The Music of Light

The music of light is caught

in his eyes. Don't tell him

a song has been hunted and got

and imprisoned there — not dim

even when his lids make shade,

but shining ahead wherever he goes.

Whether he wanders in some glade

or follows the river where it flows,

there is still that radiant music. It lies

behind his own vision, it might be stone

for all it displays to him. But it never dies

to our perception. In colour and tone

it is a unique thing, delicate as finest lawn

or a rippling echo: not quite here, never gone.

That phrase, 'the music of light', has been presenting itself to me for some time, with no context. The Bout-Rimés challenge at 'imaginary garden with real toads' gave me a chance to explore it and see where it led — to a further mystery. 

The end words of these lines come from another poem. We were invited to identify it. I feel that I should and do know it, but can't place it. It's pretty obviously a sonnet, and might be Shakespearian ('glade' is not a word much used today; and 'got' in an older sense — of begotten — is more likely to end a line than the contemporary use I give it). However....

My poem could be seen as a free verse sonnet — having no regular metre, but a sonnet's rhyme scheme and some (unplanned) shifts of focus as it moves into the last six lines and then the last two — or just a 14-line poem. (I wasn't setting out to write a sonnet, but only to follow my imagination.)

I'm also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #254

Autumn dusk: haiku, April – May 2015

sleepy afternoon

yellow blooms

trail across concrete

#lune

******

happy couple

in the album at least

my first wedding

22/4/15

non-stop rain

thunderclap too close

April’s end

***

Solo Samhain

cast circle light candle

talk to my dead

1/5/15

early dark

a gate bangs loudly

near my house

16/5/15

Autumn dusk

blue hills darken sharp-edged

against pale sky

***

Evening breeze

narrow leaves flutter

like feathers

22/5/15

cool evening

my cat in the car

miaows once

29/5/15

Silver River: tanka, April – May 2015

The wind and I

dance out into the street

to play with leaves.

I wade through them, kick them up,

and the wind takes and swirls them.

 21/4/15

I thought I found

one of your socks in my drawer,

grabbed it up to hug.

But it was one of mine —

I threw out all your clothes.

28/4/15

we must all die

only I didn’t want you

to leave sooner

than our elderly cats

and that grey tree in the yard

5/5/15

silver river

in afternoon sun

late autumn

I linger alone

watching the water

1/5/15

distant music

a tune I think I know

I strain to hear

the soft fall of notes

your face comes to mind

19/5/15

You are not

that very young man

long ago,

my incomparable lover.

Aged now, you look happy.

21/5/15

Chubby Checker and Me and the First Husband

On YouTube

his bright face

still radiates delight.

And so it should:

the young face

caught in 1961

calling us all

to join him

in the dance —

as we did

all that summer,

again and again.

But my face

in the mirror,

that grew old.

No longer do

knees and ankles

swing and oscillate

as they did

that last summer.

Round and round

my memories go

again. And again,

back 50 years.

Tell me how

you loved me

so — and now

so long ago.

I know that

dance is past.

Oh dancing man,

oh gambling man,

I twisted away

to go again

far and far

away from summer

from your silver

cups and medals,

all those bands,

those Saturday nights.

All the twistings

of my life.

Where did you

go? I know

you're not alive.

Ghosts and memories ...

one more time 
let's twist again!


Click here for Chubby Checker singing Let's Twist Again

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are invited to have a party of one — to groove enthusiastically to our favourite dance number, then write whatever comes to mind afterwards.

Survival of — the Fittest?

I failed to pull one weed,

a fine, feathery piece of green

lost among larger,

more legitimate plants.

Before I noticed, it grew

to the size of a strong young shrub

too thick for me to tug,

clinging hard to the earth.

Now it's a graceful tree

towering over that garden bed.

Its ferny, wind-ruffled leaves

crown three slender trunks.

It does no harm, I tell myself.

I like its beauty. One day it will be

majestic, I can tell.

I hope it's not noxious (illegal).

Meanwhile I keep removing

its little sisters and brothers

from all over my yard. Tiny,

they come away easily.

If I let them continue,

I'd soon have a forest!

And in the real forests,

I hope they never spread.

Our weeds are introduced

and pretty in a garden,

but left to roam would smother

all the indigenous species.

I want to keep the eucalypts

and everything else God placed here:

keep what feeds the koalas;

what native bees use for honey.

(I seldom consider my white skin

and the way my kind muscled in

to kill, crowd out, and take over from

the indigenous species.)

Written for Midweek Motif: Weeds/Weediness at Poets United

Love Forever True

He died on a Monday,

the third day of Spring --

for each of us

a new beginning.

Beginning anew

on an unknown journey,

each of us alone,

still we reach for connection.

We spring into day,

after the night of his illness.

