Wednesday Poems: Narcissus

Wednesday, like any day, is a great day for Poetry.

This week's poem is about Narcissus, who falls in love with his image in a pool of water and then drowns in the pool. Narcissus also refers to daffodils. I tried to combine the two.

Narcissus by Caravaggio. Wikimedia images.

Narcissus

I bend and unbend, flowing
on the green stem of breeze,
seeing my reflection
in  your silver.

All winter I waited inside of darkness
Earth polished me and held me back,
told time in shadow lengths and drifts,
told me secrets.

 I should have known better
than to ask your silent echo for answers
I should have known better
than to stoop too deeply
by your pool.

Wednesday Poems: The Sunday Visit

Wednesday, like all days, is a great day for poetry.




The Sunday Visit

I visit her on Sundays.
The alabaster walls are hushed
and the hush floats down
to the linoleum--
polished clean under the soles
of the nurses' soft white shoes

Her chair frets quietly
as I wheel her to the garden
where spring blooms verdant and new.

I give her a bouquet of forget-me-nots.
She has forgotten my name.
She presses the flowers to her breast
and sings them lullabies.

Wednesday Poems: The Weaver

Wednesday, like all days, is a great day for poetry

My mother was a weaver. After she died, I wrote this in her memory.

This Leesburg loom is similar to the one my mother owned

The Weaver

Before her thoughts began to unravel into a sea of yarn,
past and present warped together into a single fabric,
my mother would spend her Sundays
pushing a shuttle boat across a loom,
turning red and white thread into roses.
Her soft stubbed fingers would play over colors,
light and dark, and recount the world
into her own ordered brilliance--
a story woven in fabric

There is no way to tell this story but with hands,
the way they crafted a life,
and how the craft is passed
mother to daughter
like a thread through Aida cloth--
turning imagination into something that can be held
between finger and thumb,
something that can be smoothed
against your cheek.

Wednesday Poem: The Bridge of Sighs

Wednesday, like all days, is a good day for poetry

Today's poem was inspired by the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.

Photo by B. Welleschik. For more info, click on image

The bridge connects the interogation rooms at the Doge's palace with the prison. The view from the bridge's barred windows was the last view of Venice a prisoner would have. It was first called Bridge of Sighs by Lord Byron, who imagined the prisoners would take in the view of beautiful Venice and sigh before being led to a prison cell

The Bridge of Sighs

You crossed it with your heart,
held out in your open palm.
At the top of the arch,
you let your heart flutter
into the shallow water
that wept beneath you.
Your heart became a boat made of paper.
It floated away
passing magnificent palazzo gardens,
flower vendors with their hands covered in roses,
the tower of bells that peeled to the pigeons.

You will never know where your heart landed,
whether it was caught in fragrent lillies,
or by another pair of hands dipping in to meet a reflection.
Or perhaps the water ate slowly at your heart's edge
until, soggy with the water's wet hunger,
it sank below the gondolier's rhythmic paddle.

Wednesday Poem: Desert Rose

It's Wednesday again, time for some poetry. Why? Because Wednesday, like all days, is a great day to wax poetic


This poem was inspired, as the name suggests, by my first encounter with desert roses. Desert roses aren't flowers, they are crystal clusters of gypsum and sand. They form in arid conditions, often as the result of salt water evaporation

 

Sandroses photo by Sven Teschke. For more information on this image, please visit Wikimedia

Desert Rose

Emblem of scarce water, you are born
of evaporation and brittle ground,
the child of lack

Bloom of gypsum,
buds of sand,
your garden is corralled by mesas

Ball of string, will you unravel
when rain pours into the arroyo?