party. Photo Credit: Danny Ouellet.
For six minutes you belonged to eternity. Then paddles upon your chest. Twice.
You were here but not here. A stainless steel and glassed in room with whirrs, beeps, and methodical suction sounds. Your body, cold and dormant, in transition. A shell suspended in time that encased your soul, your mind. You were somewhere in a season unknown to us. We waited. We prayed for your voice and love and laugh to break through and survive.
chrysalis hangs by thread
holds life in transition within its seams
to be or not to be
It’s haibun Monday at dVerse and our beloved Toni reminds us that in Japanese culture, the aesthetic is all about change – impermanence. “Mujo. Our lives are not the same as yesterday nor will they be the same tomorrow.” Haibun: prose (not fiction) followed by a nature-related haiku. dVerse opens today at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!
Toni will be taking a hiatus from dVerse until November. We shall miss her dearly.
October 15, 2013: the love of my life broke through and returned to us. Thankful for every day.
Light me a new day, oh Lord.
Your beauty abounds
in the firmaments above
and the ebb and flow of your seas.
We give thanks for the birth of this morn,
a time to live and love.
This morning’s dawn in Provincetown, MA.
** A clerihew is a comical biographic verse. See full explanation below photos.
i.
All the ladies admired the young Houdini,
but wished he performed in a thong bikini.
Their screams take it off created a racket
as he hung upside down in a confining strait jacket.
ii.
Rip Van Winkle slept away the years,
escaped his wife’s nagging and too-often tears.
Thought he’d be a ladie’s man, a new phenomenon,
instead he limped beside the dames, testosterone gone.
Written for dVerse, a poet’s pub, where today Gayle asks us to write a Clerihew: a comic verse on biographical topics consisting of 2 couplets and an aabb rhyme scheme. The first line is to name the individual. Form invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) at age sixteen. Very challenging to write humorous poetry!!! Pub officially opens at 3 PM Boston time…drop by and read some more of these — or try your hand at comical verse and share yours with other dVerse readers!
Gulls squawk, shout high pitched squeals,
breaking through the silent calm of early morn.
Waters so still at low tide, there is no lap
as sun glistened ripples lie mute in their beauty.
Are these the sounds of long past voices
altered by time, soaring above your land?
Norman Mailer, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill.
Were their bare feet marred by these rock pebbles,
these shards of shell beneath my feet,
tumbled through years of artistic waves?
Indigo waters turn cobalt blue, abut a stark line of sky,
like one canvas piled upon another,
an artists’ easel left for the day.
Muse to Jackson Pollack, Jack Kerouac,
Tony Kushner and Kurt Vonnegut.
Given voice by the calm and eloquent words
writ by Mary Oliver, resident of these dunes,
this town at the very tip of Cape Cod,
crooked arm of land surrounded by sea.
Leave the ocean and stroll into her streets.
See bawdy painted lips and swinging narrow hips,
drag queens, moving costumed forms,
tourists, lookers, art and food aficionados,
hawkers outside beaded doors and lovers of every kind.
Holding hands they strut, saunter, smile and wave.
Sixty thousand revelers by summer’s tides
ebbs to 3,000 who walk quiet snow encrusted streets,
appreciate winter palettes of whites and greys.
Oh Provincetown! Town of complexities.
Pilgrims’ pride rejected, settled by Portugese fishermen
and wives who waited for husbands to return from sea.
So many have claimed you.
So many have walked your streets,
marveled at your cinnabar setting suns,
danced on your sands of time.
And still you offer more.
More palettes of dawn and dusk.
More ocean tides and raucous waves.
More low tides that reveal your under life.
I revel to return again and again.
You hath cast your spell on me.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today, I am hosting and asking folks to write a “travelogue” poem. Take us somewhere! Pub opens at 3 PM Boston (eastern) time. Provincetown is located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. In November 1620, pilgrims on the Mayflower landed in the west end of Provincetown and wrote the Mayflower Compact there, before journeying on and settling across the bay in Plymouth. The Governor of the Plymouth Colony purchased the land of Provincetown in 1654 from the Chief of the Nausets for 2 brass kettles, 6 coats, 12 hoes, 12 axes, 12 knives and a box (see wikipedia). Provincetown has been the summer home for many fringe and reknowned artists and writers. Twenty-seven year old Eugene O’Neill produced his first play here in 1916 and spent the next nine years of his life in Ptown.
When I am not here
this ocean rolls within my soul.
I sit unnaturally in upholstered chair
and imagine the call of your gulls.
When I am here
to witness your tinctured dawns,
I sprawl on granules of dampened sand,
and savor the salt within your air.
Dawn in Provincetown. Cape Cod, MA.
There comes a point in time
when life doesn’t migrate,
it meanders.
Meanwhile . . .
morning alarms come alive
coffee is gulped, black and strong.
Commuter rails and trails
fill with busy bees,
drones and queens with tasks ahead.
Life moves on a conveyor belt,
bar codes intact . . .
while I roll over,
wiggle my toes
and let the day unfold.
Shared at dVerse, Open Link Night, a virtual pub for poets. Folks share a poem of their choice on OLN. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Photo: dawn in Provincetown, Cape Cod.