On that Monday, he died

into new adventures —

new adventures into

freedom from restriction

(his illness). The night after,

he came back to visit

still reaching for connection —

a back-track, a pause

on that unknown journey.
Truly, it was love. Forever.

Written for Monday WRites #13 at Gillena's invitation. I had thought to do a first word acrostic, but my opening lines were so short that wasn't very workable, so I ended up playing about with a pattern of (almost) repeated lines instead.

Also shared with Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

The Edge of Dreaming River

You are leaving, he said to me,

and never again shall we see each other.

What am I going to do? And what

will you do, when we are far apart?

We sat at the edge of Dreaming River,

letting our bare legs dangle

in that green and rushing stream.

The clouds were swift, blown sideways.

I shall have my flask of green water

gathered from Dreaming River. I shall drink

drop by drop the memories of me and you,

and I shall not thirst, I said.

The clouds in the sky became

even frothier clouds in the river.

On the edge of the water, gripping

the grass tussocks, he saw this and swore.

I want to go too, he said. I want to go

far from here, as you can do —

but me, I'm eternally caught.

He glared at the clouds as they raced away.

I shall come back, I promised, after one year

and one day. Watch as the clouds pass over.

You will see me flying back to you. Only wait.

Meet me at the edge of Dreaming River.

But when I returned in a year and a day,

he never looked or saw. His gaze

was turned towards a laughing woman

who led him away from Dreaming River.

That edge, I heard her say, is dangerous.

One day, she said, you could fall

and be submerged in the green water.

She danced him away from the edge.

I am watching the clouds as they scud

sideways in front of the river wind. I am

dangling my legs in deep green water,
dreaming, at the edge of Lonely River.


Note: A fictional imagining, not autobiography!

The latest Play It Again at imaginary garden with real toads, asks us to revisit a previous challenge. I chose In Other Words from Jan. 15 2015, which asked poets to take a book title which already used words in unusual combination, and replace some words with others, also unexpected. I Turned The City of Dreaming Books into The Edge of Dreaming River. 

Oldest Friend

We met sitting next to each other

at Library School, before we had

husbands or children, or even jobs.

But it took us half a term

to begin talking to each other

instead of the girls on our other sides.

Once started, never entirely stopped.

Our sons were companions

in their earliest years, because we

their mothers liked being together.

We both made poems, always.

She came with me to bring

poetry workshops into prison.

She was my boss

at two different libraries

(when, by then, I'd ditched the career

and was working part-time).

She knows where all my bodies

are buried. As I do hers.

And the names of the secret lovers.

A couple of quarrels, soon over.

One large misunderstanding 

moved past rather than resolved.

(Each still feels right, but — shrug.)

Jokes, allusions, and a special nickname

no-one else is left alive 

to understand.

Written as a list poem for 'Friday Recipe' at 'imaginary garden with real toads' (each stanza an item on the list of our friendship's development). Also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #253


Note (re the nickname, now that some readers have worked it out): The person who gave it to me is still very much alive. It was my friend's son, when much too young to be able to say 'Rosemary' with ease. But even he, a man now, possibly doesn't remember, and in any case would not have understood back then how and why others seized on it with delight. But my friend and I remember — as we remember those others who are no longer with us. 

Sweet Dreams

A clear memory

involving you and me

in our heyday,

when we were vigorous

and efficient

in the way we did our lives —

our life together.

We are helping

a woman, a visitor

resting on our bed.

She is lying face down;

I don’t recognise

who she is, but I am familiar

with your compassion.

Then I become

lucid, and realise I dream.

At once I understand

this never happened here:

in my dream

I am dreaming another dream

as if remembering.

Can it be

we had a life, a continuity

beside this one,

on some other plane?

Did we always

inhabit each other’s dreams?

I like the thought.

Happiness was

the irrelevant by-product

of sharing our lives,

conducting them together.

It was being aligned,

interested in each other.

And we were helpful!

Happiness

was active; it was engagement.

I like that it goes on

in another, simultaneous realm

accessed by dreams.

Perhaps it keeps continuing

even when I wake.

In my mind now,

my awake, remembering mind,

I am running

to meet you, across a green field

by a stream.

There are low hills in the distance,

and wildflowers.

Written in response to the current Midweek Motif at Poets United: Happiness.

At 2 a.m.

I have been in bed an hour.

I closed my book and turned the light out

thirty minutes ago.

The man next door can't sleep again.

He is playing his AC-DC collection

again, loud.

My cat comes crashing through

his swinging flap in the laundry door,

and yowls.

'Shut up,' I tell him (the cat

not the man next door). 'It's much

too early for breakfast.'

I toss and twitch, get up again

to pee, wonder if I'll ever settle ...

and wake at eight.

On my bed, a lump of dark

stirs, pricks its ears,
purrs.

