Helena's Cry

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind." -Helena

On my morning walk, I stumbled upon a crow.

Who, in a raspy voice said, "Morning, I've been waiting for you."

I asked him with my brows, why?

"I have something to tell you. To tell Helena, won't you?

That the north wind has taken her Blue Jay away."

The sky that you saw last night was one that made our stars bright.

Snow has settled in,

his breath is numb and his voice is low.

He wants her to know that he had to fly.

The Coniferous branches are weak.

Tell Helena that he hopes she will not cry.

He's taken with him, nuts and grain.

I helped him carry a bit of shrub.

He hopes that she will be a dear and wait for him until next year.

"Won't you assure her of one thing?"

I answered, yes.

"That he will hear her lovesick cries."

And in the spring, he asks that she wait in the woods,

where her home is no longer dark.

Before he left he showed me a potion:

of love, if it is possible.

This part, Helena must not know,

for magic is needed.

When cherries begin to blossom,

perhaps they will elope.

Shared with dVerse Poets on Open Link Night

Uprise

I woke in a field
watching a goat
eat the farmer's hay

A flower sat out all night,
a wrinkled leaf
turning its page at dawn

A parade moves forward
fleeing south through tunnels, free
they burrow underground

Their fate above their heads,
a heart below glimmer
I watch them run and sing a song, free

In the shade, the notes are dull
Evening dusk and morning day
soon, the taste of home will fade

They stand tall on their feet
where land is promised,
indentured spirits melt in the sun

The leaf has veins,
blood and water and spider
I feel them full of rain

The smell of sweat drips from their strength
their homes burned, hope tangled
tarred and feathered

In this field
the sun is warm,
dandelions will flower

A pod of hundreds of seeds
the white are hair,
the brown, seeds in the middle

They hold sails to carry them far
The goats have moved on to grass
I blow the seeds away in the wind

TWW: feel, shade, tangle

Aruna's Eyes

Before my father walked into the light my mother's eyes were the color of a caelum sky. She never saw the vile things he did. His tea, with milk and spice was always ready for him. On days that he spent time with us, she smelled of vanilla and rose. He gave her treasured jewels that she kept in pill boxes. There was always something new for her to wear. She was a tall woman, the length of secrets, her legs slender and always bare of stockings. Her dresses were short: violets, crimson, maroon, thick belts hugged her slim waist. She was henna and onyx. Beautiful and strange. Why would my father lose his way?

Her eyes found a way to see only what she wanted to know. Only what was undisturbed, newly born, not yet tarnished.

He would only stay for a few days at a time. His work was important, my mother would say. And in his absence she would play her violin. I'd listen to her, playing to the wind, spying on her from a window bench in an upstairs room. She kept her distance from me during this time. She roamed our house alone, those days when I lived with a ghost. I was left to care for myself. My clothes didn't get washed but I would cook my own meals. I learned to bake, scones and muffins for dinner, hoping that the scents would awaken my mother. Outside, under a trellis, crawling with stars from jasmine and anise, I would find her sitting for hours. When my father was away she didn't eat. She would make bouquets, ornamenting her empty space, her violin never leaving her shoulder, bottles of Bordeaux, Massandra, and Montrachet she emptied.

My father had another life. It wasn't as though I didn't know this. She forced me to believe that he had troubles, ones that he needed to figure out in his own space. My mother fooled herself, she decided that I was naive.

There was an autumn morning when the world was turning orange and the winged things were taking flight. I woke up early knowing that my father had left in the middle of the night. I found a stack of boxes sitting on our kitchenette table. Gorgeous hat boxes, I know they held things that made women beautiful, perfumed scarves, mohair and muslin.

I played in the garden till noon that day. When my mother decided to wake she came to visit me. She walked towards me softly, her feet bare, her presence unexpected. Across from me she hugged herself, draped in a cream colored robe. Her skin was starchy and pale and she smelled of grapes and sickness. She explained to me that my father was gone. She told me that he had taken his life or so, that his troubles had taken him. She said that he suffered deep inside of his head. My mother stood across from me that day, her cheeks salty and smeared with blush, and covered me with her lie. She said that he faded into the light, this is what she said. I knew it was a lie; he decided to stay in that other world that he lived in, leaving my mother and her blueish eyes, colorless and faint. Leaving her to fill her boxes with shame.

