Black-blown sky to blue– the music-seer asks if dreams are the ships we sail at night on purple-shadowed seas, and what are the songs the rocks sing?
He has known storms, and rain like honey, sweet with the scent of roses,
he has death-wandered, emerged to witness a sparkle-symphony above, now he whispers love-ballads and lullabies, star-breathed tunes of time-dazzlers, the rhythms of what is and what might be.
My poem from the Oracle, who, of course, knows the myths of many cultures. Readers sometimes wonder if the image or poem came first. In this case, it was a combination. The Oracle gave me words and phrases, black-blown and blue, if dreams, storms, honey, etc. I used “fiddler” in the my first draft, but as I was writing, the poem seemed to be about Orpheus, so I changed it to music-seer.
“If you could tag each of the atoms in your body and follow them backward in time, through the air that you breathed during your life, through the food that you ate, back through the geological history of the Earth, through the ancient seas and soil, back to the formation of the Earth out of the solar nebular cloud, and then out into interstellar space, you could trace each of your atoms, those exact atoms, to particular massive stars in the past of our galaxy. At the end of their lifetimes, those stars exploded and spewed out their newly forged atoms into space, later to condense into planets and oceans and plants and your body at this moment.” –from Alan Lightman, The Transcendent Brain, quoted in The Marginalian
Transcendent
Perhaps I make tenuous connections, hear the light-sound waves of an acoustic moon, a push-pull of tide creation and slowing rotation.
Nothing is constant, one day Earth and Moon will part, lovers who have drifted too beyond salvation, but for now, we revolve and spin, see only her bright face, never her dark side,
and perhaps that is why she sings, adding her voice to the universe. One voice in an infinite, ever-changing choir of nebulous nebulae and exploding stars that have formed us, and to which we return—
but this is a point, maybe the point in this dashing, flawed, incredible world where our own star rises and sets, and robins trill– where I feel both wonder and tranquility in spring’s transcendent glow, reflected a thousand times, light finding a way through space and generations, sky to river and back again.
Today is the first day of spring. Winter has been trying to hang on the last few days with cold winds, despite the sunshine. The temperature was only 29 F when I woke up this morning, but we will warm up to the 50s and have some days of 60+ this week. The days I walked outside, I saw incredible light. Meanwhile the former president is trying to stir up his supporters (and collect money for his legal bills) and the GOP continues to pass or try to pass laws that will harm women and promote ignorance. Thank goodness for daffodils.
Daffodils
Last Tuesday was Pi Day. I don’t bake pies very often, but this apple crumb pie was delicious.
We had sci-fi Saturday with our homemade pizza (the heart-shaped one just came out that way), our Star Trek Enterprise pizza cutter, and an episode of the new Picard and old Next Generation. And more lentil soup as the cold winds howled.
La Naissance de Vénus ( The Birth of Venus ), pastel painting by Odilon Redon ( c. 1912 )
March Aubade
Light like music the sky sings– now the fiddler recalls the pink beneath the crows-wings-clouds, and you watch the water gleam
far from the madding crowd, feathers fluff, waves ripple, nature’s extravagant beauty in each tiny thing a thousand times, waking,
asking if, but you watch the moon smile and settle onto the river like a ship– now the shadowed rocks turn rosy, a key change, the morning song rising.
My message from the Oracle. This one came right away.
My thanks to Editor Louise Mather and Guest Readers: Letitia Jiju & Matthew M.C. Smith. My poem is paired with a stunning photograph by Sylvia Santiago. I am fascinated by cave paintings and those who painted them.
Merril D. Smith – Horses
“The day we saw the horses,
like apparitions, pale against the rocks,
time froze. . .”
You can read the rest of the poem, here. But do please check out the rest of the issue, too!
“Straight up through the sky above this road right now, The galaxies of the Cygnus A cluster Are colliding with each other in a massive swarm Of interpenetrating and exploding catastrophes.”
1. Hoaxes dropped like scat— watch where you walk— rabid creatures lurk waiting to infect the gullible. They wear chips on their shoulders, bray like donkeys, wait to crush all non-believers.
2. Toothsome treats savor them, as if there will be no more fruit brought from away, cooked and sweetened, no essence of grapes harvested and fermented. Then and now intersect. For a moment, it’s everything.
3. Dirt is what a worm knows— the feel, the taste, the way wet and dry particles cling differently–soil, mud, earth—it’s the world. The robin is a giant who knows sky, trees, ground, catches the worm, swallows it.
