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28:1 |
LYNX
A Journal for Linking Poets |
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SOLO POETRY GHAZALS THE DIVA OF JALSAGHAR Crystal chalices are shattered Sutras rise in calligraphy & palace mirrors liquefy, rippling & a raga floats, visible as smoke, She is lotus-shaped clouds She is mist camouflaging elephants She is wind piping notes Phosphorous gems radiate Himalayas blaze with auras & wraiths rise from the Blue Nile, & rainbows blossom from light She is the surf of the Arabian Sea. She is the monsoon's vortex of rain. She is the voice that issues from wind & she sings of the luminous & she sings of the white fires & she sings of phoenixes ascending & she sings of bulbuls & she sings of the waters of Babylon & she sings of winged-seeds whirling & she sings of the Zamzam springs & as she sings images alter within – The opulent ink of an azure – The pyramids of spectral light – The circular clouds whipping – The steam thick as tufts of cotton – The Arabian moon transforming – The ravishing Muse whispering – The willows casting reflections – The rushing Sarasvati – The Egyptian catacombs – The watercolor horizon & Layla's shadow has fallen like cloth In Vaikuntha turquoise suns encircle * Where she meditates within an incandescent sphere. Where her silhouette is emblazoned on a molten cloud. Where circling falcons form a vortex around her. Where her voice shatters the crystals of stars. Where she is the night shimmering like black sand. Where her sculptural form rises in the sky's rotunda. * Emerald irises bursted Through silk shrouds a bodhi tree sprang & particles of light teemed & tanagers swarmed meadows & sprigs of lightning forked & raindrops tapped the drums & echoes thundered from turrets & throngs of bees rose like whirlwinds & thunderheads sizzled with blue lightning & glacial seas formed * The Ganges is phosphorescent The Jhelum is glass populated The Sind emits fluid vapor shaping Her voice spirals in the slipstream Her voice the echo rising Her voice the whispering sands Her voice an aria of air rising & wisps of her voice circulate in air Whirling through the smashed golds * A chinar's leaves shine like green flames She inhabits Kashmir zephyrs She emanates from jade pools She disperses poppies amid cenotaphs She is glimpsed in mirages She is seen on Thakurganj road
Notes:
SYMBIOTIC POETRY
ANOTHER MORNING NOCTURNE Amazing to me, just before dawn this silver quickening in the sky! Every morning if desert skies are clear, a radiance of silver then blue falls from the air. I can’t help but think of Eurydice, making a U-turn and descending back into hell because I say amazing, but really, what could be more mundane than this? Twenty-four hours ago here I was, bleary-eyed from sleep, pecking away on my computer, when the radiance tap-tapped on the window. Ah, love, let us be true So why should these lines from Dover Beach gate-crash my thoughts this day, the day after Thanksgiving? Isn’t there certitude in the silvers and blues, the quickening I mentioned? What is it in me, afraid not to look on the dark side, to cultivate darkness, the Darkness, like a fecund field?
Haiga by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
MORNING HYMNAL When I was a kid I loved gazing at the flow of water through reeds:each reed wrapped in a scarf of light—warmed, but for only a second; then the light changed, and I was gazing at a different creek, different reeds. Change of form, change of color, change of worlds— . . . Odd, since I don’t have a painter’s eye: but days spent walking along the creek west of our house in Alto are still with me. And the wind! Depending on the season it blew from three directions—not the south, I never understood why. I thought of it the way local Indians once did: as a living thing, fingers of a Hand caressing the grasses like a child’s curls. Occasionally fog rolled in from the Bay, and I saw each bank as a pillow for a weary head, which I thought of as female. At night, when the fog was gone, she (I even When I pass, Susan will also pass. Perhaps, thanks to global warming, the fog too. And someday, has that day already come and gone?—some kid will find the last arrowhead in the Marin hills. in the ripples
ISLANDS The sea enchanted me precisely because I never saw it: or saw it so rarely that I don’t remember my first trip to Stinson Beach until I was much older. Then, in the very early fifties, when I was seven or eight, I imagined I could hear invisible waves out my west window—a frame for Mt. Tam, that rugged green pyramid looming up between me and the Pacific. The abounding blessed isles. . . Who coined that phrase? Pure gold, stamped in my
imagination with a foreign imprimatur—God’s own, perhaps, or the goddess I called Susan. Then, too, for me there were always mysterious periods of lassitude, not pleasant, what I’ve called the horse latitudes of the soul. Why do children feel such things? I’ve asked that question in poetry before too, only to be answered by silence, itself a form of lassitude. Well, eventually we get bored by smarmy pictures, paintings and photos of happy children—they all seem the same. At least for me, only in images of sad children is the essence of childhood revealed—revealed, I mean, in what the little ones seem to be looking for just over my shoulder: even as I stood at my window at night, looking and listening for the waves that weren’t there.