For dVerse Poets, happy anniversary, on Open Link Night. Cheers!

Petals

"These days are like blank paper, slowly being drawn on."
-Sahaj Jahson

Down at the bottom of the ocean
I write them down
streaming loose, a spill of silver

With my wild eye
the colors begin to change
tethered and chained, unleash

Tearing off sweet petals,
licking love from warm places
inside the womb, full of words

As we write
our lives will change,
the earnest of our hearts

Liquid cream with
honeyed milk,
my mouth begins to water

In the middle of night
I wake in fever, biting these words,
petals pressed into paper

Burn our mouth
ban from speech
I live my life on wings

In the light of oeuvre, poetic or prose
we write them down
and make things right

I place a star on top of a tree
an island in the sun,
the sky begins to glow

* Sahaj is my eight year old and the quote is a reference to art and our summer. 
Written for dVerse Poets, Ars Poetica-Poems about Poetry

Weathered Wing

Empyrean and earthy,

along morning's earliest peak

The water, steadily, falling

The only way I would find her,

in trance, listening to an early bird calling

She lived her nights in a hallowed out tree,

feasting on bugs, feathers, and feet

Today, she offered me a different treat,

a handful of berries:

sugar pear, saskatoons, elder, globular in shape

They were sweet and smelled of September sun

I wanted to tell her how beautiful she had become,

but her skin had started falling off,

revealing brushed flesh and swollen vessels

I rubbed my fingers along her back,

her spine ached and curled underneath her gown,

as old as the decades that had long passed

She coughed and hissed,

spraying out a mirage of seeds and blood

My time with her was short now,

as Earth searched for its coldest hour,

beckoning frigide seasons filled with powder,

swallowing her breath,

stale and sour

And on the darkest hour,

when Anubis comes back to wash away all that is fertile,

the soles of her feet, I'd watch

sink into bearing soil

Her arms, reaching out

holding on, as the rest of her flesh,

ripe and bittersweet,

would silently fall

And Earth,

closing its mouth, once again,

on all that has lived

long enough

For the celebration over at dVerse Poets on Open Link Night. Congratulations on the year, glad I've found you guys! Cheers!

Moonshine and Rain

Inside of a bubble
the air is thin and clean

After the rain
I walk along the edge of the sea
under the globe which holds our light
no one found, but moth and mite
trapped in warm blood
I sit alone
a cup full of honey and spirits in my hand
I take a sip, to forget that I drink
I pull the moon down, close to my chest
white heat, warm as wool
My shadow takes a seat
We sit in sand and laughter, make merry,
before this spring night fades away
For the ones who have washed forward,
drowned to storm and stone,
I drink with the moon and my form
We make a promise,
sun showers and sweet dew-
the ones we break and burn
My shadow stands,
a molten mist,
scatters into the sea
The moon walks home
I wait for the next rain

Written for dverse Poets and Sunday Scribblings

Queen Anne

A pear is rich and ripe and smells of yellow
the flavor of babies breath
From loose strings, things will grow

We laugh at the root of blood

Queen Anne, sewn up in lace

She remembers feeding us plum, while

she slept with Sweet William

eating snowberries off of his tongue

We dance around a cornflower ring

spitting out lotus petals, unity in her writhe

She sits in the middle, a mouth stuffed with livid earth

We force her to listen to our screams

Those moonless nights, we walked on stolen toes

Her buffering mouth, no apology rose

She gave us her eyes to borrow for a day, once

Our pendant pupils in transition lens:

silk and fruit, boundless as the sea

our hearts, draping over the moon.

We hung Sweet William from licorice rows

He bleeds from the tip of his nose

We laugh at the root of majesty

Our silver Queen, the bud of our dreams

If I were to give you twilight by summer
would you catch the tears of winter for me?


Written for Three Word Wednesday: buffer, transition, unity