Season`s Greetings: a poem for the winter season.

Season`s Greetings by Susan E. Harris-Gamard

As the earthy night stretches deep and black

And the clangy sound of engines and brakes

Is silenced under the frozen muffle

Of crystalline randomness,

Billions of lost souls are deposited onto a wasteland,

Without warning

Or imprint.

They just fall.

Huddled together like angels evicted from paradise.

As I rise, my own body anew

In the diurnal sunrise.

I am mirrored on the outside

By presences

Themselves asleep

As I had been.

The prodigal winter raged and gained strength

Regardless

Of who was watching.

I walk out the door to find that the ground

That I knew yesterday

Was made anew, covered with tiny virgins

Purified and caressed by the night and moon`s full light.

A sole set of tracks has vanquished the smooth landscape

Intruder, caught by its own traces.

Like a detective I search for intent

Caution Do Not Cross

The Boundary for fear

Of contaminating the scene

That remains.

I walk forward to mindlessly tread
Onto the horizontal plane of the perfect glittering surface

With my own boot prints

(Held within a database somewhere

Black Sorels Size 8)

Charged with only negligence

And so I deposit my own little angel

Onto the large yellow vehicle

Directed towards his own enlightenment

At the small school

Nestled within the hill.

A Mother's Day Wish: A Poem by Me

"Poetry is a record of the life around us and in us, and you'll get a better idea from poetry what it was like to be alive in 2011 than you will from the New York Times." ~Garrison Keillor

If this is so, I only hope my own poetry can live up to the task.  This poem was written this week, May 2011:

 

 A Perfect 84

42 years of a life,

Lived well and full,

Is not enough to wrap,

My weary arms around the world.

42 more would do,

Let’s make it symmetrical.

42 more would do very well.

My social calendar,

Is much too full.

84 years you say?

You’d be lucky.

I know.

But, 84 years in the scope of things,

Is just a drop on the great agar plate

Of the world.

84 years is all I ask,

A perfect number seemingly.

Keats got only 25,

And I’m no Keats,

That’s what I see.

We’ll call him Gabe,

My angel

Alarmed me of what’s to come.

He tapped me on the shoulder ,

Changed my curfew to some,

Night I never dreamed of,

Then changed it once again so I’d learn.

Then I knew,

That I was strong enough.

I knew when I saw you in my room,

That night, of all nights,

Mr.Gabriel.

Thank you for coming so soon.

I only wish,

That you were less frightening,

With your perfectly trimmed beard.

And eyes of clay and sinfulness,

Here on hallowed ground, so rare.

We are less earthy than you think,

Bring your white robes, I don’t care.

But I forgive you, Gabriel,

Your message was loud and clear:

These hands have more,

Comfort to give.

This left hand more to write.

This right hand more peace to share,

With those I encounter each night.

This hair much more,

Than vanity,

A frank expression of who I am.

This brain to compute and rationalize,

My relation to earth as it stands.

These eyes,

They are a window,

To a soul,

Not clean, but bright.

These bulky arms,

Which I lament,

Have held my child so tight.

These ears to listen caringly,

To those whom need me most.

This mouth with which to kiss goodnight,

All those whom are not lost.

These teeth to chew

The chocolate, most delicious and so fine.

This nose to smell the springtime air,

As it wispily leaves the vine.

This neck,

To accept,

Kisses and caresses,

All the same.

These shoulders

To shoulder the gardening,

Creating life along the way.

These breasts create a line,

From me to my

Beloved and his stare.

My waist encompassed by those arms

Who really, truly care.

My hips contain my power,

Of life and femininity.

Those thighs that I wish smaller,

Have gotten me from sea to sea.

These old calves are

Not so bad,

But shaving them gets routine.

My feet, oh my woeful feet,

You can kiss them,

But not this week.

My heart,

I save the best for last,

It holds so many dear.

Although I may not express myself,

Hear me loud and clear.

84 years,

Almost a century,

Of life to give and share,

This body with the great wide world,

I’ll do it, if you dare.