4. Geese squabble like Jets and Sharks Turkeys look surprised to cross the road Is it truly spring because I heard a mockingbird sing? Crows know the answers to the questions we never ask.
5. Here is magic, river-caught sparkle, blue-sky where branches reach up to catch bird-beats and wing-brushes—here, where feathered clouds sweep away haze, and you and perfect daffodils raises your faces to the light.
I used some of Kerfe’s random words for this cadralor.I should mention, that hopefully if you click on the photos in this post, you’ll see captions. Spring is definitely on the way, despite this past week’s cooler temperatures. I really did hear a mockingbird putting on a concert a few days ago. I’ve seen some around, but this was the first medley-of-my-greatest-hits concert I’ve heard since last summer. Oh—just now—birds singing pre-dawn, even as the heat clicking on.
We’re getting rain today, and possible snow tomorrow, though I think that will probably be north or west of us.
We walked at Tall Pines yesterday.
Merril’s Movie/Book Club
We watched the new Luther movie, but really you shouldn’t. (You’re welcome.) So many good actors wasted in a movie that’s mediocre at best. Some movies you like more when you think about them later, not this one.
We also watched Women Talking, which both of us thought was excellent. But you know, it was women talking, so if you only watch action films, it’s not for you. A brilliant ensemble cast with deft direction by Sarah Polley. Although the story is loosely based on events that occurred in an extremist Mennonite colony in Bolivia, in the movie, the place and religion are never named. This gives it a timeless feel—these could be women almost anywhere in any time. The violence is never shown, only some blood, a black eye, and a pregnancy. Women Talking was free on Amazon Prime this past weekend.
I didn’t watch the Oscars, but I was pleased that Everything Everywhere All at Once won best picture, and Michelle Yeoh, best actress. I will watch this one again—and it is sort of an action film, but so much more.
Books: I finished the most recent Louise Penny book, A World of Curiosities. I haven’t read all her books, but this one was on the shelf at the library, so I picked it up. The librarian told me that she didn’t care for this one in the series, which she thought was all over the place. The beginning does jump back in forth in time, but that doesn’t bother me. Penny uses a real-life event that took place in Canada, and one that she covered as a young journalist to argue for anti-gun measures and discuss systemic misogyny. The mistaken identity plot device seems a bit thin here. It’s probably not her best, but I still enjoyed it. It’s the humanity of Gamache and his friends that comes through to me once again.
One last thing. I’m participating in a launch of Our Own Coordinates this Friday (3 PM my time). I’ll be reading my poem, “Sylvia.” You can get a free ticket here.
If I need you, will you come, with love-put light to drive away the smell of man-sweat and boy-blood?
Here, the storms whip and the shadows moan black beneath the blue, but I ask for—not so much— roses under a peach sun, the lifeline of sea, its sparkle, and the whisper of wind in my hair, telling me you are coming home.
My poem from the Oracle. I thought at first she wanted me to write about Penelope, but she wanted the message to include women everywhere throughout time.
Detail of Four Seasons Mosaic by Marc Chagall in Chicago
The Songs: Sun, Moon, Earth
1. She rises for others, but never as for us– a long-bowed cello note sustained as she wakes, red-breasted, timpani beat the rhythm of the day, joined by bird-flutes and wind-harps while she dresses in gold, she spins light in contrapuntal streams with shadow rhythm. Our own star, crowned giver of life and death.
2.
The moon sings with silvery voice, her soft hums become operatic arias. Though on her arid surface, men stood, and watched the Earth rise. Still, but not silent, no mere satellite, she demands the spotlight shine on her. Owl-hoots, wolf-howls, rustles of restless night creatures are percussion to her melody. But in the morning, she smiles as three crows call, the trees wave, and the birds sing her a lullaby.
3.
And here- we rotate, revolve, reflect in repeated reverberations— Earth has its own music, sea-sighs and deep-belly rumbles, bird-tweets and dog barks, baby-giggles, and lovers’ moans. Bangs and bombs, birth cries and death-rattles. But listen as a rooftop fiddler plays all the color, all the light– the songs of earth, moon, sun, and stars.
For dVerse. Laura asked us to write poems with three separate stanzas using one of her word choices. Sun, Moon, Earth was the only one that really appealed to me.
early in February—this year the purple crocuses yawned and showed us golden teeth, this year, the daffodils joined them in unexpected yellow against the bluest sky, and ignored Winter’s frost-breath. A last gasp? Uncertain, we watch the feathered-clouds fly this year, any year.
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 