The Secret

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secret

 

No one told the owls

still they flew all night through

the moon-radiant snow, claws

cold as promises, to my white crib.

 

We cannot save you, they said.

We can only know you. Bald

blind medusas with all

their snakes hidden

 

behind their lips

will raise you.

All around you

will be

the petty pecking 

of bitter-braided bitches who

never caught a mouse.

 

Who, who, said the owls

will you be then, the dove

who tastes of midnight

 

or the bear who

sleeps the cold away

until the honey flows?

 

 

April 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

Word Garden Wordlist 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Owl at Window, Artist unknown, via internet  Fair Use

Black Magic, 1934, ©Rene Magritte   Fair Use

The Bear, ©Michael Sowa     Fair Use

 

Breaking The Stone

 

 

 

Breaking The Stone

 

 

When I left the forest for a wilderness

of pillars, hexed by a tinsel covenant,

the moon cried for me. Pines sparked with

white gems of her longing. Minerva's owl

called my name three times; still

I chose the thrown shadows of a fire

that burned just out of my sight.

 

Sixteen years I followed shadows,

ate them, dressed in them, became

what was cast in front of me instead of

its birthing light. Stone I owned held no fire,

only chill when my foot left its face.The

pulling promise that scorched my hand

never could be grasped.

At last like a widow's first laugh,

there came the reaping breath of what is,

carousing down columns to lift

my short hairs with the brush

of owl's wings above me,

spread wide to carry me home.

Then the orphan moon

put away her tears

and blazed in the lavender sky.

Pine-wind recited in the meter of stars,

and I was their matchstick,

Gaia's fuse for a flameless firework

filling the amaranthine wood

against the dark end.

 

In my hand

I took the gift-feather

from the owl that called my name

and with it, wand and talisman,

without any heat at all,

I broke the stone.

 

June 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a draft poem for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: This poem could use some additional work, but I am posting it in its infant form til I can find what else it needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Owl and Pillars, author unknown, via Sunday Muse Fair Use  Image source 

Owl and Moon, ©Alan Perry, via internet Fair Use

Lincoln Frees The Owls

 

 

 Lincoln Frees The Owls

Your father had

a cloud of blackbirds,

your mother a wake

of buzzards. You

 

were more ambitious.

You wanted Athena's owls,

or else to play Lincoln. You

had the bones for it, and you

 

bought the hat, but feathers

stuck in your throat

when you began to speak

about emancipation.

 

The owls never complained

about the long hours

you made them be still

on your lap, the skinny mice

 

you gave them. (It was

unfortunate about the butterflies,

but an owl has to eat.)

In the end we left you, 

 

the owls and I, in front of

the Ford Theater where later

we would all find out

what it means to be really free.

February 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

the Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sevenling: Owl In The Night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sevenling: Owl In The Night

Owl in the night

mouse in the grass

wind behind wide wings

like my own heart I feel you fly

my voice a mouse-cry

as wide wings beat the light from

the moon to my eye.

December 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on sevenlings if you haven't met one before: "The sevenling is a poem of seven lines inspired by the form of [a].. much translated short verse by Anna Akhmatova (1889 - 1966)...The first three lines should contain an element of three - three connected or contrasting statements, or a list of three details, names or possibilities..lines four to six should similarly contain an element of three connected directly or indirectly or not at all..The seventh line should act as a narrative summary or punchline or as an unusual juxtaposition..A sevenling should be titled Sevenling followed by the first few words in parentheses The tone of the sevenling should be mysterious, offbeat or disturbing, giving a feeling that only part of the story is being told.."~Roddy Lumsden

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Owl and Moon, ©Alan Perry All Rights Reserved Fair Use

birdperson image author unknown via Sunday Muse Fair Use

 

A Talk with Tyto alba

A Talk with Tyto alba

To the garden overwatered

by my tears

the Barn Owl came one night.

He sat on a branch,

swiveling his round-windowed head

to ask me why

I cried.

“Are you lonely

here, in this place

you built yourself? Do the wolves

draw in at evening,

slipping their howls in the papery sigh

of free wind I sail?”

I looked in his eyes

globed as peaches, golden

lamps pulling light

from dark.
I shook my head.

“Then is it the stone

you can't drop, the ugly one

held so hard on your lungs,

heavy with years,

sharp with fear

of  tomorrow?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t cry for what I’ve lost,

for what I am or what will be.

 I cry for what I’ve broken

and what has broken me.”

“But that's all three,”

said the owl
leaving me there

with a shrug of his wing, 

smooth as music on the air,

chasing his soft

personal rustlings

in the grass.

June 2011

An old poem, repurposed for 
The Sunday Muse

Image: Lechuza (Tyto alba) by macha.cl posted on flick'r 

Friday 55 February 2 2018

Another Friday, another opportunity to practice the minimalist's craft of creating a coherent piece of prose or poetry in 55 words, no more, no less. Thanks to the G-man, for teaching me/us how, and to all who come by to play here with their minds and pens.

As usual, the 55 will be open from Friday through Sunday morning. To share your bit of word art, please leave a link in the comments below.

My 55:

The Talkers

One could slice

the moon in two

with the knife of a tongue,

the other rubble-up the Grand Canyon

with landslides of voice.

The word-scalpel

probes scarlet-tender wounds,

incises proud initials.

So wonder here in silence:

is it rain plashing past the glass

that kills the paper

or a sudden

rush of pure heart's blood?

~February 2018

Image: Alchemy, or the Useless Science, 1958, ©Remedios Varo    Fair Use.

Blue Egg

Blue Egg

I remember

when I was origami

so folded, so

representational,

remarkably flexible

for paper,

my outside jayfeather blue

as an egg, lifting uncrumpled

careful wings (those

fleshless parts of the fowl

left behind when

the breast is devoured.)

Such a successful simulation,

patiently tucked and rolled into

a song, a resemblance

made into a bird, unfortunately

flightless and now

extinct
in the shredder.

~March 2015

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Interpretations with Margaret

Margaret Bednar's (Art Happens 365) artistic eye lights this time on the work of Toril Fisher. All rights to the image above belong to the artist, who has given  us her kind permission to reproduce it.

Top Image: Baby Blues, copyright Toril Fisher
Used with permission.
Footer: Wing of a Blue Roller, 1512, Albrecht Durer
Public domain via wikiart.org

Gifts

Gifts

Even the bee is lazy when it rains

humming in her fitful dry hive-dance 

while the hungry dust turns mud

and liquid silver rinses out her cups.

These clouds, so high, so wild,

because they want to, come.

They play instruments of earth,

wind section, tree-cellos, stone drum

but make the music of a soul;

if we hear, it's not because we paid.

These gifts--each breath, each note

each bee, each yellow bell on fire

for ruby throat, each handful of bending blades--

outline the coast of a country never mapped

and like every gift that comes without a cost

or a desire, it stays unwrapped.

~August 2014

I will be offline for a while as various things in my life work themselves out. See you on the flipside of all that, and may all of you enjoy the gifts of summer.

Photo: Redbuds, Grey Sky, copyright joyannjones 2014