Written in response to dVerse Instapoetics prompt, and shared with Tuesday Platform for 19 May 2015 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Absent-mindedly ... Erotic haiku Jan.-March 2015

her snowy curves

stretched out under the stars

my landscape

12/1/15

sweet in her frills

she blossoms

blushing rose

13-14/1/15

I most remember

that night you massaged me

all over

13/2/15

Valentine’s Day alone

absent-mindedly

I cup my breasts

15/2/15

‘I love erotic roses.’

He bends to their folds,

breathes deep.

24/3/15

I sit beside him.

What might those neat grey pants

hide or reveal?

28/3/15


Oops! Didn't write any erotic haiku in April, being busy with other poems every day for 'poetry month', and almost forgot to post these earlier ones.

My Chimes

My mellow wind chimes were a gift

from one of my Reiki students

twenty years ago. Her husband

made them for me at her request.

(They were young then, and happy.)

The chimes are beautifully balanced.

They sing with a golden voice.

They are dark green metal and wood.

They have come with me to every house

I've lived in since they were given.

On dark nights or stormy days

their notes have sounded comfort,

continuity. They sang me to sleep

like a mother her baby, or woke me

sweeter than church or temple bells.

My love and I heard them together,

the music of our days; sometimes

a tinkling background, blending

with the bells on our cats' collars;

sometimes deep and slow and sonorous.

It was after he died — on a wild night,

a sudden clang alarmed me, and a thud.

In the morning I found my chimes

blown halfway down the drive, torn off

by a gust, the old rope frayed right through.

I don't know where the original maker

is now. A friend examined them, fixed them,

and they sound themselves again — symbol
of renewal. I hear them in my deep nights

and through my solitary days: tolling, 'I am!'

Written in response to the Weekend Mini Challenge — Connect the Chimes at 'imaginary garden with real toads'. Also submitted for Poetry Pantry#252 at Poets United.

Making No Waves

I was brought up by still water. Waves, to me,

were those gentle ripples made by the wind

briefly skimming the surface of the river.

I saw the ocean from far on top of a cliff,

swooping and swirling below, thrusting white fingers

up the glassy sides of sheer black rocks.

I knew that, down there, those distant eddies

were huge; their force could hurl a grown man

to crash and shatter against that wall of stone.

I learned dog-paddle at school, won't drown

in a backyard swimming pool, and probably not

in a dam or a creek, or even a lake. But the sea ...

I never enter the surf. I'm too old and too large

for swimming in the safe shallows. Instead I paddle

at the sand's edge, where the spent waves can't catch me.

I think I drowned in Atlantis. Now I won't submerge

even in still water, above the neck. While my face stays out,

I'm calm. I can sit on a boat and laugh at the spray.

And I like to live by the ocean, hearing at night

the rumble as it pours across the world, to break

on our shore and soften, rhythmically, over and over.

Next time I come, I think I'll be a man. I'll live in Sydney —

or Hawaii — and throw myself into the sea while I'm a child,
to play without fear, and finally conquer the waves.

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif: Waves

Secrets Rising Up

It was the merest fragment 

of a glimpse — she was
insistent on that — no clear view
of what he was withdrawing
from the early morning sea.

It could have been a body, or just

a mess of wet clay, she said.

I wanted to worry at her story, as if
it was a bone to be gnawed, and I
a dog with a huge empty belly.
My hunger was a sharp knife.

But it was like trying to bite fog;

my gnashing teeth closed on nothing.

The place had us both tangled —

lonely suburb at the ocean’s edge,

miasma weighting the air. Behind each door,

behind the blank face of every house,
you could almost smell it: blood.

This is another attempt at a poem using the following word list from some Pablo Neruda poems: fragment / insistent / withdrawing / sea / clay / gnawed / empty / knife / suburb / face / house / blood. It was in fact my first attempt, but I couldn't make it work so I wrote the 'Uneasy Tanka' instead. I've done some more work on this one since, and am linking it to this week's Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Go or Stay?

The quiet morning

is full of light.

If I go out into the air with you,

even though I come back alone

I shall be full of the noises

of other people: cacophony

of trying to be happy

away from the silence of being.

You, though, do all things

to make others bloom into joy.

I shall go to meet you,
as if carrying roses.

Mini-challenge, from 'imaginary garden with real toads': to write in the style of Jane Hirshfield. I wonder if I have succeeded?

Uneasy Tanka

A fragment of leaf

dances, frail yet insistent

in the white shallows —

withdrawing, approaching

on flirting tide, teasing sea.

*****

With her long fingers

she kept moulding the wet clay,

but it gnawed at her

with its great blankness, empty.

Some truths must be shaped by knife.

*****

The suburb is masked.

Each door hides a secret face;

each house holds stories

pent up, threatening to spill

like wastes unflushed, or dark blood.

