Song Of The Weavers

 

Song Of The Weavers

 

 

 

 

The Norns speak all they know

in pleaching and binding, in winding

on the spindle green thread from the Northlights,

white wool from the southern sugarmoon

as it sets in blood-orange dustfall.

 

Their rhythm curls out from

the tangleroot nest under the world tree

where they refresh the well

season to season, age to age, and all that was

and is to be is formed in their throats' call.

 

They have grown each feather

on the black raven's backs 

of thought and memory

and taken the Allfather's eye

for their balladry.

 

A hard hand makes a rock-hard life,

but their cloud-boned fingers can weave

hard lives into blooms made to jump up in sheaves

as velvet as rabbits, full-hearted sweet

as the last peach on the summertree.

 

They fire the wicker man's burn

and rain his ash into the fields

to weep for the rye

they will color again

in May's breath-dancing fly.

 

I only sit under the cooling stars

in the holiness of night with the 

owls' down floating, in the bright foundry of day

with the tongues of grass leaning

into the singing of their wild living cry.

 

 

 

 

March 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for earthweal's

Wild Language

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: The Three Norns, 1911, © Arthur Rackham    Public Domain

Northern Lights Over Iceland, author unknown, via internet  Fair Use

Friday Flash Fiction 55 for February, 2020

Welcome to this month's edition of the Friday 55, where the only rule is to write a poem, piece of prose, prose-poetry, or flash fiction on any subject, in 55 words, no more no less. This is a writer's challenge that begins at midnight on Thursday and is live through 4:00 PM Sunday, CST. No Mr. Linky here, so just copy and paste your link in the comments, and I will be by to read what you have written.

Comment moderation is off but the blog author reserves the right to delete entries or comments at her discretion.

~*~

Here is my own offering:

Pain

Pain

is the coyote

that follows the wolf.

Bones are enough

from another dog's kill.

While the brain locks in shock,

pain eats its fill.

When

the gash has

been made, the organ 

worked loose, then there 

comes the howling hour,

the pull and crunch of coyote's jaws;
pain's tongue-lolling grin
outside death's den-door.

February 2020

Disclaimer: Coyotes are a misunderstood animal, and no animus is meant against them here. They have an important place in the myths and lore of many cultures, as well as the ecosystem, and a right to their lives and habitats. I ask coyote's spirit to excuse the poetic license I have exercised in choosing him for my metaphor.

Image of coyote howling with full moon,  2011, ©hardcoreturkhunter, via internet   Fair Use

Single Mitten

Single Mitten

You're lost.

You

the fact forgotten,

you 

the bramble-stolen path;

you 

the lantern empty,

the coat that feeds the moth;

the one

whose voice was taken,

whose breath

could not get in,

whose absence

 breaks the coupled;

the pocket-eaten mitten

that makes 

its partner useless,

a rag 

to be disposed;

you

the shadow flying,

you

the eye that's closed.

Lost.

~September 2018

Personal update: So many apologies for not reading or visiting these days, dear readers. I miss your poetry, and my own; all the voices which will no longer sing for me just now. My husband continues to fight the long defeat against his illness, but the time is getting short. I am hoping for some clarity on the other side, in which these frayed threads may be taken up again in some way. Til then, many thanks for all the concern, support and love you have shown me in this barren, foggy time.

 Image: top: author unknown, via internet. All rights reserved to author.

Gulls, 1982, ©joyannjones

Concerning Grace

Concerning Grace

(Two Sonnets, with an Optional Epilogue)

I.

So here's the one whose time has almost gone
who plays in ashes wishing they were fire

who plays with leaving, wishing to linger on
who never knows a quickening desire  
except to rue that sunset follows dawn,

(sleepless, the dark brings out a red hot wire)

where all night's horses trample Hyperion

where every hope is gutted for a lyre.

Grace would be a welcome thing to save

as a thousand mouths split open at their seams,

all bored but quite unable to stop the screech.

Grace here would be a welcome thing to have,

dividing dark from light in separate dreams---

but grace is grey and dancing out of reach.

II.

All things have a radiance at the start
when life is burning like a star that falls
when passion is a door that swings ajar
to a room that never was a room at all.

But I am a thing whose time is almost done

a seed that shattered back on the recoil

that spent its force in cracking mountain stone 

put down its root in dead indifferent soil

thinking it could color and unfold

like Eos blooms her brother's fiery ball

from horizon to horizon, red to gold,

its petals scented jasmine as they'd fall.

Life yields a withered stalk, but gives me grace

to die and leave some richness in my place.

~July 2015

Process note: In Greek myth, Hyperion is the Titan of light, father of Helios, the sun, Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn.

posted for    real toads

Weekend Challenge: Goodness Gracious

Karin Gustafson (ManicdDaily) asks us to say grace, or at least to speak of it, think of it, and perhaps even write a poem about it. I have chosen to do a couple of sonnets, as grace seems a topic suitable to such. (The first is Sicilian, the second, Shakespearean, hopefully.) 

And for STRICTLY OPTIONAL reading for those who prefer free verse, or who are gluttons for punishment, to complete the theme of 'Three Graces,' I include as an Epilogue my egregiously long, semi-free verse, fragmented pre-poem these sonnets came from (*definitely* a draft!) below: 

Epilogue: Broken Notes on Grace

A thing whose time is almost gone

must look for grace to stop its lingering on;

each moment spent within that lingering

groping for the finick'd forgotten fingering

mocks the spark it once knew how to burn

in ashes of what's gone and all in vain,

for that will never give its light again.

       

~*~

Grace eludes in this clamoring dream

where a thousand mouths split open their seams 

bored but unable to stop their screech

as it dances by, out of their reach.

~*~

All things have a beginning

when they are radiant

when for a moment

they are potent

when grace falls open

like a well thumbed book

to the favorite mark

when grace is a door

without a handle

without a hook

that opens to

no room at all.

But I am a thing

whose time is done,

spent seed that once blew

too dry and far, that

spent all its force

to crack the stone

put down its root in poisoned soil

thinking still it might somehow unfold

instead grew spindly, twisted,

finally cold.

Now in the time of withering

I look for grace

to untie each starveling leaf

and let it fall--

some richness for this tight atomic dust

before the coming winter takes it all.

Images: The Three Graces, 16th Century, by Corregio

Public domain via wikimedia commons

Winter Sunflower, copyright 2014 joyannjones