Category Archives: The Invisible

O Again: 8. Virgo

O Again


8.
O Virgo (the other one)

O Virgo.
O Dike, warning us 
and fleeing to the hills.
O Atargatis, Erigone.
(Look it up.)

O Spica,
Alpha Virginis,
Virgo’s grain, 
not eclipsing,
mutually interacting.

O Virgo:
Silver Earth sign.
Could you anyhow
be the Mother we hail,
still full of grace?

O AGAIN: 2. Adonai Reversed

O AGAIN  


2.
O Adonai (reversed)

Lord of Might.
O my, how we crave one.
Somebody to fix it all up.
Do It Yourself
is awful hard work.

Giver of Law.
So much simpler 
to follow along.
Obey the rules. 
Do what we’re told.

Lord of Might? Jesus.
Consider  
the trees around here:
every year they burn 
and are not consumed.

THE ANTIPHONS RETURN: 1. O Sapienta

O Again


1.
O Sapienta (Fifty Years later)

Holy Wisdom sets things
in order. If there is an order
to set. If there are indeed
things. Moreover, what
does it mean to be wise?

Premise: Holy Wisdom might
show us the path of knowledge.
Why would that be a path and how,
precisely, might it be revealed?
Furthermore, what can be known?

O Sapienta: Holy Wisdom. 
A good night to conceive
a philosopher on an unheated 
waterbed in a cold bedroom.
We didn’t have a clue.

ON MY HONOR

ON MY HONOR

I will try.

 

Stand on the moon

and show me a country.

 

Falling rain is real.

Down by the rivers

 

it is killing people.

Fire is real.

 

Show me a country.

Death is real.

 

All over the landscapes 

no borders

 

and the loneliness is real.

Duty has an unpleasant sound,

 

not something I would choose.

And God? 

 

Stand on the moon.

OPEN STUDIO POEM #18

OPEN STUDIO POEM #18

 

 

aplomb

solid

chrysanthemum

collage

secluded

 

Under snow, under solid ground,

earth knits a fabric of mycelium,

bulb, the roots of chrysanthemum

and rose.  The February landscape

shapes a shifting collage

of branch and cloud,

a splash of of jay-blue.

We stay secluded, painting

our lives with aplomb.

OPEN STUDIO POEM #17

 

Open Studio Poem #17

disco

lickety-split

splendid

magenta

 

Fairies shelter behind the disco ball

hung in the portal to the kingdom of odd. 

After sunset, they emerge lickety-split,

and all night they dance through the city, 

their magenta wings flashing splendid

in the lights of streets, and traffic, and stars.

 

 

The other occupants of the Open Studio are out to get me, as you can see. But I know where that disco ball hangs, and I know the fairies, too.

OPEN STUDIO POEM #15

OPEN STUDIO POEM #15

leaves

haven

susurration

possibility

 

When the days lengthen,

the cold strengthens

but the light too grows strong—

apricity on a frozen day.

 

Last fall the young oak kept

its leaves. It stood, susurrating

in the shadow of its mother,

collected light feeding the roots.

 

We live these days

in a haven of possibility.

MATTER: A Pantoum

MATTER: A Pantoum

What gods do is make and let the pieces fall.

Billions of clocks on billions of beaches

turning as our hands move however they

move or our four legs or six or eight.

 

Billions of eyes in billions of deserts

move through their times or none and 

we move our two legs or four or six or eight and

our hearts and chloroplasts, mycelium,

 

our many eyes or none.

Our structures crystalize, the plates

and hearts and chloroplasts and mycelium

subduct and bump as we rise and fall.

 

The structure of our crystals, how the plates 

and all we do is an echo of clapping hands as we

subduct and bump and rise and fall.

With voices, silences, wavings of branches

 

we echo with our hands 

and twigs and whatever anemones use

for voices: silences? wavings of branches?

We’re all made of one matter.

 

Twigs and anemones

turn while our hands move however they

move because we’re all the matter

and making matter and falling is what we do.

OPEN STUDIO POEM #13: FOR THE LAST DAY OF 2020

OPEN STUDIO POEM #13

bobble

bauble

clarity

celebration

POEM FOR THE LAST DAY OF 2020

With smiles and nods, thumbs up

and applauses, with bright baubles 

 

of technologies—our new necessities—

we’ve bobbled through this hardest time. 

 

We have more courage than we knew,

our loves are stronger than we thought.

 

Now, let us begin a celebration, now, 

as we tiptoe toward the clarity of light 

 

at the far side of this dark passageway.

We are beginning to know 

 

how tender we are; beginning

to know how gentle we can be.

With thanks to Wanda, Kathy H, David and Kathy C for their words.