Written in response to 'Get listed for May' at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

The word list we were asked to use came from poems by Neruda, but I don't know that my efforts owe much to him! The words, from three different poems, were fragment / insistent / withdrawing / sea; clay / gnawed / empty / knife; suburb / face / house / blood. I decided to make a separate poem for each sequence, and the tanka form suggested itself — 'uneasy' because they get progressively darker. I'm not sure where that mood came from — but perhaps, after all, from Neruda, getting into my subconscious.

A Certain Elder

Her hair is white.

Her years increase.

She has stopped striving.

She cares very little now

how she may be judged.

Quietly, she pleases herself.

She is named Crone

in her Tradition,

wise advisor in need

even to High Priestess,

High Priest.

This surprises her.

She doesn't feel wise.

There have been

fears and struggles.

There have been

many tears, much rage.

Yet, after all of that,

she still loves her life.

More and more

old friends reminisce

about old times — when,

they say, she encouraged

realisation of their dreams.

This too surprises her.

She has forgotten.

She still, always, delights

in the earth and the stars,

the sky and the ocean,

the animals and the trees.

Walking around her town,

she is greeted warmly by name.

Various young women

claim her as mentor,

thank her for all she teaches.

Some men say the same.

This surprises her most of all. 
She wonders, what things
do they learn?

Written in response to Midweek Motif — Honoring our Elders at Poets United.

This Moment

Found poem: excerpts from journal entry, 4 February 2001. 

Shaped into poetry 5 May 2015.

To Andrew

this moment:

accompanying him 
to lunch and a movie 
for his birthday. 
He is 72.

He drives along

this winding gravel road,

so narrow

we squeeze to the edge

when cars come the other way.

Relief! Both causeways

are high and dry —

only yesterday

still partly under water.

But the sun is shining.

‘Look!’ I say.

I am thankful

for the ferns of the rainforest,

the sun glancing,

the bends that slow the car,

the smell of leaves.

In a chaos

of flood and danger,

branches down,
time seeming warped,

when we crash over debris

and the car stinks of wet –

in such a space,

these green ferns,

this golden light

soften and soothe

the air, the mood. 

We enter the highway.

Not at all wet here.

What happened

to all the water?

You’d never know; 
so normal.

A syncopated rhythm

plays on the car radio.

‘When the sun shines

on the mountain’

sings the singer.

I realise the man

is singing of freedom

no-one can take away.

Shared in today's Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads.

Grasping Water

Growing older, I find

everything important resides

in the ordinary and unimportant.

Shall I then elevate

those ordinary actions,

those unimportant events?

A mistake.

Attach no importance

even to those matters.

Let the ordinary remain

ordinary. Otherwise

you have lost the essence.

When you stop to say,

'Now I am happy' —

the moment is past.

Today, at 'imaginary garden with real toads', the prompt is 'flash 55 PLUS' — a piece of poetry or prose in exactly 55 words, plus (today) a touch of Zen. I sometimes think, if I wasn't Pagan I'd probably be Buddhist; I like a lot of Buddhist sayings. Yet in many ways I think they're opposites. I once read that the difference between the mystic and the magician is that the mystic says, 'This place sucks; I'm outa here,' whereas the magician says, 'This place sucks; let's fix it.' Which puts me with the magicians (or witches). Involvement, not detachment! 

The first verse of the above is true about me. To arrive at the rest, I read a lot of Zen poems to get the mindset. Funnily enough, I now think there's truth in all that I've said. But whether it's a poem or a mere homily....  Perhaps it would take a much deeper immersion in Zen to produce true poetry from those ideas.

(I am quite proud of the title! *Grins*.)

  

Over and Out

The fine, blue rim of the Earth

falls away beneath me. I've overshot.

I can make only one last communication.

I'll soon be out of range. Also, shutting off.

With the communicator off, I can survive

a very long time. I have all the resources.

Might even find a new planet yet, or a new

time zone or both. But it's goodbye to you.

Dear Earth, and all my friends and family,

I will miss you forever. I wish I had saved you.

But it's a big Universe. One of the others

might still get home safe with good news.

Somewhere there will be rivers and seas

that still have fish, not toxic wastes.

Somewhere there will be landscapes

with abundant trees and pure air.

Some day, someone you sent to explore

will return with knowledge of a new Earth.

Forgive me please for my error, but anyway

I had no new hope to bring you, nothing.

I just wanted to come home, to touch down,

to see you, to recapture my youth ....

The final prompt for 'Poems in April' at 'imaginary garden with real toads' is: 'A few minutes from now, you will lose all means of communication with humanity.  You will not die, but will no longer be able to interact with the world.  What's the last thing you say?'  I felt I needed to create a scenario to explain this circumstance. As to the content, my last message in any circumstance, if I knew it to be the last, would always be of love.