Bonedancer

Bonedancer

Bonedancer, hear me.

I sing the song

that burns the candle

here beside the flume of dark

where Styx meets bright Tiger

where Persephone falters

eating one sweet seed after another

too long too dry to stop.

Bonedancer, fly

in the dream I dream

of the totem wolf talking

of skinshifters walking

where the waking's hard

but the sleeping is harder

on memory's cold stones,

loser's bloat and bones.

Bonedancer, pivot

above the look

that shakes a threshing

from a sowing

that calls to its own

on strings of wild

violin eyes, hiss

your mother bird's chorus, chuffling

your chicks towards a white sun

candle that burns in the grass.

~November 2012

Posted for   real toads

Challenge: Transforming Friday

 This did not start out to be a poem about turkey buzzards, and perhaps still isn't, but Hannah's prompt gave it shape. There are many of them here where I live, and their intricate wheeling and sailing on the rise and fall of thermals is a joy to watch.

Process notes: In Greek(and later Roman) myth, Persephone was a chthonic goddess , daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and Zeus. Kidnapped by Hades, she became a goddess of the dead, but also of the land's rebirth. After her kidnapping devastated the croplands due to her mother's grief, Hades was persuaded to return her from the nether regions, but first he offered her a pomegranate, of which she ate four seeds,  dooming her to spend four months of every year below the earth.

 From wikipedia: "The Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), also known in some North American regions as the turkey buzzard (or just buzzard)… is a scavenger and feeds almost exclusively on carrion. It finds its food using its keen eyes and sense of smell, flying low enough to detect the gases produced by the beginnings of the process of decay in dead animals. In flight, it uses thermals to move through the air, flapping its wings infrequently. It roosts in large community groups. Lacking a syrinx—the vocal organ of birds—its only vocalizations are grunts or low hisses. It nests in caves, hollow trees, or thickets. Each year it generally raises two chicks."

Image:  by dw_ross, on flick'r

Shared under a creative commons license

Wintergreening

Wintergreening

Leaves still breathe the summer

warm as what you gave

before you left,

but days are folding

smaller, thinner
darker

and the freeze

is skin close.

I'm not a good forgiver;

forgiving

seems to throw away

the thing that really mattered,

yet summer

forgives winter

greening herself back

and back each time she's

frozen out.

~November 2012

55 falling leaves for   the g-man

Header Image: Greenorange light, © joyannjones 2012

Footer Image: Frosty Morning, by Sam Foles,   on flick'r

Shared under a creative commons license

Hope

It's still sinking in, that we won tonight. I promise to have some poetry up soon, but as I was watching this evening wind down, listening to President Obama speak, these words of Emily Dickinson seemed to float into my brain, so I'll leave them with you all till I am up and running again. Thanks everyone, for bearing with me through my political high anxiety.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)

~By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.





Image: The Promise, by Rene Magritte, 1966
via wikipaintings.org
All copyright belongs to the copyright holders.

2012 US Presidential Election~Vote!

To all my readers, with apologies to those outside the US:

Yes, this is a poetry blog, but right now, for me politics is taking precedence. I will not be posting any poetry till after the Tuesday, November 6th election.

Disclaimer: This post represents my personal opinions and in stating them, I wish to acknowledge that I support the rights of all human beings to hold their own personal views and consider them as serious and real as I do mine, regardless of whether we are in agreement. 

There is a lot going on in our country right now to distract us from next week's  Presidential election, yet it would be a fatal mistake to think that it won’t be the single most important factor in our country's continuing economic recovery, and in our own personal lives in many subtle and not so subtle ways. 
 
It will determine whether the New Deal safety net of Social Security is there for your children, yourselves or your parents, whether Medicare and Medicaid and the health care reforms forcing insurance companies to stop denying coverage to sick people and to insure millions of additional Americans put through by President Obama remain in effect or are destroyed.

It will affect the future of public education, immigration policy, alternative energy investments and climate change, public safety and infrastructure, personal reproductive choices of women, the ability of LGBT couples to enjoy equal opportunity under the law, and many other issues central to our identity as a country of progress, freedom and equality. It will certainly affect our relationships with other countries, especially the Middle East, and the likelihood of war with Iran. 

In addition, whoever is the next president will determine the future composition of the Supreme Court, which in turn will be a determining factor in many landmark cases which will impact us all.

My left-leaning liberal politics are no secret, but to clarify, I have always considered myself more as an Independent, believing both sides in our time to be morally corrupt, and have in many past elections voted Republican. That party's extreme swing to the far right precludes any consideration of that this year, and I will be voting Democratic in this election. 

Nonetheless, regardless of which party, if any, you support, I urge you to find out the facts behind the hype wherever possible, and to vote your conscience.  

It's very easy to say that all politicians are corrupt and a vote doesn’t matter, but that's the biggest cop-out of all time. If people engaged with issues, paid attention to who  is saying what and educated themselves,  we would have a different class of people  running for office, and  power would not be in the hands of the wealthiest among us to the detriment of the rest of us. 

So  please, exercise a right people have died to protect, and  

Go  Vote on Tuesday. 

Okay, I'm off my soapbox. Below are some informative, non-partisan links that may be helpful. Normal poetry will resume sometime after the election.

To find out information on where or how to vote in your state:

List of State Election Boards

To verify the facts in ads or claims by candidates(non-partisan):

FactCheck.org

For the latest polling averages:

Real Clear Politics (leans slightly right)

Nate Silver's 538 Blog at the NYT (leans slightly left)

For image credits, hover mouse over picture. All images are shared under a Creative Commons License.