FOR TAYLOR SWIFT A path of flowers beacon us to walk hand in hand. The scent of buds are on your lips and the sunlight glistens in your hair. on the shore far away stars are in my heart
SUMMER DUSK Always, a loon scours the river shore with me. We dip into indentations of footprints. Share secrets we unravel: the scalloped lips of shells, the broken ribs of fish, the names we name stones. We use no words. The loon thinks he sings, his song always a dirge. I summer dusk
ON A CROWDED BUS He looked like the typical suit and appeared to be in his 50s. The only thing that drew my attention to him was the gold loop in his left ear. He was holding a newspaper in front of his face which made him unseen except from his earlobes up. I could see his expressionless eyes shifting from left to right and then from right to left. His eye brows slowly formed a shape that could only be understood as confusion. He lowered the newspaper to his lap and shifted his eyes toward the window to see the world passing by. a quick glance away
AS TIME GOES BY She was just a baby. Only a couple of years have passed since diapers. OK… eleven years. Maybelline®
CALLING HOME "Happy Birthday!"
One of the last jobs of a very busy summer season was trying to destroy or plug any or all tiny entryways that a swarm of wasps were using to build a winter nest somewhere behind the siding of our daughter, Shelley Anne', house. 45 years ago "A very tricky and dangerous job" quickly deteriorated into something approaching a circus act. Husband (Richard) 6' and son (Ken)6' 3", with cans of wasp killer, proceeded as inconspicuously as possible, spraying both wasps and into cracks late summer heat the scent of roses It was at this point that I left and walked around to visit with our cats in the back yard. Getting in the way of bees or wasps was not on my "to do" list, especially since I am the one with so many allergies. between my toes blades of grass I really don't remember how long I visited with the cats. Nor did I learn how successful Richard and Ken had been until my husband came stumbling out the back door holding an ice pack on his nose. 'What happened?" I asked. "Oh, the damn wasp bit me!!" I tried not to laugh, however, Shelley Anne came out the back door chuckling. " . . . you know dad. He tried to kill what was left with the broom!" Suddenly, we both noticed what looked like water pouring out of Richard's nostrils. He was also very pale and his hands were trembling. He assured everyone that he was fine then jumped up to go back into the house. Shelley Anne and Ken were lazily a few golden leaves dust the air Terrified and almost trancelike, I rose and said, We would not be able to sort out exactly what order things happened that morning until much later. Taking just a moment to check the instructions, Shelley Anne injected the .3 mg. of epinephrine into her dad's left thigh, then spoke into the phone I hadn't even noticed. "The EpiPen was given at 11:50 am." A few moments later, I rose and walked around into the front yard. unexpected . . .
AFTER A STORM just over the blowing trees a white bed of light appears through the skyline and the rain settles to a calm and pleasant pattern and I imagine death being somewhat like this with everything that has hurt and bothered me coming to a halt giving way to a perfect horizon gradually opening before me calling me over to a homeland that I cannot imagine but then again what do I know I am only a man and this is only a day in a life after a storm that allows me once more the chance to believe end of summer
TO MARIA the sustaining gift has been returning home to you and I have soaked it up like water vanishing in the soil of a flower pot the miracle has been returning home to you living our days together packaging up our time and storing it deep in our heart of hearts away from the wild away from the world twin spirit of eternal love returning to you has an evening on the deck
SANTA ROSA ISLAND, FLORIDA On a barely-maintained road we bounce in an old Volkswagen toward the beach as though practicing to ride waves. Abandoning the car on the warm berm—its blacktop crumbling—I and my two friends—all in our twenties—whisk off our sandals and sink our bare feet into sand that is already tinged with coolness. As we jog over the dunes, grains disengage themselves, at first singly then en masse. When we reach ocean’s edge, the sun flattens below a cloud changing into a bold red slash. The first stars appear, hovering over the small-capped waves. After sunset, the families with children disappear, as do the dog-walkers. Lovers lope away, arms wrapped around each other’s hips. Only we remain watching lights bob on the fishing boats. We hear voices too, the sounds of fishermen released from work-a-day cares and eager for adventure. Men seeking wildness. Every so often one reels in a fish. If it’s big enough or puts up a fight, they whoop and holler. But soon we hear only the rhythmic lapping of waves as the boats rise and fall under a canopy of glowing stars.
