Little by little a group of more or less linked poems has been forming here and possibly elsewhere: Laurel, Lorna, Keros, Didi, I've lost track of who else. A few nights ago I started working on one, found the rest of it this evening. Thanks to all who have laid the trail this far.
***
moon, silver, water, wind
voice that calls out rolling over the treetops.
moon, silver, water, wind, leaves, wings, night.
the light fails at the end of the year,
light of the heart, curled to a whisper.
sitting in your house we look at each other
with blank eyes. bare oracle a kitchen light.
october leaves in the yard. the rug
pungent with ammonia and salt. the cat
hops cinnamon-furred room to room
chasing lights that vanish, her eyes
crazy green comprehending. you streak
our faces with phosphorescent paint.
walking out into the dark we become
pale green skeletons, x-rays of ourselves.
we look to each other for solace, for promise,
and find shadow, bird bones, nothing.
at the bus stop i get on the bus
and you turn and walk back home.
mist that spills out rolling among the tree trunks.
car headlights along the lake. we speak
and our words pass through each other, like this.
night, silver, leaves, wings, wind, water, moon.
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3 comments:
Lyle –here’s the chain as I remember it-
Didi- Opens the request for a Meme Poem.
Keros- How to overload your senses.
Lorna Dee Cervantes- How to overload your senses.
LKD- New Moon.
Keros- New Moon.
LKD- No Place Like.
Lyle- Moon Silver Water Wind.
Now to your poem.
1. Favorite line: bare oracle a kitchen light. So often the light bulb is associated with “good idea”, how fitting for it to be an oracle. Also “bare” – I saw it there, powerful symbol dangling on a single wire. Good imagery.
2. What I’ll remember most about it: the feeling of abandon, which is sometimes subtle, sometimes overwhelming, but permeates the poem from start to finish.
3. What my brain added to the poem as I read it: I see Silver as heavy, solid, metal. I see night, leaves, wings, wind, water, and moon as Light, Soft. So I took the liberty (as every reader does) to interpret “silver” as reflection, as in mirror, as in virtual sight, since the mirror only “follows” and never really interacts with the subject. Even though sometimes we convince ourselves to see what we want to see in the mirror.
Now Burning Moon has added a poem to the chain here in cafe cafe, a couple of posts up from this one. I like how this keeps going.
Interesting, the heaviness of silver hadn't occurred to me. I actually, originally, was thinking of silver light, from (possibly) the moon, or reflection on water, or... but didn't necessarily want to make it explicit, so it could go in more directions.
Thanks much for your comment, Keros.
This is lovely Lyle. The list of words at the beginning weave through the poem like touchstones.
It's a soft, poignant, beautiful poem.
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