A poem for November

Pumpkins

Curling vines pearl the earth;

the ancient tribe convenes

in twirly riot

of orange rotundity.

Their solar girth belies

their fragile origins--

light-gilded bees and

gossamer blossoms.

Waxed mirthsome now, they flirt

with anthropology,

bending the narrow rows

of nomenclature.

And He who broods fireballs

to prophesy frost

now calls them from fields

for our festival need--

So sing vine to village!

Come promenade porches, 

come reel the tired hillsides

and strathspey the paths--

Then, carapaces of sunset,

go jig round the nutmeg

and gingerly bow

to piecrust.

copyright 2009 Lynn Bruce

                                   (photos courtesy of Norcal Blogs and Earthbound Farms)

random thoughts of gratitude

q. shenaynay

I'm thankful for thumbs, Henry Ford's imagination, thunder, those Sri Lankan kurundu trees that grow cinnamon bark, arms around me.

old minor hymns, reassurance, friends who stay, privacy in the shower.

the printing press, healing, Benjamin Franklin's kite, the book of Isaiah, tea leaves, seasons.

having a real, true home in the church.

the miracle of water that can boil, freeze, fill human cells, ripple, trickle and crash, steam, make creation bloom, obey God's voice, make things clean, form vapor, steam and snowflakes, make earth inhabitable, and wave for the moon.

never feeling unloved.

the eternal kinship of fellow believers.

the 8 note scale, Alexander Graham Bell, vocal chords, the postal service, stars on the water, gasping at the sky.

the sound of Sunday in my heart.

kissing, soap, charity, babies, Philippians, moments of joy, the sensation of creative flow.

kinfolk, passion, the gospel, friends who make time for real conversation.

photographs, wood, David the shepherd boy, truckers, toothbrushes, brothers.

color.

expressed appreciation.

stone fruits, giggling children, ticklishness, cotton plants, satisfaction.

fire, eyelids, goosedown, letters in the mail, sleep, sheep's wool, oceans.

that he fell in love with me.

the Spirit testifying to my spirit.

pillows, blankets, prayer, feeling at home, the resurrection, fruit-bearing vines, pasta.

the shimmering buzz of live music. most especially when created by people I love.

vision, poems, forgiveness, knees, garlic, Handel.

stringed instruments, cookies, candles, the people God sends to my table.

my children. oh my, yes.

my mother laughing, modest girls and boys who respect them.

that God thought flowers were necessary.

that God thought of any of it, and all of it. and that He thinks of me.

three poems and a pop quiz

q. shenaynay

Wow. What hip and happenin' speed poets you all turned out to be! So what did I tell you... whipping out a pedal-to-the-metal poem like that was pretty fun, now wasn't it? Might just have to do it again this week. Like at a red light or something. Hoo boy. Why not?

You people are cool - did we ever tell you that?

We got the five poems we asked for and some to spare, so here are the first three we whipped out, as promised. And because the fun just never ends here at the Beehive, you get to guess who wrote what! (If you've read any of the poems we've posted here before, this should not be excessively puzzling.)


The correct order of authorship of the following three poems is:
a. Fa, Beatrice, QS
b. QS, Fa, Beatrice
c. Fa, QS, Beatrice
d. Beatrice, QS, Fa
e. Wislawa Szymborska, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Joni Mitchell


Dallas to Graham

Pastures roll
and I unfold
drinking space
breathing green
upon green

All my missing clouds are here
every race and creed of them --
They say
they fled the metal
piercing their space
in that place I am leaving behind,
fled the counterfeit canopy
that daily dims their aerie carnival
and mine --
exiled, to explode here
in this rapture of rumbling dance
and white breath.

Air, my love! they cry to me
and gasping,
I sing alto

Dance, my love! they sing,
and I try
but my bones cry --

I need water
deep rocking water
water wide and full of fleeing clouds
at play;
water
to slip and laugh and sing
to my brittle bones
soon
before they return to dust.


The Paper Beckons

Sloshing around in big rubber boots
clumsy lumberjack hands--
you fell stands of words
and ride them down the swift river
swift cold river
churning with monsters-- see the teeth
snap around your ankles? that one
dines on split infinitives, this one
prefers run-on sentences,
but they're all hungry.
Your lumberjack boots fill with water
your calloused lumberjack hands grip
the slipping words for dear life
rushing whirling
tumble rolling
colliding jamming uncontrollable
headstrong
words.


Hide Behind the Moon

Little girl can’t handle a knife
Little boy shouldn’t see too many guns
But turn on the news
Then turn it right off
Cover your eyes
Cause all you’re gonna see
Is a bunch of little boys
Who can’t handle their power

We’ve got to separate,
Call a time out
Go hide behind the moon

Call out the bands
All the lonely altos
They’ve all got to comprehend
The mess we’re all in

The blood of the fugitives
Covers our lies
Covers our footprints in shame

I’m not saying we’re stardust
I’m not saying we’re golden
But we’ve got to get back
Get back what we were
before we saw

The Lines, Invisible

Q. Shenaynay

Our family has a history of making up stories in tandem -- we did this a lot when the girls were small, particularly in situations that involved lots of waiting. One of us would start the story and then we would each take a turn adding the next bit. It was super for honing listening skills, not to mention a mighty impressive exercise in creativity. Besides that, it was usually ripping silly fun.