Knowing that I love you all,

Sleep silently,

Knowing that I care,

And never for a minute dream

Of when you will not be here.

Leave that worry all to me,

I’ve seen it all before.

To me it’s just a path I’m on,

And I’ve just opened the great big door.

This is my one wish for you,

Life can be so unfair.

For I have people looking out for me,

Some white dove--down here, up there.

Oh No!  I’ve lost my shoes again,

Radiation is a bear.

A Re-Posting of Some Poems from October

I've been a little scared to write lately.  And you'll see why when I re-post these poems written at the end of October, before I had any clue I had cancer.  What it all means, I'm not sure, but this isn't the first time this has happened to me, both in my writing and in dreams that have turned out to be prophetic in someway.  This first poem is called "Tell Me".  Perhaps I was asking to be told about this cancer?  Well, if I was, my prayers were answered..

Tell me that I can stay,

A little longer.

A life formed out of bits of thread and spilled blood

Is just a moment, a flash.

My creative clutter the only proof that I breathe.

Flesh plundered, compromised, sight unseen,

By one bad seed waiting,

For that slim circumstance

To strike and grow in a moment,

Interrupting a long-awaited dream.

We never know until we know,

We are not a given, even if we are forgiven.

I’d love to speak to that cell,

Lone invader of my own universe,

Travel the rivers and canyons of this divide,

Confront him and my swept-up fear.

To understand what he’s after,

Stealing my breath in order to live,

And perish with me.

I'd love to debrief that cell,

Make him squirm,

Will he have one noble reason?

Will I even comprehend why,

He means to use my body as his own,

Home Sweet Home,

For a little while?

I’d love to speak to that cell,

To tell him that I will stay, 
And he will go,

It’s not up to him.

_________________________________________________

On Awareness: A Plea

Does tomorrow melt in your mouth,

Not in your hands,

Like Desire pulling you along by a taut, silken harness,

Only to nestle and caress you within the jaws of the famished world?

Do you tell your Prince to wake you later,

As you languishly linger within the folds

Of a sleep, unblemished by potion?

But, sooner than later, you will need those eyes open wide,

That breath strong and able,

Expanding and contracting for life.

Do you gaze across an open, fertile landscape,

Only to while away in longing,

For that noble Youth,

When all bitter Beauty has is these petals in her void?

All the while, the leaves rustle amongst us, calling out for Winter,

Awaiting to hear his step on the porch boards.

Do your dreams recall a listless longing,

Lying limp and open on the forest floor,

White flood rising from your cool gown,

A sad stream echoing your delirious sleep?

A cold wind blows, suddenly,

harsh and heavy upon your parched skin.

Shivering with eyes aflutter,

You think,

Perhaps, there is another way,

To conceive of this future,

Without falling through the cracks and chasms,

Of a life lived by another.

As you grasp the reins,

You navigate your way,

Slowly, ever so slowly,

Forward.

Despair by H.P Lovecraft

Now, is this a perfect Halloween poem, or what?
Suggested musical pairing: Spem in Allium by Thomas Tallis
Help, I'm Alive by Metric, Haunted When the Minutes Drag by Love and Rockets

Despair by H.P. Lovecraft

Despair O’er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro’ the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking;
Damn’d daemons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench’d my youth’s aspiring ember,
Liv’d there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Gold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn’d it all was dreaming —
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing —
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel’s whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.

Remembering Keats...

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

- John Keats, 19 September 1819

A Poem for Summer by Emily Dickinson

I just stumbled across this poem by Emily Dickinson. I thought it was perfect since summer has already begun! It is very beautiful too...

A something in a summer's Day

A something in a summer's Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer's noon—
A depth—an Azure—a perfume—
Transcending ecstasy.

And still within a summer's night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see—

Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle—shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me—

The wizard fingers never rest—
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed—

Still rears the East her amber Flag—
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red—

So looking on—the night—the morn
Conclude the wonder gay—
And I meet, coming thro' the dews
Another summer's Day!