Ebb and Flow

lillian47 Comments

Life is a path between the stars.
Tantrums at two were not my youth,
long before those days
cicadas nested in cedar trees.

Old age will not be defined
by creaking limbs and bleached bones.
I will float with abandon,
as myriad shades of liquid blue.

I shall become the ocean wide
waves crashing upon the rocks
seeping in and out,
among the sands of time.

The lunar tug shall continue me
and my waters shall lap the earth.

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Abhra hosts dVerse Poets’ Pub, Tuesday Poetics and asks us to answer the question, what would you like to be reborn as or return as?
Photos: from Bermuda, myriad shades of blue!
Interesting fact: cicadas were dependant on Bermuda Cedar trees for their survival, and when the cedar forests died in the 1940s, the cicadas began to quickly disappear. They are now extinct.

…and the waters shall flow

lillian32 Comments

We will cross the bridge tomorrow, following bagpipes and the hearse.

Ancient stones shape two arches and guide the current’s flow. Last week’s storm brought a rush of silt and murky waters. Today the river is clear and calm. I see fish moving in and out among pebble mounds. The sun moves slowly across the scene, leaving shadows in its wake, but I remain on its golden side. My gaze moves to the road beyond. And I know, although I cannot see, the plots are there, just around the bend.

Heron waits, ready to pluck
fish flow ‘neath ancient bridge
life moves through to death.

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Written for dVerse, a Pub for Poets….Haibun Monday #6.  Gabriella Skriver shared several of her photos and asked that we choose one to motivate our writing for today. I loved this bridge one. A haibun begins with short compact prose and concludes with a haiku — the haiku cannot be a duplicate of the prose, but must be complementary. Generally, a haibun in the true sense of the form includes elements of nature and moves to an inimitable truth.

Bermuda Morn

lillian13 Comments

Dark bird shapes in nearby palmetto
chatter loudly as clouds move by,
long fronds ruffle-whisper in ocean breeze.

Across the bay, one by one, lights disappear
grey sky blanket daubed with white blotches
lifts slowly to reveal brilliant blue.

Birds, now distinctly yellow, sing to me
kis-ka-dee, kis-ka-dee
and a Bermuda morning dawns.

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We are in St. George’s, Bermuda till March 29. Arrived yesterday. Photo is view from our deck at dusk last evening. Poem was written very early this morning, sitting on this same deck, listening and watching dawn arrive. Pen in hand….sadly, not the camera. Imagine this same picture, at dawn, with this palmetto home to several Kiskadees! 

Orchard’s Plight

lillian44 Comments

Branches droop, shiny red and ready.
Apples ignored too long, skin once taut
now caved in, ooze on ground below.
Sweet, rot-alicious smell draws gnats
as fruit flies swarm over boot slick ground.
Orchard sulks as farmer tends to corn.

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Written for dVerse Poets’ Pub. The bar is tended by Victoria Slotto today and she urges us to write a poem in the style of Imagism….”the words are pure description.”  Photo Credit: Petra Winkler.

Chateau de Sable/Castle in the Sand

lillian18 Comments

“Ou est le bibliotheque?” She grinned, listened like she understood, then ducked into the first café she saw. “Un croissant. Donnez moi le beurre.” She’d had so many croissants, butter, le boeuf and les oeufs in the past two days, she’d probably gained five pounds. But she loved using her old high school French.

She ate quickly then followed the map to finally meet The Earl of the Castle de Sable! They’d met on the internet. His English was remarkably good. So she’d flown to Paris!

“Um, really? This is a . . . house! And your name is Earl????”

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Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers. Each Wednesday she challenges folks to write a 100 word story based on the photo she provides. This one took me back to my high school French (50+ years ago) and the only words (in addition to the first verse of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!) that I remember 🙂  Photo Credit: ceayr  

Ancient Grounds

lillian36 Comments

I am the serpent
undulating, smooth mounded earth.
I meander your secrets,
fossilized creatures and bones
soils of thousands before you.
My head and tail mark each solstice
beginning and end, light within me,
but I do not cease in either place.
My spirit continues as grasses
a wave of wind in ancient song.
See me and then seek others,
mounds of shapes for ancient eyes.
Yours too can see my living rest,
effigies and raised birds in earth.
Share my calm. Join my native prayer
and let me be.

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Serpent Mound in Ohio. According to Gloria Steinem’s My Life on the Road, “Like so many other mounds, it would have been destroyed to make room for construction if money hadn’t been raised to save it, in this case, with the help of a group of women at the Peabody Museum of Massachusetts.”  I’ve never seen Serpent Mound but have been to Effigy Mounds in Iowa. Written for dVerse, Pub for Poets’ challenge: write an ecopoetry by exploring and dwelling in our relationship with nature in such a way that implies responsibility and engagement. 

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Oracle

lillian13 Comments

Card table covered in dusty gauze scarf,
book case with tattered paper backs
two chipped coffee mugs
and one stuffed black bird.
This basement flat, windows dark
gold stars and silver moon
taped on black garbage plastic.

She sits, tarot deck in hand
gnarled fingers poised to read,
nail tips brown from nicotine.
Curling grey wisps of hair
bejeweled barrette, three stones
so obviously missing.

I watch wearily. Smell her breath
and incense stick. Shove down
this nauseous urge. I must hear.
She must tell me what I need to hear.
And she hoarsely begins to speak.

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Written for Ms. Quickly’s prompt, this way to the oracle.
Photo Credit: Ruxandra Moldoveanu.

Dunes of Time

lillian18 Comments

Sand granules shift in shoes
sweat stained belly, dripping hair.
Up and over and down and up
and over and dune after dune.
Some with coarse stubble grass
some ridged from recent winds,
steps sink deeper every step.

Alone with memories,
faces shift like heat shimmers
mirages in my exhausted mind.
One more ridge.
Burning feet stop cold,
pupils dilate, tear ducts long dry
begin to burn, arms lift in shock.

White ripples rise up enmasse,
cacophonous beating wings above my head
thousands swerve. Amorphous sound wave
disappears where blue meets blue.

I stumble, slip down this last sand mound
shocked by their intensity, here then gone.
Lying in cool waters, face to glaring sun
I understand now. They are all gone.

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Published in response to Quickly’s Winter Doldrums: focus on a remembered moement when you seemed to enter into another sense of time.