Later, when we found ourselves sitting through hours and hours of Suzuki recitals (I'm talking 4 hour long, mind-numbing shindigs), we began writing stories in tandem in a notebook that we would pass down the row. Now these were just beyond bizarre. Maybe I will post one sometime.

But now Fa and I have taken it into the techno realm: we have come into a little habit of writing tandem poetry using Instant Messenger. I send her a line, with no comment about what it might mean, and she writes the next line or two, and so on. Okay, maybe we're a little odd, but this is how we get our kicks. Besides, we like odd.

Here's one:


The Lines

I face the lines and turn;
ducks rise before my face.
I covet their ascent, their fleeing
grey souls rise to the yellow void.
In their boundlessness I feel my bounds,
grey bounds, like all that binds.
Yellow is free, yellow is flight --
but mired I am, in clay and weeds,
all brown and binding.
Mired I am here
gazing up at gold.


Here's another, from a couple of months ago:


Invisible

Invisibility, said he
and his eyes went opaque
like shades of a closing store;
and musing on crystal balls
he smirks at finding
a glass doorknob in his hand
and feels the heavy tumble
of the lock.

My kingdom for the key, said she,
remembering other doors
left swinging in the wind;
she had the skeleton for those --
but the seventh rib is missing,
which this door requires.

Invisibility, says he
and his eyes go opaque.
He wraps his thoughts in a blanket
and wonders that he is alone.


This is a surprisingly serendipitous thing to do -- waiting for the next line to come back to you is sort of like a little dose of that big thrill of getting a letter in the mail. And since you only have to come up with one line at a time, it's all a matter of light-hearted intrigue with no big creative pressure.

We might just have to take this show on the road, so to speak. So if you ever get an email or and IM message from one of us with one strange line of something that might be poetry, you shall know how to proceed. We'll be waiting!

(I'm coming after you next, Shieldmaiden!)

will flop and voice winter in rain music

Q. Shenaynay


Late Friday night, when it finally rained so hard that the skylight once again sounded like some sort of cosmic percussion instrument, we decided to seize the moment in case the drought returned as soon as the storm passed.

We turned off all the lights and fired up the fireplace and the stereo and lit all the candles. Didn't talk much. We just listened to all of it. Fa and I silently messed around with all the little word strips in the magnetic poetry tray on the coffee table, marvelling over how wowzy one can get whilst composing verses under the influence of some truly great jazz singers, candlelight, and the rumble of thunder beside a sizzling fire. For example, this hot little number:

we could
be in love
under every full moon
stagger with me
through this brilliant dance
dizzy I sing
to myself

It started raining even harder. The Shieldmaiden and Spuddy drifted in and forgot to leave. We put on some Puccini arias, nabbed our blankies, and chatted quietly off and on until the candles extinguished themselves. Fa and Spuddy curled up together and drifted off to La Boheme, never to return. It was sublime.

And so this one I can only blame on myself and Madame Butterfly:

Oh give thou me
a popsicle
and perchance
I shall give thee
a delicious green kiss

Quite appropriate for March, the month of St. Patrick's Day, no? (Say, I may have invented a new way to accomplish the wearin' o' the green!)

oh, ps. The title of this post? That was Spuddy's magnetic poem. He was definitely flopped on the sofa. I rather like it.

Stars on the Water

~a waltz~

In the dark
he’s bedazzled by
stars on the water
never thinking the night
will pass by

And stooping
to gaze long at
stars on the water
he falls in, but feels
oddly dry.

He’d dreamed
it was warmer –
those stars and this water –
but he treads there and
doesn’t ask why.

(To a man
in the dark
a mirage on the water
is a doable dose
of the sky.)

Heaven’s sun
shames phantom
stars from the waters
while kindling veiled glories
on high

For the night
when, mourning lost
stars on the water,
he’ll look up and gasp
at the sky.

By the Rivers of Babylon

The words I will not speak
take up arms against me;
I dodge and parry,
feign a forgetting.

(Yea, I wept when I remembered)

But strangled they rumble,
rebuke my mute heresy:
the erstwhile poet
gone stoic as stone.

(They carry me away captive)

Outwit the impulse!
Offer no words to ignite
this wretched pyre!
Grit. Clench. Count... there.

(They required from me a song)

Oh, but mark their cunning:
the stifled devils
are packed inside
every sharp pencil I see.

(They waste me, require of me mirth)

Heartburn, hear me:
you will have no words
no words
no.

(Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth)

Meanwhile
I dare not
open
any drawers.

(Let my right hand forget)

Please, Lord
take the sharpener away,
but leave the erasers
just in case.

Must I hang my harp in the willow?


written by Lynn
while singing Psalm 137
12/05

Braided

These mornings of her ribbons
and my origami fingers
weaving fairy wonders
of God's own silk

mimic so the braid in hand:
they accrue yet dwindle down – such
a cruel equation,
except for this:

the lush distraction of its
golden geometry – behold
the heirloomed loveliness
of three-in-one.

over, through, gather, breathe

The matriarchal trademark
of daughter-whim decreed – today:
“French, please – high but loose” –
I make it so.

pull, smoothe, gather, breathe

Wonder of my womb, her head --
silk and velvet set with sapphires --
waltzes in ancient steps;
I gently lead.

push, stroke, love, breathe

Entwined, entranced, we slip beneath
quotidian thought, where rustles
afresh our natal waltz--
God weaving her.

Silence, hush! – a sacred flash
now throbs the cord we scarcely knew,
then braided between us
by holy hand.

by Lynn Bruce