By the Stars
No map exists for the course
that brought me to you. Yet,
with the stars as my guide,
there was but one path.
Once a heart knows the way,
it cannot be denied.
Mine would not stop
until it found its way to you.
This is my response to Quadrille #155 – Mapping out our poems, the prompt from De Jackson at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word map in a Quadrille – a 44-word poem (excluding title), with no required meter or rhyme.
Image source: freeimages.com
One Brief Look
Comfort and ease are found
within the light of a full moon.
The stars that grace the night sky
hold a brilliance without equal.
One brief look into your eyes,
and all else is meaningless.
This is my response to Ronovan Writes Sijo Challenge #55: Distraction.
Shared with Day Four at napowrimo.net. (off prompt)
Image source: Astronomy Picture of the Day
~ The Cat’s Eye Nebula in Optical and X-ray ~
NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive; Chandra X-ray Obs.;
Processing & Copyright: Rudy Pohl
Sijo (a Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka)
~ three lines of 14-16 syllables each
~ a total of 44-46 syllables
~ a pause near the middle of each line
~ first half of the line contains six to nine syllables
~ the second half should contain no fewer than five
Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure.
Modern Sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.
Read more here: Wikipedia
As Above
So below. Within a shared pulse
star fields merge to engulf
the depth of myriad layers
always there, never concealed.
Light dances as stars celebrate
a quickening pulse, an embrace.
Image source: Astronomy Picture of the Day ~ © Mehmet Hakan Özsaraç
The Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 274
This is my response to Ronovan Writes Sijo Challenge #45: Embrace.
Sijo (a Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka)
~ three lines of 14-16 syllables each
~ a total of 44-46 syllables
~ a pause near the middle of each line
~ first half of the line contains six to nine syllables
~ the second half should contain no fewer than five
Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure.
Modern Sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.
Read more here: Wikipedia
Gray Funk
Alone, I sit cross-legged on the shore of this small lake watching the swans that paddle a slight distance away. On any other day they might cast a brilliant white reflection on a pool of blue, but in the gloomy atmosphere of an overcast day they seem little more than gray shadows on a darkened field. Two of them seem to patrol, as if on guard, as they move in a wide circle around the others. Those gathered in the center feed on the grass that grows from the bottom as they upend themselves, as if to show just what they think about what is going on in this wretched world.
Don’t be concerned for the state I’m in. I know that the clouds will pass. So, too, will this funk that has taken hold of me. In the tender gray, I swim undisturbed.
This is my response to dVerse Prosery – On this Day: Happy December 5 Birthday Poets, the prompt from Lisa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, where the challenge is to write a prosery, flash fiction or creative nonfiction, with a 144-word limit (here, exactly 144 words). Included in the bit of prose is to be a complete line from a poem. For this prompt, the line is from Sullivan County, by Celia Dropkin: “in the tender gray, I swim undisturbed”
A Scattering of Poems
In the street of the sky, night walks, scattering poems. In the streets below, poets follow, gathering inspiration in hopes of doing justice to that which cannot be equaled. They speak of a distant darkness filled with a light that seems just out of reach, one that appears as a mist yet offers sparkling clarity. Each might write about the vast expanse that seems to wrap around her, or about the countless points of surrounding light, of which he is one.
Those who read, who listen, will understand and recognize the beauty that can bring such inspiration. They will join the poets, become poets, themselves. The streets will be filled with those who walk the night. Their numbers will be such that they stretch halfway around the globe, and night will see the reward that the people have reaped from its scattering of poems.
This is my response to Prosery: Tulips & Chimneys, the prompt from Linda Lee Lyberg at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, where the challenge is to write a prosery, flash fiction or creative nonfiction, with a 144-word limit (here, exactly 144 words). Included in the bit of prose is to be a complete line from a poem. For this prompt, the line is from Tulips & Chimneys, by E. E. Cummings – the last line of IX Impressions: “in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems”
The image is a crop of a larger image from Astronomy Picture of the Day
“Two Comets in Southern Skies” – Copyright: Jose J. Chambo (Cometografia)
Embers to Stars
On a still night with the light of flames
rising from a bank of embers
beneath slowly settling logs,
we gaze into the sky,
wordless communion
of awed silence.
Skies ablaze
kindle
awe.
I have revised yesterday’s poem as a nonet in response to Day 9 at napowrimo.net, in which we’re asked to write a nonet ~ a poem of nine lines and a syllable count of 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, with rhyme optional.
My first nonet was written in 2015. Go to this link to read my collection.
Image source: wallpaperaccess.com
Instillation
(TANSTAAFL)
Blue collar, with roots deeper than any walnut or oak.
I remember those black walnuts from Uncle Bill’s farm.
Shells as hard as the hammer to break them.
And bitter, but hard work can be that way. Even if
a vacation on his dairy farm was more work than play,
it still made great memories.
He wasn’t a man to shy away from work.
Neither was his brother, whose lessons carried me through life.
Even before I worked beside him on a loading dock,
there was work in the yard, digging a trench for a foundation.
Pulling the transmission out of one of my first cars and replacing it.
Building a barn when he finally bought his own piece of land.
The years I put in on the dock after he retired.
The many years after that driving a truck, making deliveries.
The lesson that got me through all of that was simple.
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
This poem is my response to Day 6 of napowrimo.net, which asks us to use a quote from a favorite book as inspiration and as the title for a poem, and then to change the title of the poem. The term TANSTAAFL (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”) was a theme in “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,” by Robert Heinlein, (1966). The complete phrase was already in use by the early 1940s.
~ Day 6 ~
The Sweetest Wine
Together, our horizon knows no bounds.
The nearest rose and the most distant star
could not be closer to this truth.
Yet the scent of a rose,
the beauty in a star, cannot compare.
One kiss from you, and I know the sweetest wine.
This poem (off-prompt for Day 5 of napowrimo.net) is my response to Quadrille #125 – In Praise of the Grape, the prompt from Linda Lee Lyberg at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word wine in a 44-word poem, with no required meter or rhyme.
~ Day 5 ~
Images
Wikimedia Commons – Rosette Nebula surrounding star cluster NGC2244
Astronomy Picture of the Day – “cluster galaxies and cluster dark matter, analogous to the many points of light one would see while looking through a wine glass at a street light”
Just as Bright
Who could know the blanket of stars
wrapt round us on our first night together,
so tight they shone in your eyes and mine
as we strolled through Millennium Park,
would bind us, still, these many years later?
Shine they do, just as bright.
This is my response to Quadrille #113: Blanket Us,
the prompt from Merril at dVerse Poets Pub,
which is to use a form of the word blanket in a 44-word poem,
with no required meter or rhyme.
Image: Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois
photo taken 02 September 2012
As the Stars Would Have It
The sky has been ours
from the moment we met
Whispered words of light
in vision and dreams
Blue nebulae in the dark of night
Embrace of sun and moon
I in your orbit, you in mine,
just as the stars would have it
This is my response to Quadrille #112: The Sky’s the Limit,
the prompt from De Jackson at dVerse Poets Pub,
which is to use a form of the word sky in a 44-word poem,
with no required meter or rhyme.
Image: the banner from our wedding,
held on the lawn of the lighthouse at Presque Isle, Erie, Pennsylvania
rivrvlogr 