Camille Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre at Night
Connected Dots
I’m bleary-eyed from the long flight. On the sidewalk in front of me, a man drops a nickel, a shiny silver island in the pool of light from the streetlamp above. I gaze up, and it seems the moon is no larger than that nickel, an early moon is just a piece of change. In the softening sky, the world appears as an Impressionist painting.
I know the war, my life is merely a speck in time. A dot on a Pointillism canvas But it is my dot, my universe. It matters. Life is all about patterns and connections in a larger picture. I hear my father’s voice in my head saying, “You have a good mind. Use it!”
Wait–that face across the street. Paul? As I run, my heel catches on the uneven pavement. I fall, and he’s gone. Again.
The next installment of my flash fiction story. I’m hosting prosery on dVerse today. The prompt line is:
“Today the fields are rich in grass, And buttercups in thousands grow; I’ll show the world where I have been– With gold-dust seen on either shoe.” –William Henry Davies, “All in June”
1. Spring casts a spell of color the river is a blue scarf, knotted round the green, a bell curve, ringing magic in its currents.
2. Bird choir, sunrise, moonset a perfect syzygy of harmonious dazzle you admire the steadfast oak, awed by nature, you cleave to facts. Ignore the turkeys.
3. Watch the glimmer of light on crow wing, on river— flinging truth in polychromatic splendor, embrace it.
4. Sunbeams captured in a glass where grapes have been reborn generation and regeneration, we sip stardust.
5. Chocolate chips and cinnamon, the taste of friendship– a connection from long ago, still there renewed.
We had some days with warnings about air quality because of the wildfires. But the air cleared over the weekend. We got a little bit of rain this week, but we need more.
We saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia. That gave me “syzygy.” We had seen the show many years ago; it seems a bit dated now, but it was enjoyable. A different show had been scheduled in the series, but there was some sort of conflict so Spelling Bee replaced it. All of the actors were engaging and sang well. As usual, we took a walk before the performance.
A friend who I haven’t talked to in decades found me, and we talked for almost three hours on the phone yesterday! It was wonderful! I used to bring her my Mandelbrot cookies.
Owling— I collect silvered dreams in moon-song, the night mares prance and gallop, corralled within feathered streams.
Listen, for wing-swept hush, the gathering of time above the trees, within your mind, respite.
A late response for Sarah’s dVerse prompt asking us to verb animal names, and Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt asking us to write a syllabic poem based on our spirit animal. I suspect I’d end up with a different animal each time. I tried the test in her post one day and got the turtle, and then I tried it again and got an owl. I had to use Kerfe’s beautiful Owl Moon painting again. This is a tanka followed by a cinquain. Shared with Open Link Night.
“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?” ― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
“To be a Flower, is profound Responsibility —” –Emily Dickinson, “Bloom”
Secrets left beside rocks in sharp-toothed winter and between summer’s lazy cat blooms
death the void, a life erased a vanished glow
cosmic dust in our veins, our carbon footprints, traces of supernovas— we carry the castoffs of stars—winged things
that whipped through winds, rushed through rivers into sea and air—captured there—
reborn again.
We’re not remembered, we can’t recall the distant ancestors that began us and connected all
like bees to flowers, a profound responsibility–
we hold the infinite within, the ghostly gleam of ancient splendor, the radiance of beginning.
Today is Memorial Day, the day we commemorate American soldiers who have died (different from Veteran’s Day in November). I abhor war, and yet I’m thankful for all who fought during WWII to defeat fascists and authoritarian governments, and support those who fight against them today. It makes me furious that there are people who are fine with such horrible ideas, but who wave flags about and call themselves patriots. And don’t get me started on the people who wave US flags and Confederate or flags with Nazi symbols. We literally fought wars against both.
I read a novel recently that I really liked, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, about a woman who makes a bargain with a dark god of night, that allows her to live on for centuries, but no one remembers her. I had put the quotation above, and then I read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American post today, where she wrote of a soldier who died in WWII:
“but I am haunted by the holes those deaths rip forever in the social fabric: the discoveries not made, the problems not solved, the marriages not celebrated, the babies not born.”
It made me think about how even when we’re forgotten, traces of us remain.
I also recently read a NY Times article about how scientists can collect DNA from the environment and what ethical questions have to now be resolved.
And speaking of ethical questions, we streamed a movie, The Artifice Girl, which is all about that. An AI “girl” is created to catch child predators, but the movie is really about if or when she should be considered a person. Should she be asked for her consent to do what she does? The movie is structured like a play, and I think it would be an excellent stage play. It is classified as sci-fi, but it is movie of talking, not action. (You know, a Merril movie. 😉)
We also watched the first season of Astrid, a French mystery series that we enjoyed quite a bit. (We’re watching it on PBS Passport.) We’ll start the second season later in the week. It’s called Astrid et Raphaëlle in France. Raphaëlle is a police office, and Astrid is a criminal archivist who is autistic. They begin to work together and eventually become friends.
Tonight, we plan to watch the final episode of Mrs. Maizel—Memorial Maizel.
I ask the stars to grant me gifts, to make time slide, to make it shift— as grass turns green, and then it fades, an imprint left within mind’s shade
holds fast. Now leaves in fall’s winds drift— I ask the stars to grant me gifts of poetry and light so blue– on riverbank, pink blossoms strewn,
a carpet for the squirrels and deer to scatter as they scamper here. I ask the stars to grant me gifts, to bind me when strong forces rift
the shore and sea, cause winds to howl and whip the clouds to make them scowl— then I’ll exist when shadows lift– I ask the stars—this–grant me gifts.
A quatrain for dVerse. Rhyme is not required. I used a few words from Oracle I and from Kerfe’s Oracle 2 random words. Maybe this poem is connected to my poem yesterday about the Oracle.
Oh, call the wind from ocean’s face, and let return the sun. What comes from this? You see ahead—to tease with riddles till we’re spent, confound, confuse, and yet, what is to be? Long life, some grace, please tell my fate tonight– Embrace the sight, these rays of dawn’s first light.
For Tanka Tuesday, Colleen asked us to write an acrostic poem using her choice of words and with lines of 8, 9, or 10 syllables. I chose Oracle (of course). I decided to write mine in the style of a sort of mini- Shakespearean sonnet: 10 syllables, an attempt at iambic pentameter, and rhyme scheme of ABABCC.
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 