on the cool sand
PHOTO: MISSING YOU Four sisters gather at Joanne’s house. It’s Dad’s 80th birthday. He its in the easy chair, hand on the remote, but he’s strangely silent even as the Sixers race up and down the court. My niece, Kayleigh, arrives bringing the redhead tally up to four. Joanne asks Kayleigh’s friend to snap a photo. From around the room, we head toward Dad, and as Kayleigh leans in to cradle her Granddad’s shoulder, he jumps halfway to standing and flings a right hook. We step back realizing that we’ve scared Dad who no longer recognizes us. He only remembers danger: Japanese soldiers on Okinawa or brash kids from his Philly neighborhood who fought hard. We attempt to gather around him again but each time we draw near, dad has the same reaction. He eyes us warily, curls his hands into fists, and jabs at the air or the daughter nearest to him. Star athlete as always. outside on the deck
VARIETIES OF PRAYER On Christmas Eve, a friend calls and instead of her usual chat with my husband, she asks to speak to me first. “Lena has cancer,” she says.“Breast cancer. She’s known for two months but gosh, you now how private she is. She wanted to keep it secret.” The memories come back—my mom’s diagnosis, the doctor proclaiming six months to live—instead of her seven-year odyssey of some very sick days, others when the cancer seemed only a bad memory. I want to talk to Lena, send her an aural hug, but she’s resting. Instead Lu fills me in on the details—the name of hospital, time of operation, possible procedures. Suddenly, I ask how Lu’s boys are. “First Christmas apart,” she says. “Ever.” Her family lives in Alabama; Lena, in their native Pennsylvania. hurrying down the lane
SEQUENCES
SKY MOVING I hold you at last driving miles rain blots that wizard you write the wind too many gazing
TODAY A LETTER writing on water today a letter arrives it has been said the stars appear touching the fold
INTIMATIONS weaning myself off
Haiga by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
SCATTERED RICE Valentine’s Eve before sparrows I read between the lines the red roses we plant sheet lightning home from the funeral
WHERE SHE RESTS IN PEACE my grandmother’s grave the hill hand in hand
*NASHAWTUCK – BETWEEN TWO RIVERS early morning chill sleeping bag around our embrace
embarrassed hammock gossips
crab apple damn tastes like crab apple
cookie jar
early morning light
shadows flicker
‘before you were born’
snowflakes black leather jacket
same new same full same
*An inscription on a rock cliff by the riverbank reads: “On the hill Nashawtuck at the meeting of the rivers and along the banks lived the Indian owners of Musketaquid before the white men came”
SERENADE, AUBADE who others now and then if I had begged even in a life where have they gone a sickly light
HERSHEY GARDENS mid-October garden lovers in the arboretum chasing each other overflowing air so sweet
JHARIA november dusk blue black fumes smoggy mist open cast mining the wind hushed tired pitman driving
PINE CRICKETS pine crickets soft whispers overheard in the back seat a Joint Session approves crowds cheering his sack emptied of crumbs carrying a villain a patch of new grass apple-mint, focusing on AUM at the burlesque a lone sunflower nods
SINGLE POEMS
November's first ice
teaching practice
through lattices
what glues
jasmine flower–
desert walk– old tree–
melting candle–
keyhole
blind date Blind Date
from its cocoon
New Year’s Eve
waking up beim Aufwachen
what color
a scenic drive . . .
rainy day regnerischer Tag
my student loans
quiet café ruhiges Café
the doorbell
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SOLO POETRY GHAZALS THE DIVA OF JALSAGHAR
SYMBIOTIC POETRY ANOTHER MORNING NOCTURNE MORNING HYMNAL Haiga by Maire Morrissey-Cummins ISLANDS FOR TAYLOR SWIFT SUMMER DUSK ON A CROWDED BUS AS TIME GOES BY CALLING HOME WINNING AND LOSING A FAMILY AFFAIR AFTER A STORM TO MARIA SANTA ROSA ISLAND, FLORIDA PHOTO: MISSING YOU VARIETIES OF PRAYER
SEQUENCES SKY MOVING TODAY A LETTER INTIMATIONS Haiga by Maire Morrissey-Cummins SCATTERED RICE WHERE SHE RESTS IN PEACE NASHAWTUCK – BETWEEN TWO RIVERS SERENADE, AUBADE HERSHEY GARDENS JHARIA PINE CRICKETS
SINGLE POEMS Daryl Nielsen Rachel Sutcliffe Alegria Imperial Pravat Kumar Padhy Brian Robertson Edward Cody Huddleston, Nu Quang |
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Next Lynx is scheduled for June 1, 2013.
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