Chapter 7: NOW
"Set wide the window. Let me drink the day." Edith Wharton
THERE SHOULD BE ENOUGH
lists to hold variances of light
hands to wipe Winter off Spring
spoons to stir soup & spoons to satisfy hunger
green to greet all desire
strong tea to jumpstart conversation
& biscuits to encourage silence
parking lots filled with questions & petite
mailboxes for answers
& just for you, dear, eyes clear enough to remember
the ruby-throated hummingbird hovering
in last night's dream
Kit Kennedy
Peace & Joy
St. Francis stands in a painted garden of Eden,
blesses peacocks, nightingale, dove.
Sheep, goat and frog encircle his sandals.
Holiness exudes from psychedelic halo.
The red-headed artist
of Fantastic Oasis
tips a plastic bucket,
hydrates lemon, lavender,
struggling roses.
For a few moments,
coffee house, cheap motels vanish.
I pause on the doorstep of paradise.
Jennifer Lagier
Karin Batten, The Gift, Mixed media
Greenhouse
In the back corner
Barely seen
Like that wild flower
The size of a fingernail
Between two small stones
I see you covered in webs
Yet stretching out
Remind me to do the same
Jane Green
Because you listen like a sunrise
wisps of thin
feathery clouds
blow desert
drizzle pebbles
horizontal
through it.
Jane Green
Jacqueline Sferra Rada, Sunday Morning, pastel/paper
MORNING GLORY CLOSE-UP
(Hawaii)
Waiting for wind to realize and be still.
Waiting for wind.
Waiting for dewdrops to lure the sun.
Waiting for dewdrops and sun.
Waiting for petals to unify with air.
Waiting for petals and air.
Waiting for shadows to slightly shift.
Waiting for shadows.
Waiting for the stem to bend a bit.
Waiting for the stem.
Tension east into core,
choreography of composure
then
let the shutter click.
Claire J. Baker
(from author's collection "Touchings)
Claire Ibarra, Looking UP, photograph
Winter Through the Window
Through a window
I see the sky
a ridge of blue
soon to be white
like clouds
fallen snowflakes.
Danny P. Barbare
THE VOICE of SNOW
I am free-
falling white
onto white
adhering
to gravity
& the soft descent
onto those
who came
before.
Yet sometimes
things get in the way
here a tree
there a lamp post
even a fractious
crow or two
perched
on eaves.
Yes, a favorite
is melting
onto red mittens.
Of course
the prize:
gliding into
the open
upturned
mouth
of joy.
Kit Kennedy
The Reanimation of Love
For years we meandered to jaded drums
Lives transfixed on the repeatable bursting boulevards
In dreams we cradled love's aching call
Its siren song- we marched to diminishing redoubtable chords
Of transcendence though not yet come.
Our hearts turn to a hall of looking glass resplendent
As radiance shines on the Temeraire, the sea unfolds its symmetry
A lunar pool speaks to itself as if in rhyme
Seeking only reconciliation of our years; our exquisite exile
We cling to that which is here.
What guides our name for the unnameable?
Brings us drink from the fluent and fickle stream?
Why cross oceans of time to be the abecedarian?
Our experience abates - recedes from its puissant perch
And brings a beginning to the quietus
So as the snow feathers its way like silent incandescence
A shimmering scape wraps round our open hearts
We walk as slow as the tranquil haze…….we whisper only in thought
Our soft eyes ahead – we share…we adore future fire
And dare we not to wake.
Bill Danskin
Jacqueline Sferra Rada, Red Sky, pastel/paper
Homecoming
The pulsing trains of my City
stream the same currents
through the Western sand dunes
in their eternal struggle to kiss
the elusive red sunset.
And each time the Pacific thrusts you back
to me the fireworks blossom
alongside the Queensboro Bridge.
You once said it smelled like home here.
You may find that you love
water towers too,
those lonely fedoras hidden
on the dust-lined shelves
of Times Square.
Blue moons will continue to circulate
across the pulsing skyline,
adorned with oversized fire bulbs, lighted flowers.
Those are the mechanisms,
the reasons,
behind the pulse
inside my thumb, my whole heart
and you, my whole heart.
Before you arrive at the Golden Gate,
urging away from Times Square,
know the entire pulse of my City,
my whole heart,
awaits you.
Stephanie Laterza
Andrena Zawinski, fog breaking chrissy field, photograph